NOTE: This process is especially useful for shortening ext rods on pre war HEs with the mushroom and barrel knobs.

This was a Pre Model 18, 1955 vintage:

It has the little 'top hat' bushing/spring retainer between the extractor rod (male threads) and extractor star shaft (female threads). On a lathe I turned off/moved the shoulder on the rod's threaded shank towards the front. The amount I needed the rod shortened was not that much, just enough to close up the bar/cyl gap I needed for the standard K frame 22 cyl length after setting the barrel back the same amount.

Moving that shoulder maintains the proper bushing spacing for the large ext spring.

Then when the rod was tightened the rod would no longer screw into the extractor star shaft all the way to tighten the bushing against the end of the star shaft. So I drilled out (by hand) a few female threads in the front end of the ext shaft to fit over the area where I moved the shoulder forward.

And a few male threads may have had to be turned off the back end of the rod's threaded shank for the shank to thread all the way into the ext shaft and tighten the bushing in place, I don't recall. Maybe the back end of the rod's shank was also shortened just a bit. It depends on the depth of the threaded hole in the ext shaft. This was a few years ago.

Yeah, those are weird threads.

I did not want to chase male threads on the front end of the rod's shank where I moved the shoulder! Or female threads deeper in the hole of the extractor shaft.

Note: The parts of the extractor rod may differ from your M53 as they evolved in those years; I don't have a M53 to check. But it shouldn't be a problem for you to get the shorter length that you need. It takes more time to explain this understandably, what's really a simple process.

The bigger problem for me on the standard non-magnum K frame is the short front frame face; the extractor shroud hangs down below the front surface. I raised the bottom edge of the shroud by removing metal until it looked better on the front face of the frame. You won't have that problem on a Model 53!

__________________
Jim
S&WCA #819