You know Hera, even if you think you don’t, you do. Have you seen The Tomorrow War? You’ve seen the AR grip and stock from Hera. That furniture is not the only weird thing they’ve ever made. The Hera H6 is plenty weird. It combines a bolt action platform with an AR to crate a bizarre rifle straight out of those odd German minds.
The weirdest part of the H6 is how it takes magazines. The gun uses AR-mags, which isn’t that uncommon. However, the H6 plugs them into the side of the receiver. It’s like a Sten gun or a Johnson M1941. The benefits come down to getting super low to the dirt with the rifle. You can also swap mags without disturbing the rifle.
With a 30-round magazine, it looks interesting. I wish they brought out a D-60, but a man can only dream. Theoretically, a ten or even 20 rounder might make it better balanced. The magazine placement is odd and arguably the oddest feature, but not the only odd feature for a bolt gun.
The H6 – It Gets Weird
The Hera H6 also comes with an AR-like rail system. It’s a long M-LOK handguard that covers most of the gun’s 18-inch barrel. I couldn’t get a solid answer if it was interchangeable with other AR handguards. Mostly because the wind was so fierce that the booth fellas and I had a hard time communicating.
The safety is placed above and behind the bolt. It’s easy to reach, odd, but accessible. The stock looks a bit like a Magpul SGA-type design with an aggressive pistol grip and traditional stock. The stock is adjustable with a cheek riser. Oh, and it folds. Folding stocks are nothing new, but the H6’s stock doesn’t look like it should fold. With the stock folded, you have a light, short, and sweet bolt action rifle. It weighs less than six pounds.
The gun comes in .223 and .223 Wylde with a .300 Blackout model en route. Imagine this thing with a can and some subsonic .300 Blackout. It will be uber quiet and easy to feed. The built-in optics rail provides plenty of room for magnified optics, but examples at the show included red dots and AR iron sights.
Shooting the H6
I shot about twenty rounds through the H6. The recoil was light and sweet, which you’d expect from a .223 rifle. The gun was equipped with an LPVO, and sadly, we could only go out to maybe fifty yards on a plate. I didn’t have any issues hitting those targets quickly and consistently. It wasn’t a real test of accuracy.
The trigger excited me. It was light, short, and sweet. However, the bolt wasn’t remarkably smooth. It wasn’t grimy or gritty, but not tight. Bolt feeling doesn’t mean much, but it’s worth noting. The AR-like front end made me feel right at home when firing the rifle. Imagine how weird we can make it with one of those Hera foregrips.
In terms of reliability, it was great until the last round of the second magazine refused to feed. I wiggled the magazine, popped it in and out, and moved the bolt back and forth. It wouldn’t feed. The magazines do feel like they can move back and forth a lot in the magwell, and I wonder if that will affect reliability with the wide gamut of AR magazines out there.
I think the most important factor is the fun factor. I had fun shooting it. I shoot a lot of guns, so it’s noteworthy when one feels fun. I envision this thing equipped with a thermal and a suppressor and making hogs quake in fear.
Money, Money, Money
What might stop that fun is the $1,600 price point. It’s not a cheap rifle, and you can get a very nice, dare I say nicer, bolt gun for the same amount, but it lacks the wacky design. Outside of the wacky design, are the two benefits offered by the side-mounted magazine worth the cost?
It’s an oddity, and I hope to get more time and ammo downrange.
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