? on Herter's dies

[lonewolf5348]

I just pick up a set of herter's dies any one have an idea who make the dies for herter's

[stimpylu32]

A few company's have made dies for them over the years , Pacific Duracrome is probably the most common , as they also made dies for themselves till Hornady bought them out .

I have quite a few oddball sets of Herters dies and use them alot , things are like tanks , ( very hard to damage ) .

stimpy

[Ladobe]

I grew up using Herter's "Model Pefect" products, including their reloading equipment that was favored by my dad, uncles and grandpa when I was a kid.   They started me reloading in the 50's with it.    I continued to buy some things from Herter's until they finally had to sell out in the late 70's due to some bad business decisions that George made.   GCA '68 was part of it, but not the main reason they went under.   Law suits, the gas shortage and some illegal imports that cost them their firearms business finished them off.  

Like everything else Herter's, their products were made for them by various companies (including many in Europe).   Their firearms were from firms like FN, BSA, J.P. Saur, etc; their stocks from Fajen; some of their brass was made in Sweden and some by Bell (now Mast Tech in Las Vegas), etc.   I don't remember who actually made their dies, but probably CH was one of them and Saeco made their lubisizers.  Herter's had several different types of dies over the years, including some that you just changed an insert in to change the cartridge it would reload.   Their dies varied in quality based on the model (cost), but the top end ones were as good as any made at the time.

[wncchester]

There was at least two small machine shops that set up for dies under a Herter's contract, in addition to those listed above. 

ALL of the dies I've ever seen and used, quite a few actually, worked as well as any others I've used from all the current makers.  I wish I had known just how good they were at the time.  By the time I learned you don't always "get what you pay for", Herter's was dying and my job was in jepordy so I didn't feel free to pick up a lot of very good but inexpensive stuff before they were gone; like Sako barreled actions for less than $100, which was cheap even at that time. 

Ah well, the loss of Herter's, and several other smaller companies, was part of what we had to do to make a smashing success of the Gun Control Act of '68, passed to fight crime you know.   (Guess when I started hating Democraps?  And have never had any reason to change my mind.)