Quite awhile ago I was approached by a gentleman who was interested in acquiring a rifle I owned. He was interested in trading me a 270 built on a Herter's barrelled action. I wasn't interested at the time and never saw the rifle in question. My curiosity has got the better of me though and I was wondering if anyone on this forum knew anything at all about this subject.

Herter's was a mail order sporting goods firm in the 50s and 60s. Along with reloading supplies and equipment, decoys, fly tying supplies and a whole lot of other stuff, they offered rifles made on BSA or FN Mauser actions as Models U9 and J9. I've also heard that they were one of the first importers of Sako rifles. They were good products. Now the .401 Powermag is another story....

The Herter's rifle could either have been built on an English-made BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) action and labeled "U-9" or if it is a "J-9", it would be on a '98-style commercial Mauser which was made in Yugoslavia. Whether this J-9 was made in the same factory as the later Mark-X Mauser (Zastava, now distributed by Charles Daly - KBI), I can't say. Herter's also had a run of German-made Mauser actions for short cartridges that were labeled "XK-3", but the .270 would not have been one of these since the longest cartridge they were available for was a .257 Roberts.

Dozens of custom-branded and proprietary rifle models were built on F.N. Mausers, and Herter may have handled some of them very early on, but not as late as the mid-60's. Early Sakos for long cartridges were built on the F.N. Mauser, but I doubt that Herter ever imported them, although stranger things have happened.

The BSA U-9 was regarded as a pretty good rifle, and was at least as good as the one BSA marketed under their own name. The Eastern European J-9 was priced a little lower, but I don't know that it was of particularly lesser quality. These days, the J-9, with its controlled round feeding, would likely be considered more desireable.

Stonecreek:

The two short action "x" series barreled actions, one in .243 and the other a .308, that I purchased from Herters in 1964, were both stamped with the "CZ" crest. Nice actions and well finished. For what It's worth!

In addition to offering rifles, they also had a fairly decent stock making department. I have custom rifle that was stocked and checkered by Herters. Hard to find a rifle today with 11 panels of 24lpi checkering.

In addition, they carried a full line of flys and tying supplies. Ashame they downsized so.

You can find old herters catalogs for sale on ebay. They are worth it, because herters put out a new series of flys every year and included a close up color photo in their catalog.

Pete

Thanks guys. I knew somebody here would know about them.

I had a friend that had a 22-250 on the J-9 action. Quite accurate. Herter got downsized by our friendly BATF people when the Gun Control act of 1968 nosed into his business. Between them and importation problems literally ruined trhe firearms portion of his business, so I've heard.
Tne one thing I miss was Georges Herter's descriptions of his products. He was the master of exageration.
Paul B.

I am the fortunate, proud owner of the real treasure from Herter's! All three volumes of Herter's BULL COOK AND AUTHENTIC HISTORICAL RECIPES AND PRACTICES cookbooks! These are priceless for their colorful contents, which includes (if you can find them in the B.S.) actual recipes!

I'm sorry I didn't keep their catalogs. Would have, if I'd known they were going to go belly-up!!

Herter's had nothing to do with importing Sako rifles.
Geo. Herter would devote an entire page in the catalog to something like a #8 Eagle fishing hook and when you got through reading what he said about that hook and if you did not have one then evidently...your were not fishing!
The prices and color photos of the stock wood offered in those days was just mouth watering.
Getting a Herter's catalog was better than a Nat'l Geo with naked native women in it!!!

I have a Herters J9 barreled action in 6mm Rem. that belonged to my dad. The action is a Yugo Mauser that also bears what appears to be the CZ crest. (a circle with a "C" and a "Z" superimposed on each other)

The action seems to be of fairly sound manufacture, though roughly finished below the stock line. The trigger is terrible, and I can find no way of making it better short of replacement. Someone on one of these boards claimed that Timney (I think) makes a replacement that fits. Can anyone confirm this?

The stock on mine is a factory Monte Carlo affair, and gawdy as hell. The wood is nice, but is trimmed in white plastic spacers with a zig-zag black spacers sandwiched between, a black plastic forend tip, and a black flared grip cap with a white diamond-shaped plastic inlay.

The action is nice enough that I'm going to recrown the barrel, replace the trigger, restock with a laminate, and reblue it. It'll be my coyote gun, and It'll remind me of my dad.

[ 11-07-2003, 09:07: Message edited by: kilmer ]

In the late 70's and very early 80's I sold for a sporting goods distributor throughout North and East Texas. One of my customers was in Ennis Texas and was the remnants of the Herters Co. after the move to Ennis they tried to become a regular gunshop that also sold by mail order some of the remaining proprietary things that Herters made or imported,Herters claybirds, a large selection of claybird traps and shotgun reloading supplies for the skeet/trap world. Nice people but the business did not survive.
The gunstock wood pictures were memorable for a greenhorn who thought a Remington RKW finish was perfect, and the Olin Winchester 1200 with the 2peice plastic recoil reducing buttstock that pinched your hand if you weren't careful was HIGH TECH! so why would anybody want to put wood on the butt of a shotgun!! LOL!!
Ron

All the Mauser type actions sold by Herter's were made by Zestava, on newly aquired FN Mauser equipment! They are exact copies of the FN,the only difference being, the address stamped on the action, and are far better actions, with their CRF, than the BSA, they sold. Though the BSA was a good action as well, for use on non-dangerous game! H&R also sold rifles on the Zestava MK-X action! Even the scope bases are the same as the FN Mauser! Too bad the ATF ran them out of business, they had a lot of nice things for sale!

Back in the mid-60's, my father and I each bought a J9 barrelled action and a semi-inletted stock from Herter's. We finished and glass-bedded them ourselves. His was chambered in 7mm RemMag and mine was a sweet little 7x57. They were both very satisfactory guns. Unfortunately, we were each attacked by the stupid flu and sold them a few years later.