HERTER'S "WASP WAIST" 30 CAL. BULLET

[CASEY]

I LIKE TO LOAD THE "ANTIQUE" TYPE BULLETS, THOUGHS THAT ARE NO LONGER PRODUCED. I'VE RECENTLY PURCHASED SOME HERTER'S "WASP WAIST" BULLETS. THEY ARE 30 CAL./180 G.. HAS ANYONE LOADED THESE BULLETS IN THE PAST? WHAT WAS THE IDEA BEHIND THE SHAPE OF THE BULLET? ANY INFO WOULD BE APPRECIATED. THANKS

[Dand]

my old catalog is buried somewhere here. I'll dig it up and try to provide some info tomorrow.  I remember looking at those in the catalogs and wondering if they were any good and how one would seat the bullets.  Knowing Herter's standard understated copy LOL a lot of this was probably hype as well as a way to have a Corelok bullet without infringing on Remington. It would be neat to run those bullets over one of these new bullet concentricity gauges I read about in Handloader.

Also - are you sure those aren't more valuable as collector items?

[CASEY]

WHAT! YOU NEVER HEARD OF BUYING A $500,000 BOTTLE OF WINE AND THEN DRINKING IT? LOL  :grin:

[dave375hh]

The wasp waist was to reduce the effort needed to engrave the bullet in the rifling. And would also reduce the drag due to less contact with the bore. Modern versions of this idea would be the North Fork, and the Barnes Triple-shock.  Their relief grooves give the displaced metal from the rifling somewhere to go and as such reduce the pressure needed to engrave the rifling into the bullet.

[CASEY]

THANKS DAVE, I HAVEN'T SHOT ANY YET BUT LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING IF THEIR IDEA WAS A GOOD ONE.

[calvon]

Herters made some good equipment and a wide variety of things from "Model Perfect" fish hooks to a fiberglass boat (forget the name of it) that had fins that made those of a 58 Chrysler look small, a line of reloading presses, dies, and this Wasp Waist Sonic Missile Tail bullet. Everything they made was "the world's best" and sold with "no hoakum". I bought quite a bit of stuff from them and was mostly satisfied with it. The Wasp Waist Sonic Missile Tail was shaped like a coke bottle with a boat tail base. Because supersonic aircraft had to conform to something called 'area rule' and had a coke bottle shaped constricted area in the middle of the fuselage, Herters grabbed the idea for their bullet, claiming great things for it. It didn't catch on, mainly because it had a short area of bore contact just ahead of the constriction and another short area of bore contact behind the constriction. It also made for an excessively long bullet. I never did use any of them so cannot comment on accuracy.

Eventually Herters went out of business.

[Leftoverdj]

GCA '68 put Herter's out of business although it took a few years to die. Herter's was doing a roaring trade in mail order guns, ammo, and components, and suddenly even empty brass could only go to an FFL dealer.

Some of Herter's stuff was pretty good. I'm still using one of their lubrisizers and a set of their dies. Had a C press from them for years and will bet that it's still going strong wherever it is now.

[Dand]

found my catalog and previous posts pretty much cover these wasp waist bullets correctly.  I see a note that the .30 cal bullets don't work with short case necks like .300 savage but do work in 30-06, 300 h&H, 308 win, 30-40 Krag.

yup as a kid I spent hours building wish lists from the Herter's catalog.  Some stuff was pretty good - but  over half their catalog was hyped up text.  Had a spinning rod that lasted almost forever until I tried to pull a log off the bottom of a river.  You still see used equipment for sale on Ebay. Knive were of erratic quality.

I think they also got in trouble with importing illegal fly tying feathers and  knocking off trade mark branded stuff with imported copies.

[CASEY]

THANKS GUYS FOR THE REPLIES. I TOO HAD MY WISH LIST FROM HERTER'S. I DID BUY A BOW AND SQUIRREL CALL FROM THEM. GOOD QUALITY FOR THE PRICE. THEIR CATALOG WAS MY CHRISTMAS CATALOG ALL YEAR LONG. GREAT TO RELIVE THE GOOD OLE' DAYS.

[Robert]

Still works like a charm.  As far as the bullet design goes.....Saboted Copper shotgun slugs have an hourglass design.  It is claimed that it keeps them from tumbling even after they lose their spin...or from a smooth-bore barrel.  So maybe this was designed to keep them from tumbling down-range.  ...just a guess.