Key Points and Summary – The Taurus Judge looks unbeatable on paper: a five-shot revolver chambered for both .45 Colt and .410 shotshells, marketed as the ultimate close-quarters defender.
-Expert Christian D. Orr walks through its history, specs, and intended role before taking a snub-nosed Judge to the range.
Taurus Judge. Image: Creative Commons.
-There, things fall apart. With .45 Colt, the cylinder bound repeatedly and trigger and cocking were rough, likely due to machining issues. .410 loads ran smoother and patterned acceptably at 7 yards, but accuracy collapsed at 25 yards.
-Orr’s conclusion is unforgiving: skip the Judge and buy a real .410 shotgun or a dedicated .41/.45 revolver instead.
Taurus Judge Range Test: Big Bore Hype, Big Disappointment
History is replete with handguns that sounded great in theory and looked great on paper, but turned out to be disappointments in practice.
For example, in the early 1990s, Colt’s long-awaited first “Wonder Nine” (a high-capacity 9mm semiautomatic pistol), the All-American 2000, turned out to be an unreliable hunk of junk.
Around that same time, Browning, maker of the iconic Hi-Power pistol, came out with the BDM (Browning Double-Mode), a 9mm autopistol that offered the option of being fired either like a traditional double-action (TDA) or a double-action only (DAO); a fine piece, but for whatever reason, the BDM just never caught on with the gun-buying public.
And then there’s the current subject at hand, the Taurus Judge revolver.
Revolver Shotgun Taurus Judge. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
This gun offers a seemingly unbeatable dynamic duo of big-bore power: .45 Colt (often erroneously called “.45 Long Colt [LC]”) handgun rounds and .410 shotshells.
So, what’s not to like about it?
Well, as it turns out, plenty.
Taurus Judge History and Tech Specs
Interestingly, when the gun first debuted in 2006, it wasn’t named the “Judge.” Instead, it carried the dual designations of the Model 4410 and 4510, intended as a sport revolver and for “snake defense.”
However, as noted in an article by the late Dick Metcalf, “Taurus chief Bob Morrison heard that several judges in high-crime jurisdictions of the Miami area were buying the gun for personal defense in their courtrooms. Intrigued, he initiated a test protocol to evaluate the effectiveness of the revolver for close-range personal defense when loaded with then-available .410 shotshell varieties. The results exceeded his expectations.”
A quick aside about the .410 shotgun round for the benefit of any of our readers not familiar with shotguns; it is measured in caliber, i.e., hundredths of an inch, rather than gauge, which is applied to the .410’s larger cousins, the 20-gauge, which is equivalent to .615 caliber, and the 12-gauge, which is comparable to .729 caliber.
For an additional frame of reference, the .410 is essentially the same bore size as the .41 Magnum handgun cartridge.
But how effective is the .410 out of a handgun barrel?
Taurus Judge Revolver. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Mr. Metcalf stated that “Due to the .410 revolver’s rifled bore, even #4 game loads from the small-gauge .410 spread an even pattern that reaches about a 15- to 18-inch diameter only 10 to 12 feet from the muzzle. This makes the gun extremely effective as a point-and-shoot firearm in close quarters, and it is also much easier to maneuver and handle than a full-size shotgun in confined situations.”
Meanwhile, as for the .45 Colt caliber (not to be confused with the .45 ACP [Automatic Colt Pistol]), there’s never been any real controversy about its effectiveness as a self-defense round, dating back to 1873.
The Taurus Judge is a medium-frame revolver with a five-round cylinder. Whilst the variants come in barrel lengths of 2, 2.5, 3, and 6.5 inches, the standard model is the 3″ bbl. with a stainless steel finish and a weight of 29 ounces.
Taurus Judge Live-Fire Range (Unimpressive) Impressions
To indulge my curiosity about the Judge, I headed to the Silver Eagle Group (SEG) indoor pistol shooting range in Ashburn, Virginia, back in 2023.
In my 30+ years of shooting, this was actually only my second time firing a gun in the .45 Colt/Long Colt caliber, and my first time firing “shotty” rounds through a handgun.
Joining me in the fun this time was fellow shooting enthusiast Dr. Murray Bessette, who is nowadays a Trustee and Associate Director of Education Programs at the Remembrance Society of Washington, DC. The specimen we ended up renting had a blued finish and a 2-inch barrel.
Taurus Judge. Image: Creative Commons.
Ammo used was a 50-round box of Blazer 200-grain aluminum case jacketed hollowpoint (JHP) for the “LC” and a 20-round box of Hornady 2 1/2″ Triple Defense® for the shotty bore, which Doc Bessette and I split up evenly. I did 15 rounds of head shots at 7 yards and 10 rounds of torso shots with the .45 ammo and 10 rounds of torso shots at 7 yards with the .410.
Starting with the Blazer ammo, that was a nightmare. The cylinder kept binding, and even when the cylinder turned, thumb-cocking for single-action (SA) and trigger-cocking for DA fire were very rough. Murray noticed some burr on one of the chambers, by the extractor star.
Strangely enough, when we switched to the .410 rounds, the cylinder and trigger worked a heckuva lot more smoothly, with no issues.
While recoil with the .410 loads was certainly stout, it was nowhere near as punishing as, say, a Smith & Wesson J-frame snubby.
The gun was accurate enough at 7 yards with both calibers: 11 out of 15 .45 rounds took the A-zone box of the head, with four in the B-zone; nine out of ten .410 rounds stayed in the torso’s Z-zone. Shooting at the 25-yard line, accuracy flat-out stunk even after making “Kentucky windage” adjustments for my right-hand/left-eye cross-dominance.
The verdict? Guilty! Or as Murray eloquently put it: “The Judge needs to be impeached and disbarred.”
If you want a .410, get an actual shotgun in that caliber to maximize its power potential. Want a .41 caliber handgun? Buy Smith & Wesson’s Model 57 .41 Magnum (I used to own one and can vouch for its excellence.) Want a .45 Colt? Go with the classic Colt Single Action Army (SAA) “Peacemaker” or the S&W Model 25. (All three of these wheelguns give you a complete traditional six rounds in the cylinder as opposed to the Judge’s mere five.)
Want Your Own Taurus Judge?
Wait, seriously? You still want this miserable gat? Well, okay, it’s your own darn hard-earned money to spend during Christmas & Chanukah shopping season, not mine.
Official MSRP on the Taurus USA website starts at $1,569.00. True Gun Value states that “A TAURUS JUDGE pistol is currently worth an average price of $485.30 new and $354.58 used. The 12-month average price is $473.61 new and $375.29 used.”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
