Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Taurus Judge failures?

Has anyone heard of these guns having part failures?
I had a patient in the ER last week who was shooting the 45LC. The cylinder split in half and made a large laceration on his index finger, we had to send him to a hand specialist.
Wondering if this is an isolated incident, or if there is a pattern. I don't know any other facts, ie: what ammo, how many rounds the gun had seen, etc....

Patrick

This is the first "Kaboom" I've heard of, with a Judge, but I haven't been keeping up with them, either.

I wonder if the "victim" was using Buffalo Bore ammo, or something similar, something NOT within SAAMI spec.?

I know several people who have them, thinking they have a riot gun with a cylinder, but that whole "concept" leaves me cold.

Too many variables to be suspicious of the gun first. You should do A LOT of investigation before worrying about the gun.

45 Long Colt is one of those rounds that has multiple levels of loading data because the ability of different models of guns so chambered to handle varying levels of pressure.

Operator error is more likely than manufacturing issues.

Sounds like someone trolling for a lawsuit and info.

The only "failure" I've seen with the "Judge" is the failure to be accurate.

And failure to eject the .410 shells without opening the cylinder and tapping them out with a pencil. Shot one at 15 ft. and every .45 bullet key holed into a nice 8-10" group. Total joke of a concept.

I'm not investigating....and I'm surely not looking for a lawsuit! The parents of the patient said they were going to contact Taurus....but that is all I know.
I just wondered if this was isolated or something that was cropping up. They said the gun was a year old.

Mine took two trips to Taurus and one trip to my local gunsmith to get it to work in a reasonable manner. It still fails to fire double action with .45 Colt rounds about 75% of the time.

The Judge seems to have problems with cylinder timing going bad.

I have never heard of one blowing up before but have heard about timing and cylinder indexing problems. A very weak point in the design is the long, heavy cylinder. The barrel of the yoke (or crane)is very long and it would not take much abuse before it might be slightly bent, causing the cylinder to be out of square with the barrel (the gun barrel, not the barrel of the yoke). You then get binding as the cylinder rotates.

A friend has a Judge and it is a very underwhelming weapon when used with shotshells in our experience.

LOL! That's the failure I was thinking about as well!

The Judge is not a strong gun as .45 Colts go. That said, it is certainly no weaker than a Smith 25 or the myriad SAA's or replicas thereof floating around. Has to be stronger than old blackpowder 45's as well.

As has been said, several different levels of .45 Colt loadings and loaded ammo available. Lots of variables besides the ammo alone. The Judge is so big and funky-looking that it just has the appearance of being a strong gun, but relatively speaking, it's not.

the only failures I have heard about, or witnessed first hand, are failures to actually perform as folks were led to believe they would.

Was he shooting buffalo bore or equivelant loads?
Th judge was not made with 325 gr at 1300 fps in mind.

That's what I'm thinkin'..

watched a guy shoot .45/70 out of one. his reason was that its a .45 to.... didn't explode but had me worried

Worried? I'd change it to, 'had me running'...

I've never heard of an outright failure. But the shop here sells a ton of them, soon as they come in they go out. They have a range and the guy was telling me it seems like they have a habit of shaving lead, right out of the box.

They are one gun I just can't warm up to. My local dealer sells a number of them. Considering the basic premise of the concept and considering the expectations that many people to whom that concept would appeal, I'm surprised we don't hear of more disasters associated with them.

Never had and .410's stick in mine, and have fired prolly 5 or 6 boxes of various .45 Colts with good accuracy...no key holeing. Lots of .410's as well.

Good trail gun IMOP.

LC

I never understood the whole premise of the firearm to be honest.

People who would NEVER reach for a .410 shotgun in a defense situation warmed right up to it in a handgun.....

Kinda like the .30-30, people will tell you it's not adequate for deer - except when shot out of a 14inch barrel of a handgun.....

My wife has one and loves it! She carries it in the glove compartment of the car. her theory? At car-window distance, why worry about aiming?

Needless to say, I do not appraoch the car unless she knows I am there...................

Oh! On another note, for many,many years, i worked part-time in a gunstore, and one of the old hands there would always recommend to ladies who came in 410 and 20ga (sometimes 12 for the BBW) single-shots (we kept a number with barrels cut to 19"or so) with low-brass bird shot. His theory? It won't go thru apartment walls and how much could it really spread across a bedroom?

This was a heated debate for many years int he store, and one day, a local surgeon was in and overheard our guy giving his sh-peil to a lady and her beau. the beau was discounting it, but the surgeon stepped up and told them both that he had been wondering who gave that advice. Seems that over the last few years, he had multiple times had to pick a large amount of birdshot and the odd wad as well out of criminals, caught in process of breaking into a home. Way that guy described it, the recipient was going to be plenty sore for a long time, and lost alot of muscle and skin and nerves as a result of having to pick all that crap out of them, so I guess that old guy was right.

I think that is the point of the Taurus judge

Greetings!

Since this revolver really wasn't developed with shooting .45 Colt cartridges in mind, I wouldn't waste my time with them. The ability to do so merely allows it to be sold without the 'Tax Stamp'.
I feel that Taurus missed the boat when they failed to develop a "T/C-Style" screw-in choke for this revolver; having done so would have greatly improved the shot patterns, and placed it into the "Handy-Gun/Small Game" category. I wouldn't mind hiking with a ".410 Shotgun" in a holster, that could pattern well enough for small game to 20-25yds.
Be Well, All!

M.T.Marfield:.

From the Gunsmith forum here at the 'Fire... more Judge troubles.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...353/gonew/1/help_w_a_taurus_judge#UNREAD

Makes me wonder, with indexing problems and lead shaving problems, can the indexing be so far off that the bullet couldn't go down the barrel and still be able to strike the primer?