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.....