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Whatever happened to Herter's?

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56K views 44 replies 37 participants last post by  Hitapair  
#1 ·
Whatever happened to Herter

Herter's was just starting to fade away when I stopped shooting years ago. Whatever happened to it? As I remember they had some products that you just couldn't get anywhere else. I started shooting again a couple of years ago and I just happened to wonder what happened to them.

Bruce
 
H
#2 ·
A Chicago sporting goods co bought them out and went belly up a few years later. A couple of others tried to revive it w/o success. Cabelas has the rights to the name now and markest a few things under the Herters name such as the plastic decoys, waders and some clothing.
 
T
#3 ·
Sir

As they were primarily a "Mail Order Business",the 1968 Gun Control Act put them out of business.

Tom

P.S. I still have a Herters,".401 Power Mag"Revolver,--Skeeter Skelton thought it was a "great gun/ctg."---it came out about 2 years before the .41 Mag
 
S
#4 ·
My first reloader was purchased from Herter's in 1969 along with plastic wads, primers and powder. I did not have a scale then and depended on the publications that came with the reloader for powder drops. I was in Bedford England at the time and shot my first rounds of skeet at Upper Heyford. Bought my first O/U, a SKB/BSA 12 ga for the sum of $150.00. I loved shopping at Herters(catalog) though and miss the reasonable prices. Jackie B.
 
N
#7 ·
As Hitapair says, it was mismanagement which seemed intended to drive customers away. In the mid-50's you could send an order and not see the product literally for months. A drive to Waseca would be better, but you had to plan for it to take all day to get them to find your feathers or whatever and sell them to you. It was best to place your order at the desk, go to lunch, and hope that you could pick it up several hours later.

When you got the Tenite plastic lures home and painted them with the Tenite-intended finish, you would often find a lump of plastic was all that was left, or maybe a lure that never dried. Fly-tying was a lot harder than it looked, and the fish callers never worked either; I finally gave up on Herter's entirely.

I still use the Bull Cook's knife to open shot bags and wonder if we'll ever really need apples to counter atomic radiation from Iran.

Neil
 
G
#8 ·
At gunsmith school in the late 50s we bought nearly everything from Herter's, we thought GLH discovered America, or at least, hung the moon. Their presses were strong as a bulldozer, and they had some good wood too! I have several canisters of Herter's gunpowder which matches 4320, and some of their shotgun powder as well. Sad to see them go for sure, I have several of those old catalogs....some people said if all the BS was out of them they'd only be a half dozen pages long! Dick C.
 
#9 ·
I too remember those trips from St.Paul to Waseca in the early 60's, like Neil I was only 15 in the mid 50's. I was told that Herters was in court a lot fighting lawsuits about Patent infringements and outrageous claims in their world famous catalog. I always wondered if George Herter's book "How to Live with a Bitch" was about a dog or a woman ?
 
#10 ·
My dad and for a little while myself, bought mostly semi finished stock blanks from Herters, never had one problem with that.

When the GCA of 1968 came in the feds where hot and heavy to make it difficult to sell anything Firearms related mail order.

It was not only Herters that suffered from the rules that BATF came up with!

Several small Mail order places here, one of them sold only bullets, no powder primers, cases or anything else, but because of the paper work that BATF was forcing on them along with threat of "If you sell it thru mail (90% of their buisness) and WE think we can say it was used in a crime, YOUR going to Prison!" they sold out there bullet making machinery.

The last Herters catalog that I saw, was gutted of everything firearm, it became an outdoors camping, fishing, clothing catalog was sad. And shortly after that Herters was No More!

So did the GCA of 68 along with the BATF force them out or mismanagement? It may be a little of both, but when a police agency comes in pretty much tells you that you can not do half or more of your buisness, even well managed buisness will fall on hard times.

And just an after what was the inflation rate when Herters was being MISMANAGED?

It is safe to say that things were tough all over!

AL
 
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#11 ·
They had a helluva large retail facility with large-scale trucking for their mail order business in Mitchell SD many years ago.

Didn't some of the gunsmith end up working for Allum in MN? Not sure about the spelling, but I'd got some parts and work done there, if I remember correctly.

