Mmm...

Have to agree with that last statement.

Last week while clearing trails above one of my kid's deer blinds the machete glanced off a hard, dead pine bough and stuck in my knee. I knew it was bad when I looked down and saw the bone through my wool pants and heavy long underwear.

I wrapped it with a snot rag and some bailing twine, tripped and stumbled it off the mountain and to the UTV, then drove back toward the house. I left too long a tail on the twine which caught the wheel on my fly across the big hayfield and that naturally yanked the leg out the side of the UTV. Pain wasn't much of a factor, but after that, nausea was...

ER doc informed me that the patella {kneecap} was cut as was the bursa. But God be praised,no tendons were cut. Since the bone was cut, infection was the main concern of the Doc, but so far after IV antibiotics and an oral dose to-boot, all is proceeding well.

So I'm stitched and hobbling. Stitches should come out tomorrow.

Assuming it heals as the Doc says, it will be nothing like the longterm problem you are having, but my taste of knee trouble leaves me feeling for you!! Hang in there. Time, time, time...

As for the 7x57, my opinion is that if every new hunter was required to shoot it and only it for 3 years after getting their first license, more game would be killed and less lost and very few would ditch the caliber for "something better" because, for 95% of the deer, bear and elk hunting done in the US of A, there ain't nothing much better!