My buddy, Bob, gave me a lot of good advice when I started writing for the outdoors. One of his gems was as follows: "Keep everything you write in a file drawer. After 8 years, you'll never have to write anything new. Nothing changes."
I took his advice, only I put all my past work up on a weblog. He was right. Nothing changes. In fact, a few years ago, I started a feature over in the left sidebar of my weblog: On This Day.
I think I asked this question for the first time back on shooters.com. It was the demise of this platform that brought me along with a bunch of other refugees to this august forum. I don't have the actual text of this thread at hand, but I asked the same very question and I was soundly trounced for trying to perform a "stunt" on a live animal. I did get some sound advice, and I had a load worked up for my Mini-14. However, I started having good luck with my 30-somethings, and the project slipped. Since then, I've acquired several .223 REM rifles including a minty Savage 325.
Over the intervening 2+ decades I've seen the question of .223 REM on deer slowly migrate from a "stunt" to a "finesse round" to finally having enough acceptance that it has become a matter of personal taste. Me? I still have a 63 grain Winchester PP load cooked up. I just find that I still have a mountain of other projects to test, and .223 REM falls by the wayside. I don't know what will someday push me over the threshold.
I'm like that kid on the side of the pool with his toes over the edge and his hands arching up over his head stuck in. He just can't make the first dive.
