Judge reloads

[bladesmith 1]

I ordered a Judge for wouldn't you know it - skeet shooting. Why ? Well, maybe 15 years ago, not sure, we were down in Ohio to a SxS Shoot. The guys there claimed the fellow running the club had shot a 20 or 21 at skeet with one. So I thought I'd try it . But after I ordered it I got thinking the rifled barrel would make the patterns toooo big at any distance at all. Has anyone tried 8s or 9s in a Judge at 20 yards or so ? It's claimed the rifling is very shallow to help combat this problem. Guess I'll know first hand pretty soon.

 

[Rob228]

At 7 yards with a Governor the pattern is bigger than an IDPA target and has a TON of gaps in it. Even with 000 Buck I was lucky to get all three pellets on a torso at 7 yards.

 

[bladesmith 1]

Thanks for the come back but I'm not sure if it's going to help. They advertise the Judge as having very shallow rifling so as to help the shotgun patterns not to spread too much. It should be here pretty soon. I'll try it out and report back.

 

[mehavey]

20/21 w/ a Judge?
Maybe if staying at Low House /Station-7

 

[The Happy kaboomer]

Was tried 50 years ago with Thompson Contenders.......They even had a device that would stop wad rotation on exit from barrel. DIDN"T WORK so it died out.......SO. It's a waste of time and shells.

As far a guy running 20/21 with judge or govenor. I call BS on that.

 

[bladesmith 1]

With a T/C my friend shot a 17/25 at skeet, so with practice they will work. Of course there were no doubles.

 

[bladesmith 1]

The FFL I usually do business with can't get a Judge. I checked with a couple of other ones in my area and the same thing.

 

[Scorch]

With a T/C my friend shot a 17/25 at skeet,

Having spent some time shooting trap and skeet on a league and having spent a bit of time shooting TC Contenders, I find this hard to believe. Not because the .45/410 barreled TC Contender isn't effective, but because it takes so long to reload and get back into action after the first shot. In skeet, you have about a second between the first shot and the second in order to break both birds. I have seen people with a single shot and a clay target thrower break a clay bird each time one was thrown, but that is wwwaaaayyy different from skeet or trap. Birds are launched much faster from skeet or trap target launchers so there is little time to dig the shell out and reload.

As far as how far you can hit a clay pigeon with a Judge, I played around with handgun shot shells a bit years ago. At 15' your pattern has enough holes in it to make it hard to consistently hit clay targets. The Judge is sold as a HD revolver, where distances would be 5'-10'. At trap range distances the 3 and 4 projectile HD loads would not be suitable for flying targets, and birdshot loads would be spread out so thin that if you hit a stationary clay target (let alone flying) it would be extremely rare.

 

[Drm50]

I have little trap and no skeet experience. I do have experience with Judge, Circuit Judge, Governor, both types 410 / TCs and a Comanche? Single shot. I rate them all as novelties and while I’m not calling anyone a liar, anything can happen once. If I had to pic one it would have to be the old type TC. By the time shot size is big enough to have killing power the pattern is so wide and sparse it’s useless.

 

[44 AMP]

By the time shot size is big enough to have killing power the pattern is so wide and sparse it’s useless.

I disagree. Though you do need to pattern YOUR gun with YOUR ammo, to see what/where and how big the holes are. Once you know that, at a given range, then its just a matter of you, holding "off" enough, in the right direction so that a dense part of the patter strikes the intended target.

#7.5 and a .410 fired from a .45 Colt Contender has been a rat wrecker supreme at 15yds and less, for me.

 

[bladesmith 1]

It wasn't 20 out of 21 targets thrown, but 20 or 21 out of 25 on a skeet range. At trap, no way and even skeet that may be a stretch. The Judge cost in the 600 dollar range and are advertised as having shallow rifling. If I ever get one, to get it to shoot decent patterns the rifling may have to be made a bit more shallow, if you know what I mean.

 

[44 AMP]

I think I know what you mean, but do remember that Federal law does not allow unregistered smoothbore handguns, AND it may not matter anyway...

Remember that all those Judges, Governors and the TC Contender barrels are .45 caliber, NOT .410!

Despite the base wad expanding to provide a gas seal, you're firing a .410 shotshell down a .45 caliber barrel.
So, in addition to what ever amount of spin the rifling imparts, there is also the fact that the shot column is not tightly confined in the bore the way it is in an actual .410 shotgun barrel.

