As anyone ever use Herters .270 130 gr Semi-pointed bullets? Have 5 boxes on hand.

Yes

Good.

Were they the Wasp-Waist Sonic semi-pointed or just semi-pointed?

I've never used them, I just answered the question you asked, and I know SOMEONE has used them.

Yeah,my GrandDad used them,but he's been dead for 22 years.

So has most of Herters.

Really?!

I have some 150 gr. SP .308's and they shoot good.

I remember seeing "wasp shaped" bullets in their catalog MANY years ago, never tried any. Evidently that idea went away.

DF

elkhunternm-

I checked an old Herter's catalog for your bullets. They appear to be catalog no. SS1A17. Assuming your bullets are packed 100 to the box, the retail price of your bullets is about $14.80 in 1971 dollars. (The Herter's price for 500 Sierra .270 130-grain bullets was $26.85.)

Regretfully, these seem to be merely "World Famous" bullets, and not "Model Perfect" or some equivalent purple descriptor. However, they are perfectly shaped and balanced. I could not find a report that these bullets (or any other Herter bullets) were used by Jacques Herter on five continents under the most severe and demanding conditions. However, you can take comfort in knowing they were manufactured following a hokum-less policy.

Catalog copy is below.

--Bob
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Thanks DF & BullShooter. Yes,100 to the box.

Have the Wasp-Waist in .30 cal also. There are some bullets missing from the .270 WW,just don't remember my GrandDad ever mentioning their use on deer.

Yep, Herter stuff was alway the "best in the world". As a teen gun nut, I had no doubt about that...

DF

Gonna post pics of the bullets and boxes in a few.

CORRECTION,DO NOT HAVE THE .30 CAL WASP-WAIST BULLETS!!

The .270 130 gr semi-pointed and Wasp-Waist Sonic bullets.

I had a very early 338 Win and ammo was hard to come by.....most of the ammo available was 200gr Power Point and I had a hell of a time killing critters with it.....had a real run-in with a grizzly requiring 5 shots at close range. Ordered up some 265 gr RNs from Herters and started putting moose on the ground. They held together long enough to penetrate into vitals......traded off the rifle for 375 H&H as silvertips were available and considered reliable.

I have shot some of their bullets in 22 and 243.
They work as well as others do.
My 6mm are flatbase and shoot,they are hard on coyotes.

Thanks VernAK.

If they shoot well in my .270 I will use them this year for deer.

My GrandDad would've turned 100 on June 15 (if he was alive) and it would be neat to get a deer with his Herters bullets.

I wondered as a youngster how they formed those wasp-waist bullets and if they were accurate. I had to stick with basics due to finances, never tried any.

Anyone ever shoot them?

DF

DF,give me some time and I'll try'em out.

Jacques Herter was a fictional character. Herter himself
lived in a high rise in Chicago not in the woods.

Amazing.

Didn't know that.

He sure had an imagination...

DF

Now, you need to stay focused, one project at a time...

DF

Too bad you don't have any of their "Banana Peel" bullets. They were the Best of the Best in the World!

One little-known fact is that Herter's bullets all had such high ballistic coefficients they actually gained velocity while in the air. But being a naturally modest guy, George Leonard Herter didn't want to brag too much, so stuck to the basics.

I have a book by Jaques Lee Herter on how to be a proper guide.

It is frickin' hilarious!


Jaques was not so modest!

LOL. Even when I was a little kid and reading the catalogs, I wondered how everything with Herter's name on it was the absolute world's best. BTW, who made the bullets for them?

John,

The Herter catalog made for very entertaining bathroom reading and I always looked forward to it.

They don't make them like that any more.

I'm surprised that GLH did not find a cure for cancer, a car engine that ran on water, a rifle bullet that went around corners and a fishing lure that made fish jump out of the water and into the boat.

He is missed.

Steve

Yes, I do have very few 30cal wasp waisted bullets, Yes, I have shot some. Not really accurate in my rifle.
And no, I'm not 100 yrs. old.

Yep, Herter had the same effect on me as a kid. Great entertainment and I looked forward to getting that big ole catalog. There wasn't much in life not covered...

DF

As a young man I too found the Herters catalog very entertaining. I have actually shot and used the wasp waist bullets in 130gr 270 cal. I honestly don't remember how accurate they were because in those days almost never fused over group size. If I could hit what I shot at I was satisfied. I did kill a couple of California mule bucks with them and lots of jack rabbits. Made every thing plenty dead.

So,they shot good enough.

I too have an old box of them but have not tried them. I did shoot some of the loaded ammo back in the day from a bubba'ed 303 enfield I bought from a guy that worked for my dad and a buddy found several boxes for a 6.5 x 55 he has. The loaded ammo shot very well but the 6.5 was very slow as in 30-30 types of speed. I believe the ammo came out of Finland iirc.