Whiz White
 
O
#13 ·
Herter's got into big time trouble when they were selling and possibly importing Jungle Cock feathers for fly tying during the Vietnam War. They were contraband at the time. Also Jacques may have spent too much on safari. Both reasons may be idol rumor, but that shouldn't get in the way of a good story. D Winter
 
J
#16 ·
As a kid in the 50's-60's, there was nothing better than reading through a Herters catalog and wishing you could afford some of their stuff. I had a stack of their catalogs along with Sears, and another big gun catalog whose name escapes me...maybe out of Chicago? And loved the Boy Scout handbooks of those years with the Savage/Stevens rifles/shotguns listed...man, those were truly the days.
 
B
#17 ·
Living on the East coast, Herter's mail order was our primary source for wads and primers. Those were the fun days of shooting, great memories. They did have some quality products and probably their share of not so good, but their BS was priceless. Bob
 
W
#20 ·
I think we all miss Herters. Thay actually had a lot of great stuff if you could read through all the bull. I Had a great career guiding for snow geese on the west coast using a goose call they sold--heavily modified --of course. Wound up taking over 13,000 geese in ten full years of guiding--not bad for a city boy.
Still have a lot of dies, components and of course the Chalice wads and the venerable Vandalee wads.

Those were great days we will sadly never see again. The duck hunting in the late 60's and early 70's was incredible out on the west coast.
I miss it! Good luck guys--- we have the chosen one to look out for us now. Hold on to your wallets! Phil in Colorado!
 
#21 ·
worth the look... GRUBBY


http://find.galegroup.com/ips/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C6%29george%3AAnd%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C7%29herter+%24&sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&sort=DateDescend&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&searchId=R1&currentPosition=1&userGroupName=naal_una&docId=A155253089&docType=IAC&contentSet=IAC-Documents
 
#22 ·
from the article

And ingredient three: He would simply make things up. He claimed that his products were endorsed by the North Star Guides Association, a group that didn't exist, and he referred to the expertise of Jacques P. Herter II and George L. Herter II, both of whom were fictitious. He also said he was related to Christian Herter, a secretary of state in the Eisenhower administration
 
B
#23 ·
LOL, Phil had me feeling real nostalgia(sp). They did make a great call, duck and goose, and as Phil says they were easy to tune yourself. I spent a lot of time on the marsh in those days, great times. Grubby Jack cracked me up, cause I'm sure it's true. The catlogs were too much fun to read, and you knew it was fiction. Have fun while we can, we're on the great ones list somewhere. Bob
 
#24 ·
Gatguy, quote: <i>"Their presses were strong as a bulldozer..."</i><br>
<br>
About 25 years ago I was given an old Herters press, a Super Model 0 (zero). All the rage at the time was over the RCBS enclosed press, because it wouldn't flex. Well, neither would the Herters press, because even though it was an open C design, it was just massive. I cleaned it up and painted it Ford blue, right over the old brown crinkle finish. The ram was rusted, but it cleaned right up. The only oddity was the unique Herters shell holders. While I had a few original Herters, I found a source for adapters. (They might be RCBS, but I don't remember now.)<br>
<br>
About a year later I found an even more massive twin-ram Herters Super Model 81 at a local gunshow. The guy selling it noted my interest, and I got it for dirt cheap because he didn't want to lug it back to whatever state he came from. I think I got it for something like $10, and that included a bunch of extra parts. While it had double rams, they were on individual arms. So I set it and the single ram up next to each other, and used it as a "poor man's progressive press". After cleaning it up and painting it Ford blue, of course. (I was into racing Fords at the time, so I had cases of Ford blue engine spray paint in the garage.)<br>
<br>
Both of these presses are set up on a heavy, but small and portable, table. This means I can process brass in the garage, while watching a movie in the living room, or out on the back patio. (I don't load powder with distractions going on, though.)<br>
<br>
One thing about the Herters press is that it would take a lot of abuse. and it put a lot of force on the cases. While friends had to repeatedly try swagging the primer pocket of military cases with their RCBS presses, I only had to run the case through once.<br>
<br>
One Herters press I always wanted but never found one for sale (though I've seen plenty) was the Model 234 turret press. It's ideal to use a progressive press. I wanted to use it for handguns and small old west rifle cartridges.<br>
<br>
To this day I still have not replaced these presses. My kid will inherit them, providing we are "allowed" to do reloading by the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.<br>
<br>
Alas, while I found pics of other Herts presses on the 'net, I have not found a pic of the Models 0 or 81.<br>
<br>
Update - Herters press shell holder adapters are still made by RCBS (via Midway USA) and a different style is available from Buffalo Arms. Apparently Herters presses are still getting enough use to justify continuing to make these adapters.
 
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