Keeping an open mind and never giving up

[Michael Bell]

 Despite the fractured life style we have all been forced to live the last year or so there have been some good things going on in our fly shooting world.
Most will have heard of Stuey Peth"s magic effort over in Perth while shooting in a club match but other things have been going on under the radar as well.

This is a little story about a Melbourne shooter who refused to give up on a barrel....
With a brand new Broughton 8 twist screwed on to his 6 Dasher this bloke heads to the range to run in and do a little load development...Armed with the usual bullets and powders he is a little disappointed in the results.
He changes things up and down....tries 105 berg vld's, 103 copperheads, 107 matchings, various charges (within the common weights) of both 2208 and 2209.
Occasionally his notes tell him success is not far away but really, this barrel is teasing him. He now has a round count of over 500 on the Broughton and he is still unhappy with the results as his 300 meter average group size is simply not good enough!......it's looking like the Broughton might become an expensive tomato stake!
In frustration he buys some 105 Berg HPBTails and gives them a run....there is an immediate and significant improvement in the group sizes.
He fiddles with powder charges and after chatting with Nat's champ "Jacko" decides to drastically reduce his charge weight. Using 2208 he drops from 32.7 to about 28 grains of powder (which is considered a light load in a standard 6BR let alone a 6 Dasher).
He then works the load up to about 29.5 of 2208 and with a muzzle velocity of only 2800 fps he strikes gold!

Nick Aagren is a modest bloke and as such has asked me not to mention his name....that's why this post is about an anonymous shooter from Little River....where the wind always blows....which makes these targets very special.

Just goes to show that sometimes it pays to think outside of the square..
In a recent 300 meter club "Mozzie" match Nick dropped just 3 points on a reduced sized target in which the 10 ten measures just over 1.5 " edge to edge......had a full sized target been used it would most of definitely been a 300 instead of "only" 297.14