I to have used Herter bullets. Both the reg. and the Wasp waist ones. Used the Wasp in a 30-40 and they shot very well so I saved that box for loading that gun. Several years ago a table at our gun show had lots of Herters bullets and the price was right so I bought several boxes just for blasting. I have about 50 left. These just shot just so so. All of these were .30 cal. I think they are softer than other cup and core that I have used. But in the 30-40 that was not a problem.

Gonna try the Semi-Pointed this weekend and after that the Wasp-Waist ones.

I still have a reloading manual & both volumes of the Bull Cook recipe books. Very entertaining reading. I loved those big thick catalogs, and ordered from them regularly.

I believe some of the bullets were made by Norma. A lot of Herters stuff was made in Germany and Scandanavian countries, none of that cheap Jap & China stuff! In spite of the colorful prose, most of his products were pretty good.

You can still buy Herter's brand shotgun shells. Cabela's has them. If you wait for the sales, they are so cheap that it does not really pay to reload. For trap they are as good as anything, in my opinion. I heard that they were made by Cheddite in Europe.

I recently bought gun cases with HERTER on the side.

I doubt it's the original bunch, someone evidently has rights to the name.

DF

I have a full box of .263 round nose bullets, kinda hate to use them, but should try.

Be neat to kill a deer with them. And even better to recover a bullet from the dead deer,just to see what it look like.

Think that is what has happened.

Loved Herter's as a kid...living in the middle of nowhere, we mail ordered a lot of stuff. Sometimes by the time you got it, you'd forgotten that you'd ordered it.

We kids all hated Jaques Herters Jr. Little bastid got to go all over the world setting records and killing schit while we had to go to school and hunt rabbits on weekends.

Several years ago my brother gave me a 1964 Herters catalog for Christmas....great, nostalgic reading.

I have not used any .270's, but shot a pile of 150 grain .308 bullets in my 300 Savage as well as 150 grain .284's in my first 7mm Remington Magnum when I was a kid.

The .308 diameter bullets shot in the 300 Savage worked well on deer but the .284's shot in the 7mm Remington Magnum blew the schitt out of a deer.

Both were thin jacketed but fairly accurate as I remember. At 300 Savage speeds all was well but when cranked up in the 7 mag they came apart and were tough on deer....

Thanks mmgravy.

Herter's always claimed all their products were "world famous", "the best" or some other accolade. As a teen, I bought a lot of stuff from Herter's and was rarely satisfied. Justifiably, they went out of business, but someone bought the name and is now using it.

Update,not gonna use the Herter's Semi-pointed. The 130 gr Nosler Partition and Swift A-Frame shot better.

DF, i remember ads for those bullets back around 1973-74. the "Wasp Waist Sonic Bullet", and the claim that the reduced bearing surface reduced pressures, resulting in higher velocity. though a young handloader at that time, i thought they were a gimmick. i checked an old publication, and they cost about $4.75 per hundred.

at that same time they also had "Banana Peel Bullets", and the claim that the inside of the jacket was "scored" to aid in mushrooming.

both of the above pills were reasonably close to the prices of Sierra, Speer, and Hornady--about $5.00 per hundred, or 5 cents per pill.

at around this same time, i recall an ad for "Bitterroot Bullets", a bonded bullet. checking the old price, it cost about $6.00 per 20, at the high price of 30 cents each!

i remember being shocked by the price of "Elk Mountain Alaskan" Bullets--a pill with a two part core, with heavy tungsten in the rear of the pill. They cost $5.50 per 5 back then--over 40 years ago, for a cost of $1.10 each--a near unthinkable price back then.

no wonder Sierra, Speer, and Hornady were staples--good bullets at great prices, and just plain vanilla that performed very well...

I have fired the .270 130 grain wasp waste bullets.....they are extremely fragile. I wouldn't recommend them for anything close to deer hunting.....they did make a fine loud noise however.

Not gonna use either the semi-pointed or wasp-waist in the .270. 130 gr Nosler Partition and Swift A-Frame shoot better.

I have been shooting Herter's bullets since they were first sold.
Shot several 1 1/4" groups using their 30ca 125 grain hollow points out of a 740! It was my jackrabbit round when I was a kid..
I am still shooting 150 grain semi-pointed 150 grain Herter's bullets I loaded back in '66 out of my 1964 Sako. (Loaded 1500 for coyotes)Last spring I checked the zero and shot a group at 218 yards that were covered with a quarter.

I have a jar full of Herter's mushroomed bullets from the last 55+ years.