My first experience with a wildcat cartridge came about 1980 after I had read and re-read Bob Milek's "Complete Guide to Hunting Handguns."
I had to have a Contender in .30 Herrett, with 10-inch barrel, Leupold M8-2X scope and the leather bandoleer holster that T/C sold.
I found the pistol just as accurate as Milek said it was, and loved hunting with it although I never managed to put a mule deer in the cross hairs.
Now here it is 47 years later and I just received a drop-dead gorgeous 12-inch matte-finished factory heavy barrel from the good folks at Match Grade Machine. It is of course in .30 Herrett.
Just as soon as I can locate a frame and a decent scope, I am going to get this baby shooting. So many improvements in powders and bullets over the past half-century have to make this classic even better at what has always done well -- shoot flat and hit effectively on antelope and deer-sized critters.
Really curious to see how it might perform with the Barnes 120-grain black tip bullet designed for the Blackout.

Congrats, you may well have lots of fun in your future.

Are you going to hunt or plink with it?

I remember way back when the 30 Herrett was first announced and I was amazed that people could handle such a beast . . .

I was young, naive and shooting an original Ruger Flat Top 44 Mag at the time.
I have a factory 10" 30 Herrett and the neck is so oversized I quit shooting it because I figured the significant resizing was going to cause premature cracking. Sent it to TC and they said it was within specs so I just set it back and shoot 14". When one can see the significant bulge on the metal when partially sizing the neck it is not in my specs.
MGM barrel will be a shooter.

Don't forget cast projies for fun shooting, they can perform pretty well. Since a lot of the early hunting was done with the 110 grain carbine bullet I have always wondered how the Lee C309-115 or Lyman's 32-20 offering would perform.

On the other end of the scale I have wondered about the Nosler 150 BT.

Several thousand rounds down range out of the Herrett barrels and have never carried one afield.

Good luck it will be a fun shooter!

TC, I hope to hunt with the Herrett. Agree it should be a daisy with cast boolits, too.

That was my first wildcat as well. I have killed several deer and piggies with my Dad's old contender, it was his first wildcat as well.

Never fooled with cast.......I like Sierra's 125g 30-30 bullet. It opens up pretty darn good at the Herret's velocity.

.

Jim, I am filing that Sierra away in the old data bank. Thanks.

Those that have successfully hunted with it say the 125 grain Nosler BT is the cats meow also.

quote:

Originally posted by TCLouis:
Those that have successfully hunted with it say the 125 grain Nosler BT is the cats meow also.

Based on a recommendation from Bobby Tomek, that's what I use in my 13" .30-30 Ackley with great results.

Other than the holster I have the exact same rig. I shoot 130 Gr. Hornady SSP (single shot pistol) bullets out of mine. Has worked fine for several whitetails.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Jim, I am filing that Sierra away in the old data bank. Thanks.

You are most welcome Sir.

It has proven to be very accurate for me and works well on game, deer and hogs anyway.

.

Labman
What powder and how much are you using to push that Hornady SSP. I have a few of those and never found a great load with them.

I need to start carrying a short gun hunting again.

I quit carrying any kind of a short gun because it seemed whenever I did, I never saw a deer.

Close or far, NONE.

I had a Super 14 for years. It did amazingly well with the RCBS 180 grain gas check and a stiff dose of BW-36- a long out of print powder. Recoil was somewhat brutal. My all purpose go-to load was the Speer 130 gr. flat point over 22 grains of 296. Dropped a cow elk in it's tracks with it at 184 long paces. Dead before it hit the ground- bullet entered between the eyes and not having enough oomph to exit riccocheted around inside the brain case until it spent itself. You couldn't make anything more dead if you used a 20MM.

Traded it off a while back, but still have the dies and some brass, if anybody's interested.

Porosonik.

BW 36 is one MILSURP I never tried. I am thinking that it was mostly available in the west and maybe before I got into using MILSURP.

Last loads out of mine were 150 grain RCBS RNFP GC with 10B101 (one of the last cheap MILSURPS offered). I guess I had best get around to finishing that testing.

The way things are, I am glad I laid in a bit of the MILSURPs when they were available.