Another exchange from the weekend:
Me at the gun show, looking at a Remington XP-100: When I was six years old, I thought that was the coolest gun in the world.
My nephew: Why?
Me: Because I was six years old.
My nephew: (nods sagely, as if this actually makes sense to him).
(I still want an XP-100 chambered in the original .221 Fireball caliber. The one we were looking at was rechambered to .223, which I will admit is a lot more practical. However, the asking price on it was $1,300, which is much more than I’m willing to pay.)
(I also want a S&W Model 53, even though .22 Jet is even more impractical than .221 Fireball. I keep meaning to sit down and do the math to determine if you could actually do a .221 Fireball conversion of a Smith; off the top of my head, I think the cartridge length would require an N-frame or X-frame sized cylinder, so it wouldn’t exactly be a compact field gun like the Jet…)