Why the 22 Magnum Remington Jet died away???

[saturno_v]

The idea on which this cartridge was based on was very straightforward.
Take a 357 Magnum case, neck it down to 22 caliber, put a spitzer 40 gr. rifle bullet on it and you got your holstered long range varmint gun.
Out of the 8 3/8" barrel of the S&W Mod. 53 you would get 2700 fps!!!
Pop in the 22 Long Rifle chamber inserts and you could economically plink away all day long. A very unique and versatile revolver.

I recently saw one Mod. 53 for sale at a gun show, 8 3/8" barrel, perfect conditions with a wooden presentation box and the 22 rimfire chamber inserts, asking price was $1200 but the guy was willing to negotiate probably down to a grand
If I had $1000 to spare and commercial ammo offering for the caliber I may have considered.

Why this unique cartridge was discontinued?? Any problems?? Limited utility??

Waiting for your comments and opinions...

 

[ugaarguy]

Why this unique cartridge was discontinued?? Any problems?? Limited utility??

From what I'm told necking a .357 magnum down to .22 is like tightening the nozzle on a high pressure hose. The results are, I'm told, top strap flame cutting, and barrel burning.

 

[.38 Special]

The main problem is/was the tapered cartridge case. Upon firing, it tended to set back against the breech face and lock up the gun. This can supposedly be avoided by ensuring perfectly clean and dry charge holes and cases. (This is all second-hand information, BTW, as I have no personal experience with the gun/cartridge.)

 

[bannockburn]

saturno v

The .22 Remington Jet never lived up to its high powered billing, at least not in the S&W Model 53. Original factory listed velocities of 2460 fps were obtained with a closed breech test barrel; when used in the 6" M53, velocities dropped off to the 1800 to 1900 range. Even the 8 3/8" barrel only achieved another couple of hundred fps more of muzzle velocity. The other problem was as .38 Special posted; the fact that the tapered case design would allow it to back out of the cylinder after firing, causing the cylinder assembly to lock-up. The only other alternative to applicable guns comes in the form of the TC Contender single shot pistol. Hornady lists max loads as 2600 for the 40 grain Jet, and 2500 for the 45 grain Hornet.

 

[Gordon]

I don't think it sold well enough (like .44 spl N frames and 1917s!) and yes you got to keep oil out of the chambers, something the ave Nimrod seemed incapable of. I still shoot my Jets, I regularly use the new to me 6" scoped one which has a lot better balistics than a 5.7 ! The 8 3/8 cased one is now a safe Queen but let me assure you it shot factory ammo at close to 2200fps across a chrono.

 

[Jim K]

IMHO, the cartridge design was pretty poor. They would have been better off necking the .38 or .357 case down to .22, which would have given them a straight wall case that would have gripped the chamber walls better. Or just making the gun for the K-Hornet, which was a popular conversion of the .22 K-frame at the time

The .22 LR suffered from the PITA of having to use the inserts, though some guns were sold with a spare .22 LR cylinder.

Of course, it is the unsuccessful guns that become collectors items.

Jim

 

[Jim Watson]

As I recall from press at the time, conventional shapes like the Cotterman Super Jet were about as prone to binding as the standard Jet. It's not the shape, it's the mere presence of the bottleneck.

The Kay-Chuk has little enough shoulder to make a go of it. I have READ that even .218 Bee will shoot in a revolver, although the only ones I ever saw written up were single actions. S&W should have made a few cosmetic changes and commercialized something known to work. Makes money for Remington in rifles.

 

[BBroadside]

"I have READ that even .218 Bee will shoot in a revolver...."

Taurus seems to think so! I have no idea how well it shoots but the idea is intriguing. I suppose it would be for blasting groundhogs and the like, at maybe 50m? (I know zilch about handgun varmint hunting.) I'd think it would be natural for somebody like Savage to make a bolt-action pistol in one of the .22 centerfires, for people who don't need to .223 Rem performance but can't get by with .22 WMR.

 

[Ron James]

From someone who has owned one, unless you cleaned the chambers with something such as break cleaner, the shells would bind. I mean bind as in pound them out wit a rubber mallet and wooden dowl. Of course when these were new no one knew that, and I like every one else would clean the chambers and leave a very light coating of oil. I used the .22 inserts more than 99 and 9/10 of the time for that reason. One gun that I sold that I never regretted nor had any fond memories of. So, why didn't didn't they sell, they didn't preform as expected and were a pain in the a** to shoot

 

[unspellable]

Bottle necked cases in the revolver

Another case of the big time manufacturers taking a wildcat comemrcial and insisting on fixing what wasn't broke. The inspiration for the 22 jet was the 224 harvey Kchuck based on a 22 Hornet case. The Jet used a necked down 357 case, which would have been OK except for the long taper shoulder. That's where the trouble started.

Histroically, the 32-20, 38-40, 44-40, etc. were bottled necked cases used in revolvers.

More recently we have the 17 HMR, 218 Bee, 22 Hornet in revolvers and I've heard no reports of trouble.

I shoot the 17 HMR and the 357-44 B&D (44 Mag necked down to 357) in revolvers and have no back out issues.

 

[saturno_v]

All these answers let me think.....S&W probably rushed a new cartridge and gun out of the door.
What about long term exhaustive testing before commercialization??? Something similar to the car industry...
If the test gun was shooting just a cylinder full of ammo was already considered safe to shoot and problem free??