THE SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT

As a teen enjoying the fur market spike of the late 1970s and early ’80s, pockets bursting with trapping cash, I coveted a Remington XP-100 chambered in the enticingly labeled .221 Remington Fireball (RFB). But alas, my stepfather, a three-tour Vietnam veteran with conspicuous PTSD, forbade me to own any handgun, no matter how rifle-like. He only grudgingly allowed long-arms in his house—and only after I’d been trained to shoot military style (assuring all potential fun was removed) and had passed a New Mexico hunter’s safety program.

I left home at 17, the XP-100 still in my thoughts, but I was too busy making a living and attending university to run one down. By the time I graduated from college and climbed out of abject poverty, original