I was organizing my powder cabinet this weekend and found a rather old can of Herco. I can't even remember now what I used to load with it... 9mm maybe? Anybody have a pet load that only Herco will do for?

P.S. I don't load shot shells

I have used 6.3 grains of Herco under a 115 grain JHP as a standard 9mm load for about 20 years. I get 1.300+ FPS and excellent accuracy from it. I guess that is my 9mm pet load. It works in my pistols.

Herco in what?

The 38 S&W.

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Herco was originally a shotshell powder intended for heavy loads. It falls between Unique and Blue Dot. I used a lot of it at one time in both .357 and .44 Magnum, but it would be useful in many calibers, especially magnum loads and loads with heavy bullets. I don't know if it is still made.
One load I remember well was a .38 Super load with 8.5 grains of Herco under a 124 FMJ bullet, I got an MV of about 1350 ft/sec out of it. Pretty hot for a .38 Super.

Alliant still makes Herco although many of the loads have disappeared from the modern load books.
I use it in 380,, 9mm, 38/357 38 Super, 44 S/M and 45 acp. It's great for filling the case up and getting higher velocity at book load levels than many other powders. Can't easily double charge it unless your using a big case. I use it to push 9mm JHP to +P velocities without approaching the book max load (at least some of the older pre-2000 books).

I just used the last of some old stock that was in the tall cardboard container (circa 60's & 70's) and bought some in the new plastic container. I had enough of the old left to do some comparison loads in 44 Mag and the new stuff ran about 50fps faster.

ps...
That 38 Super load has got to be hot hot hot, as even Speer # 8 only lists 7.5 as Max. However they do list 8.5 for a 100gr. I know back in the 80's the IPSC guys pushed the Super well beyond any book maximum.

Speer #11 is a little bit more informative in that it specifies a max of 7.9 for a .355"TMJ, 7.5 for a .355 JSP and 7.0 for a .356" 125gr - this last one is odd, as they list it only as Round Nose but don't say if it is Lead or Jacketed. The picture shows what looks like a canneluer ring but is more likely a lube groove since none of their other jacketed pics have the ring and the dia is +.001".

I bought a bunch of reloading stuff from a friend who, at the time, was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and had quit reloading. There were a couple of containers of Herco that I used loading .38 spl with 160 gr swc. Those were some great loads. I think I have maybe 200 rounds left out of that batch.

There is a forum member here that switched over all of his loads that used Unique to Herco because it was load for load the same (according to him, do your research) and worked better than Unique as well. I can tell you this, do not download it for light loads. In the 45ACP, your arms will get covered with powder and if you happen to be sweating on that day, it will leave little red marks on your arms! Don't ask how I know that!

I used it 30+ years ago for heavier .357 loads, don't remember the load but it work well. I had it on hand since I was also loading 12 gauge shotshells and found it worked with both.

I haven't loaded shotshells in many years and now use 2400 to get the results I want in .357 and .44 Mag.

Thanks for the replies, I started reloading many years ago with 9mm but lost most of my load notes and targets in a move several years ago. I haven't used Herco recently but I think I'll try it again if for no other reason than to use it up.

Herco was listed in old manuals as a powder for fac dup loads
and is still in modern manuals.
Some data calles for a magnum primer and some for a standard primer...............I have not used this powder, but being between Unique and Blue Dot I can see why both primers might be used in data.
Probably a great powder for heavy bullets and medium to heavy loads.

Hope you post later on what type primer worked best for you..............have a great time with the powder.

A great load that I just found is 9.0/Herco with a 250 grain lead bullet in .45 Colt.

I use the same weight of Unique behind my 250gr-285gr bullets.

I've had good success with 6.0 gr Herco with a 124gr JHP @1.115" in 9mm 1250 fps.