.30 Herrett ?

[joe z]

The .30 Herrett is new to my reloading bench, I have a 14" barrel for my Contender.  Just wondering what powder bullet combo do you find to be the most accurate?  Thanks for any tips on my new toy.
Joe

[wheelgun]

I have one of the old 10" tubes.Bullets of 110-130 grain work the best.The 125 nosler b tip is the best over AA-1680 powder.

[Whodaheck99]

I have a 10" 30 HERRETT, at 75 yards I get a 5 shot group, that you can cover with a quater. The load I use is a Large Winchester Rifle primer, 125 GR. Nosler BT, with 24.5 GR. of Reloader 7. It is a great shooting round.

[Anduril]

I'll second the 125 Nosler BTip & 1680.
At 30H velocity it also makes a good mule deer & antelope load.
..

[Moe]

I've been using .30 carbine 110gr round nose over H4227. Works pretty good. The 125gr BT's work pretty good also, kinda expensive for plinking though.

[Lone Star]

A 110-grain bullet and 4227 powder is the load which made the .30 Herrett famous as a hunting cartridge.  Bullets back then - early 1970s - were pretty tough, and only a few would expand reliably.  These included the Speer 110 Varminter and their 110 RN.  None of the 125/130 grain bullets I tried expanded at all.  By the mid-80s the situation was better, and the later introduction of the BallisticTips really made the .30 Herrett a great hunting round.  Unfortunately, it was almost too late by then.

My 14" barrel was used for IHMSA silhouette competion with 150-grain bullets atop RL7 powder and was shoot-off accurate.  For hunting with the 10" I settled on the 125 Nosler and H4227 (after Norma 200 was discontinued).

[Darrell H]

My 10" .30 Herrett has been the most fussy barrel that I have owned to date.  I can get 1 to 1 1/2" groups at 100 yards with IMR4198 and Hornady 130 grain SSP bullets.  Everyone seemed to recommend H4227, but for some reason my barrel does not like it.

Good luck!!

X

[BillinOregon]

The late Bob Milek's original hunting load was a CCI 200 primer, R-P case, 29.0 grains N 200 under a Sierra 125-grain spitzer at 2269 fps from his 10-inch barrel.

[Moe]

If you guys were to order a custom barrel in 30 Herrett what twist and what length would you get? Using 110-125 gr bullets. Also what twist are the factory barrels?

[Lone Star]

The late Bob Milek's original hunting load was a CCI 200 primer, R-P case, 29.0 grains N 200 under a Sierra 125-grain spitzer at 2269 fps from his 10-inch barrel.

Not according to Milek.  Steve Herret killed the first head of game with the .30 Herrett, a buck antelope with the 110-grain Speer round nose bullet pushed by 25.0 grains of H4227.  Milek shot his first .30 Herret game with the 125 Sierra SP pushed by 25 grains of IMR-4227.  He found the heavy Sierra too tough even if bone was hit, and his testing showed that accuracy with N-200 not as good as that with IMR-4227.  This information is from his May/June 1973 article in Handloader magzine.  

Later, in the May 1978 Shooting Times issue,  he stated:   "I've taken enough game with the .30 Herrett that I know what bullets do.  My choice is a 110-grain design with nose sections that have thin jackets.  Examples are the 110-grain .308-inch roundnose bullets from Speer and Sierra and the 110-grain Speer Varminter....although I've taken both antelope and deer using 125-grain bullets, I'm not satisfied with their performance.  They don't expand enough...as for powders in the .30 Herrett, all four of my Contender barrels give the best results with Hodgdon's 4227.  Close behind is Dupont IMR-4227.  No other powder that I've worked with gives comparable results."

I hope that this archieved material is helpful in setting the story straight on this important, pioneering effort to advance the art of handgun hunting.

[Lone Star]

Everyone seemed to recommend H4227, but for some reason my barrel does not like it.

Milek found IMR-4227 to give better accuracy in the Herrett, and that's been my experience too.  In fact most of the bottlenecked cartridges I've tried with both powders shoot more accurately with the IMR version.

[Darrell H]

Milek found IMR-4227 to give better accuracy in the Herrett

Not according to the information you provided above...

as for powders in the .30 Herrett, all four of my Contender barrels give the best results with Hodgdon's 4227. Close behind is Dupont IMR-4227

 

X

[Lone Star]

Not according to the information you provided above...

Silly me, I left off the relevant quote.  In the first article, Milek stated: "With 110-grain bullets H-4227 produced the beat groups and velocities.  However, with the 125-grain bullet, my best results were obtained with IMR-4227."  It was in the second article that he said the Hodgon product was best in all his barrels.  Perhaps when he wrote the second article he'd forgoten what he wrote several years earlier.... I'm just quoting the man here, they're not my words.

Still, in my experience, the IMR powder generaly gives better accuracy regardless of bullet, particularly in low-powered bottlenecked cases like the .25-20, .32-20, .30-30 and the Herretts.  The two powders are not the same and are not interchangeable, despite the similar names.

[Jim S]

I have an old 6 groove 1:14" twist and mine shoots 125BT's over 24.0/H4227 under 1" @100. I have also shot a few head of deer, javelina and hogs with this load and have had good results. I have found the 125 BT to leave holes like it has good expansion , so far it has given complete pebetration on what ever I shot with it. That  load went through a 250# hog's chest diagnonally left a 2" exit hole through the shoulder and killed the hog on the spot. The shot was at about 50 yards quartering back to front low chest and tucked it in like an arrow should be placed. Deer shot through the chest low have ran up to 50 yards but easy to follow with a good blood trail out of both holes.
Please be aware that the load above is safe in my barrel but work up to it in yours because there was some variation in the chambers of these barrels. BTW the load did arround 2300 out of my 10" over the pro chrono.

[Darrell H]

I was just picking at you a little bit Lone Star.  

I certainly respect your experience and do not doubt your findings.  Thanks for sharing the information.

X

[BillinOregon]

You fellers are probably right about the Milek load. He uses 29.0 of N200 and the Sierra 125-grain spitzer in an antelope hunt he describes on Page 36 in the chapter on Open Country Hunting in "A Complete Guide to Handgun Hunting," published by Guns and Ammo in 1979. He also lists this as the only 125-grain Sierra load in a chart on page 32 of this publication that shows his loads for .308 X 1.5, .30-30 and a number of other rounds. Obviously, this "book" was published years after the initial development work on the .30 Herrett was complete, and it would not have been the original load.
My apologies.
That said, I nearly wore out my copy of this book, and put together a 10-inch barrelled .30 Herrett with Leupold M8-2X scope nearly 25 years ago. It was my first wildcat and I sure loved the rig, although I never got close enough to a mule deer to have a shot with it.
Still have a soft spot for that stubby but efficient little cartridge, though.

[Moe]

Hey!! Nobody answered my question from above...

[Greybeard]

Well Moe perhaps what you should do is to ask your question in a separate thread. Trying to piggy back on another thread is an almost sure way to not get your question answer. I won't here as I just don't worry about such. I tell a barrel maker what bullet or bullet weights I want and let them tell me what is correct. I figure they know a whole bunch more than me about what is right in such matters. If they don't I'm sure dealing with the wrong folks.