It's been almost a year now since I bought a Judge for a snake gun. I had been like many others who thought the Judge was an answer to a question nobody was asking. After getting one, my mind was changed and I ended up carrying it more than any other pistol during the past year. I also kinda became the default spokesman and advocate for the Judge in the process.
During the past year I've shot mine A LOT. 45 Colts and almost any 410 load imaginable. To summarize: The gun is more accurate with 45's than many on the internet believe and it is less effective than many casual handgunners believe when used with 410 shells. At close range, the Judge could be a viable self-defense gun especially with the specialty .410 loads developed for it and also with 45 Colts. At longer ranges, the patterns become unusable and the groups open up. I've never said the Judge was the best handgun ever made and I've never said it was a worthless POS. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Others had issues with Taurus quality control, saying it was less than stellar. I have owned six Taurus guns. All were acceptable to me...I thought. Bear in mind I HATE doing this as the fights over the Judge got pretty heated and like I said, I became its default champion.
I fired the gun a lot over the past months. I had never had any problems other than what I detailed in the review of the Judge I did and a couple of other threads. Most of the work I had done was accuracy work as opposed to combat-type shooting, since people wanted to know mainly about patterns. I had almost always fired it single action. A couple of months ago during one of the periodic flame sessions on the Judge, I decided since I had been carrying it so much I should test its double action capabilities. It would not always ignite primers double-action. Single action, the same primers have always went off. Double-action, even multiple strikes would not ignite them. I cleaned it, lubed it, tried it again and got the same results. I tried different ammo. I tried factory ammo. I tried it with shotgun ammo. All the same, no ignition sometimes.
So I became a member of the Taurus forums. It had happened enough that there was a fix for it. You had to clip about 1 1/2 twists off one of the springs. I did this. I still got misfires. So I got another Judge. Same exact configuration: 3" chamber, 3" barrel, stainless steel. I believe this is called the "Magnum". Same thing. I haven't shot the second Judge extensively, but the same thing. I can't nail down exactly which loads are not firing either. It seems to happen with both shotgun and handgun ammo.
So I spoke with a guy at a gunshow about this. He had a Judge on his table but he also had a Tracker. He said it had happened with his kid's Judge also and with his Tracker in .44 Magnum, as well. His kid had sent it back to Taurus and it had come back with the trigger, the aforementioned spring and IIRC, the flash hole fixed. There was a burr in the latter or something.
So evidently this problem is not new and is not mine alone. The Raging Judge, which I had only briefly, did not exhibit these same problems-but I didn't fire it nearly as extensively.
To summarize the most recent developments: I would not trust a Judge for serious self-defense work without first testing it double-action rather extensively-two hundred rounds of mixed-bag ammo, at least. The problems are fixable, but are of moderate severity, IMO. No worse than many 1911's. That said, I don't like a gun that I have to send back, work on myself, or have a gunsmith work on, to gain reliability.
I'm a strengths and weaknesses type guy when it comes to evaluation and this is a pretty big weakness IMO. Taurus could probably fix it and probably should, seein's how there are so many Judges out there now being relied upon for personal defense. I've been an advocate for the Judge, but now I have to report a significant deficiency. Be advised.
One more thing...I must stress, I had shot the gun extensively up to this point which must have occurred about two months ago (estimating). I just had not even thought to shoot it extensively double-action just to test it. It had always ignited primers on the rare occasion I did shoot it double action. I also watched a lot of videos on the Judge and read about it. Nothing was mentioned. So I had no idea this problem existed. Once I did, I made sure it was not some anomaly. It doesn't seem to be, so in the interests of safety and fairness, I have to report it.
