Smith & Wesson Model 547 Experimental Survival Revolver

Roy Jinks signed the letter that comes with this one, and that signature carries weight. According to the S&W Historical Foundation documentation, a Smith & Wesson employee got permission to run the company's Experiment Department under his own supervision and build a working copy of model X157, the .22 Hornet survival revolver the factory had assembled on an N-frame back in January 1958 as a U.S. Military concept. This is what came out of that effort. Completed in February 1990 and transferred to the developer for testing and prairie dog hunting, it never reached production. Management wouldn't green-light it after watching Model 48 and Model 53 sales stay flat.

The build itself tells the story. A Model 547 frame paired with a long 8 3/8-inch barrel pulled from a Model 53, set up to wear glass. That's an unusual marriage of parts, and it gives the revolver a profile no catalog Smith ever had. The deep blue runs the length of the barrel and across the cylinder, with honest finish wear showing on the hammer, trigger, and the high edges of the frame. The case-hardened controls have faded to a soft straw. Mounted on top sits a vintage Simmons 2.5x-7x28 pistol scope in a one-piece base, a period-correct match for the long-range varmint intent.

What makes this package complete is the spare parts. Two additional barrels marked .22 Magnum come with the gun, both threaded for the same frame, along with an extra cylinder. That's three barrel options and the ability to swap calibers, exactly the kind of tinkering a factory developer would build for his own use. It ships in a blue Smith & Wesson Performance Center case.

This is a one-off bench project from inside the factory, documented by the man who literally wrote the books on Smith & Wesson history. You don't find these in a catalog because there was never a catalog. There was one developer, one idea, and the records to prove it.