Tell me about Hy Hunter Firearms?

Grayfox

Grayfox

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I picked this poor, pitiful thing today. Seems to be mechanically sound, but it sure has taken a beating. :eek:
And yes, those grips don't fit. Completely wrong for this gun. :rolleyes:

vv5uOa7.jpg


Left side of barrel marked:
Hy Hunter Inc Firearms Mfg Co
Hollywood, California
Made in Western Germany

Right side of Barrel marked:
Frontier Six-Shooter Model
.22 S.L.LR. Caliber

I haven't been able to find much on the internet and the Blue Book simply acknowledges that the company did exist.

What I have been able to find is that these were actually made by J.P. Sauer and Sohn in West Germany. They were imported by and marked Hy Hunter.
What else can anybody tell me about them? Good? Bad? Any additional info at all?

I bought it because I thought it might make an interesting little project to pass time on. I only got $30 in it. ;)
 
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Hy Hunter had full page ads in gun magazines (often the inside back cover) in the '60s. Mostly cheap, imported stuff, as I remember. Never saw anything I wanted to buy.
 
In the 50's and 60's my dad got the Hy Hunter Catalog every year. It was packed full of Class III weapons: Transferable, Sales Samples, and Deactivated. When I was in my mid 20's Dad handed me his collection of gun magazines and catalogs. I read them all and threw them away (LIKE AN IDIOT!)

The one gun that sticks in my mind is a Thompson M1A! by Savage $45 + Transfer! I drool just thinking about it!

Ivan
 
I remember the Hy Hunter gun ads I always wanted one but I did not have a lot of money back then but at that time up until the GCA of 1968 you could buy them and they might of had to ship them on Railway Express I had a friend that bought center fire ammo and it came on railway express. Jeff
 
Hy Hunter was Haywood Hunter.
He had the Hy Hunter American Weapons Corp in Burbank, Ca.
That was renamed the Hy Hunter Firearms Mfg Co (Hollywood, Ca....imagine that today!!)

The company was the distributor of the Great Western Arms Co S/A revolver Colt clones. I don't know if Hunter was the only distributor or not.

Hunter and the owner of Great Western (Wm Wilson) brain stormed the idea of making a SAA Colt clone revolver with hopes of high sales due to the renewed interest in Westerns in the US.

Something happened betw the two, personal rift??,,but around '55 or '56, Hy Hunter was no longer a welcome figure at the Great Western Arms Co.
GW pulled their distributorship from Hy Hunter's co. and even printed in their ads and catalogs that they no longer had anything to do with the HH business or person.
Harsh!

HH started importing JP Sauer made S/A revolvers at that time to make up for the loss of the GW supply.
HH also sold many other imported firearms. Small semiauto pistols, cheap DA revolvers, some Milsurp, Even a copy of the Stevens single shot break open pistol but with an alloy frame.

AFAIK, HH was out of the business by the mid 60's.
It was then taken over and run by his Secretary named....Mary Hawes.
A familiar last name..The new imported SA revolvers were named 'Hawes'.
The GCA eventually forced the business under as the cheap handgun imports were banned as well as the Military Surplus in 1968.

HH was also said to be involved in some importation 'issues' (1950's) and at one point was called before Congress to testify about it. I don't know what ever if anything became of that.
I believe over some imported weapons bought from PD's in Asia.
Not properly Declared,,TSMG's in crates listed as (Beretta?) Carbines,
Stuff like that.

Some things never change.
 
From what I gather, it's a cheap German .22 SAA Clone from the 1960s. I don't know this for certain, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out to be a rebranded Röhm Gesellschaft RG-22.

Beyond that, it looks like someone tried to fit it with a pair of grips made for a Heritage Arms Rough Rider.
 
I never saw a Hy Hunter catalog, only the magazine advertisements. Most of what was listed in the ads many would call cheap junk, but maybe all of it wasn't.
 
Thanks for the info guys. If anybody else has anything to add, please do.
I knew it was a fairly cheap gun. But it does seem to be well made and solid. One interesting thing is that its a full sized gun. Most .22 SAs are built on a smaller frame.
I found a couple of old advertisements. Apparently this same platform was used to make guns in calibers from .22 to .45 Colt. Including .357 Atomic. :eek:
They even offered a DIY kit to build your own.
I found a set of original grips on E-bay. Then I'm going to try my hand at a home refinish. Probably going to be a spare time project over the winter. If it comes out decent, I'll post a picture. If not, it can hide in the back of my safe until my kids have to deal with it. :rolleyes:
Interesting bit of firearms history. ;)

TJNQ79f.jpg


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I'm sure you can get $30. worth of amusement out of it. The last 2 gun buy backs near me paid $150. for anything that looked like a pistol. I haven't saw a pistol sell for less than $150. since then. Larry
 
hy-hunter

i have just aquired a six-shooter model. 357 magnum. just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these. It seems to be solidly built and fully functional. Has anyone fired any of this caliber, I have only seen .22 cal. mentioned. Any experience with this model would be appreciated.
 
About 25 ears ago, I bought a very used 7" Saur & Shon SAA clone in 357. My assumption is it was made in the mid 60's and imported by Hy Hunter.

The fit and assembly were tight and second to none! The finish reminded me of German war time production in February 1945, very minor tool marks with a very dull blue job.

It is one of the guns in my 357 Cowboy Action Gun Set. It gets used by my wife and/or second son. Shoots straight and true to at least 25 yards.

Ivan
 
As I have posted - was down at Roswell, NM and got into Jack Rabbit Shooting using borrowed guns.
My associates yelled, Buy A Gun!
So I bought a pot metal imported 22 revolver.
Don’t recall if it was a Hy Hunter, but similar.
After a few outings, I had enough!
Took it back to the Gun Store - Pawn Shop where I bought it , took the hit, traded it in for a Ruger Single Six.
 
I think Herter’s was also selling similar SAA clones made by Sauer back in the 1960s. I have seen a few if them at gun shows way back when, but not many. Anyone remember the famous Herter’s .401 Powermag cartridge? It was neither a .41 Long Colt nor a .41 Magnum.

The .357 Atomic GW revolver has been discussed here in the past. It seems likely that it was nothing more than possibly a heavily loaded .357 Magnum cartridge (if anything) and was available only from GW, no other ammunition manufacturers loaded or sold it. And it is possible that the .357 Atomic was just a name used by GW, and it was just an ordinary 357 Magnum loading. No one has ever seen a cartridge with a .357 Atomic headstamp.
 
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I guess I always thought Hy Hunter was just an importer or distributor, not really a manufacturer of anything. So, anything you get with Hy Hunter stamped on it was simply marked that way as part of a deal, or a company made guns but agreed to put Hy Hunter on it, sort of like the way Sears never made guns, but certainly Sears sold guns with its name on them, made by some other company.
 
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