Does anyone know a good source of load data for obsolete British sporting cartridges?
I've recently purchased an old Westley Richards cape gun chambered for 28 ga. and .300 Sherwood and can't find any specifics on the .300 Sherwood loads.
Bertram still makes brass, but I haven't any idea where to start with regard to bullet type or weight nor powder types or charges.
I'd send a letter to Ross Seyfried. I'm told he doesn't haunt the internet. He does a lot of work with these cartridges. Might take you a while to get an answer, and he might not answer, but if he does, you'll get good info.
Try Cartridges of the world. I beleive the 300 Sherwood's listed there. jorge
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
The only reference that I could find for the 300 Sherwod was in my copy of Load-From-A-Disk software.
I've made up an attachment for the cartridge showing the case dimensions and some rambling about my thoughts on loading the cartridge.
Take a look if you want, it's there.
If you want more loading/internal ballistic information I would suggest that you pick up some sort of internal ballistic software.
For the money, I'm finding that the Load-From-A-Disk software fairly approximates loading manual information. It's based on Homer Powley's formulas not just a library of published loads.
Mr. Powley is too internal ballistics as who Mr. Browning was to firearm design, Mr. Hatcher was to external/terminal ballistics and Col. Whelen was to pratical training and use of firearms.
As far as load information from ballistic software is concerned, read my signature to see what my belief is...
I would like to offer you some specific loads but I can't until I know what bullet you're going to shoot, what maximum loaded length you will be loading to and what pressure you want to load to. Besides the obivious liability issues
I just hope the attachment information is of help.
And I strongly suggest you have a chamber/leade-throat/bore-groove casting made. Just so you can verify the chambering and bore-groove dimensions. I'd be really sad/dissappointed if you ended up destroying a fine old firearm.
Lowtech...
Ballistic Software is kinda' like bore sighting...
'Gets you on paper' for you to fine tune at the range...
Small and fast? Big and slow? Whatever... Just spin a high SD bullet real fast to make it work.
Thank you all for the information. This gets me off the ground. I'm not trying to do anything fancy with this cartridge/firearm, I'd just like to take the old girl shooting when she arrives. This gets me going in the right direction.
The collective knowledge of these forums is such a fantastic resource...
