Smith & Wesson Model 53: an unusual revolver in caliber .22 Remington Jet
A derivative of an odd wildcat project from the 1950s, the Smith & Wesson Model 53 is a quite singular firearm, mainly conceived for small and medium game hunting in north America
Smith & Wesson Model 53: an unusual revolver in caliber .22 Remington Jet
In order to understand the reasons for the very existance of the revolver we’re looking at here – the quite unique Smith & Wesson Model 53, launched in March 1961 and phased out of production in 1974 after a modest commercial success and only 15,000 samples ever made – we gotta go back to the 1950s and the golden age of wildcat cartridges.
As the American world of hunting and sport shooting witnessed a renewed boom after the relative slump of the Great Depression and World War II years, designer James Willard “Jim” Harvey conceived his proprietary .224 Harvey Kay-Chuck wildcat cartridge, essentially a centerfire version of .22 Hornet necked down to be used on modified Smith & Wesson model 17 revolvers, whose K-frame – being initially built for .38 Special – would withstand the high levels of energy and velocity it developed: 40-grain bullets would come out of the barrel at 730 meters per second (over 2,300 fps) with a muzzle energy of 730 kgm, or well beyond 676 joules.
Smith & Wesson Model 53: an unusual revolver in caliber .22 Remington Jet
Smith & Wesson Model 53: an unusual revolver in caliber .22 Remington Jet
.224 Harvey Kay-Chuck was mainly a handgun hunting caliber for small- and medium-sized game, with an eye on silhouette shooting, and despite being a wildcat cartridge, it did gather enough attention among shooters in the United States to persuade Smith & Wesson that the concept could be adapted into a serial-produced firearm/caliber combo.
Remington was contracted to develop a new round that would be similar to .224 Harvey Kay-Chuck but easier to mass produce: Remington proceeded to use .357 Magnum as a parent case, tapering it to .22 caliber. The result – a centerfire round with a Small Pistol primer and a distinctively long tapered neck – was dubbed the .22 Remington Jet, and Smith & Wesson subsequently developed a new revolver around it by modifying the quintessential Model 17 into the final product: the Model 53, with a double-action trigger and an 11 cm (4”), 15 cm (6”) or 21 cm (8.¾”) barrel marked “.22 Magnum” and bored as such.
The peculiarities of the Model 53 revolver all gathered around the feeding and trigger systems. The six-rounds cylinder was of course chambered for .22 Remington Jet, but in order to make low-cost practice possible and thus make the new gun more appealing to shooters, a set of cylinder inserts was issued with each revolver that allowed the use of .22 Short, .22 Long or .22 Long Rifle ammunition. Alternatively, a separate, dedicated .22 rimfire replacement cylinder could be obtained from Smith & Wesson.
The K-frame of the Smith & Wesson Model 53 revolver featured two dedicated firing pins for centerfire and rimfire rounds, and the checkered target hammer featured a sliding selector that caused a striking surface on its face to rotate approximately 30 degrees, aligning to either one of the two firing pins allowing the use of centerfire or rimfire ammunition.
The Smith & Wesson Model 53 was only available in a blued version, with a Target walnut grip, a ¾” Baughman ramp sight, and a finely adjustable, micrometric Smith & Wesson rear sight.
It was conceived from the ground up to be an extremely accurate shooting machine, whose real performance levels however ended up being severely hampered by inherent technical factors such as the cylinder gap: .22 Remington Jet fired from the Smith & Wesson Model 53 revolver rarely exceeded 549 meters per second (approx. 1,800 fps) of muzzle energy, and suffered from case setbacks.
All in all, Smith & Wesson severely overestimated the appeal and real-world performance of the .22 Remington Jet concept on a market that was already rife with better known, more popular, tried-and-true, and cheaper alternatives.
No other revolver was ever chambered in .22 Remington Jet, and Marlin’s plans to manufacture a .22 Jet lever-action rifle never came to pass, although Thompson/Center Arms did manufacture a .22 Remington Jet version of the Contender single-shot pistol, whose break-open single-barrel layout allowed the caliber to reach its full potential.
Today, the Smith & Wesson Model 53 is a quite rare revolver.
.22 Remington Jet ammunition is basically impossible to find: the only source appears to be PPU - Prvi Partizan, which manufactures both factory ammunition and reloading components. That is, unless you want to use the cylinder inserts and fire .22 rimfire out of it, but that’s basically the equivalent of owning a muscle car and never taking it out of your driveway.
The Model 53, however, was indeed, and undoubtedly so, a masterpiece in gunsmithing and craftsmanship.
The remaining samples are sought after by collectors, and if you’re a Smith & Wesson aficionado – particularly an expert in the golden age of Smith & Wesson revolvers – the Model 53 is something that you can’t afford not to have in your collection.