I suspect this could lead to a degree of randomness not present in an actual shotgun, which could affect the uniformity and density of the pattern downrange.

 

[cdoc42]

I've successfully used the Thompson Contender 14" barrel with .410 shells and #7.5 shot on pheasants and chukars hunting over a shorthair pointer. Similar to 444AMP, I've also used my Ruger .44 Mag with handloaded Speer capsules holding either #6 or #7.5 shot on a big rat in my back yard, and I shot 2 pheasants when I had a Beagle in the 1980's, long befoe I got the Thompson. I never had to pattern either one.

 

[bladesmith 1]

A couple of years back I used 12 to 28 Gauge Mates in my 12ga SxS. I still have two sets of 10/12 Gauge Mates, and they work quite well. How those 12/28 GMs ever worked I don't know seeing how they are only 3" long, but they did. I sold them to a cop friend for his wife to shoot skeet.
Oh, the rifling would still be visible - don't want to break any laws.

 

[bladesmith 1]

Reading some history about the Judge - it was renamed the Judge because judges in Miami were carrying them for protection. They liked the fact that the shot would open up to a large pattern very close because of the rifling. Maybe in the court room ?
Anyways, I finally found one. 6" blue - just what I wanted. I had some old reloaded 45s - one ripped the case open. The 410 reloads stuck in the cylinder after firing. That's my fault. I use a Mec 650 and it doesn't resize. Maybe buy a resizing collet for my Super Sizer if I can get it to throw a decent enough pattern for skeet. Oh, I couldn't hit but 1/6 from station 7. Not good.
It was very conferable to shoot with their rubber grips. The pistol looks like it would weigh a ton, but it's not anymore than a 1911. It also has a decent trigger - fairly light, a little creep, but not too much. I'm not real impressed with the type of finish. It's black and seems to mark up too easy.

 

[44 AMP]

it was renamed the Judge because judges in Miami were carrying them for protection. They liked the fact that the shot would open up to a large pattern very close because of the rifling. Maybe in the court room ?

Never heard that story before...anywhere.....ever....

Learn something new every day it seems...

 

[bladesmith 1]

Well, yes you do learn something new. You need to get out more. Just type in the question - how did Taurus name the judge.

 

[TruthTellers]

I think the Circuit Judge rifles could have potential given they have the insert/adapter/tube that reduces or eliminates the spin of the shot from the rifling and they'd be way better than the single shot T/C's from back in the day.

I have been waiting for a year to get a Circuit Judge at a fair price and it appears they're starting to show up.

The .410 revolvers have no use or place on a skeet range, they're trail guns with the .410, home defense guns with .45 Colt.

 

[stinkeypete]

Tungsten. The data is all in, the field testing done, tungsten shot is absolutely what you must carry for ammo in your Judge.

It’s 20 percent denser than lead, but that doesn’t mean it’s 20 percent better. It’s far better than that because volume is proportional to the radius of the shot CUBED, while the aerodynamics are proportional to the radius squared.

The stuff is crazy hard, too.

Tungsten 1 ounce pheasant loads go from no.4 shot lead to no. 9 shot tungsten. The number of pellets go from 84 (lead no. 4) to 362 (tungsten, no. 9) with superior penetration at 50 yards. It’s Just fisiks. It’s 4 times as deadly.

People are using their .410s as deadly Turkey guns with tungsten ammo and swear by it. No joke.

Number 2 tungsten shot? One ounce of shot is 54 pellets acting like buckshot at 50 yards.

“But Pete, it’s just a lil’ .45… I can’t shoot an ounce load!”

Okay, shoot a quarter ounce of Tungsten. That’s “only” 12 pellets of buckshot equivalence.

Anyone not using Tungsten ammo just plain doesn’t care about ammunition performance.

Now your Judge is a do-all Bear Stopping Turkey Shooting pistol you can duck hunt with. You just have to get out your credit card.

 

[bladesmith 1]

It's fine you enlightened all of us about tungsten shot, but that's not the problem. It's the twist in the rifling making the shot spin. That opens the pattern up real, real fast. When using a shotgun shell with buckshot as a personal defense weapon Taurus wanted the pattern to open quickly. A little more quickly than what I want. T/C used a straight rifling choke that attached on the end of their barrel to counter the barrels twist rifling. And that's what I think maybe I can do with the help of a really good machinist who shoots shotgun with me.