Rossi Circuit Judge 410/45

[Harrison S]

What are the thoughts on this unit?... what's its reputation for reliability, for accuracy, for usability?..... looking for some reviews based on first hand experience

[mickb]

I owned one and while fun I wasnt too impressed. It depends what you want out of it though. Reliability and durability were fine, built like a tank.The issue to me is the chambers are very long in order to handle the 410 shotshells. So you have some 'freebore' from the much shorter 45 colt before it engages the rifling. I only tried 1-2 types of 45 colt ammo from memory and couldnt do better than 3" groups at 50m. Thats not to say trying some other ones or reloads mightnt have done better.

The 45 colt is fairly anaemic in factory form as well, about 900-1000fps with cast bullet. This will still kill your medium game up close, but dont expect lights out kills like with a 44 mag or other centrefire and you are limited to about 80 yards.Blokes use 45 colts in lever actions and in a strong lever action you can load them right up to 44mag power or more. Im not sure and never looked into whether you can load 45 colt hotter in the Rossi judge.

They are also quite noisy guns, even with the low pressure 45 colt, as the cylinder gap releases gas in a revolver and normally thats held at arms length for a hand gun, but in a stocked revolver the position of the chamber is much closer to your face.Its not dangerous but it is blastier than a lever action.

Keep in mind field 410 shotshells will not pattern well in the guns rifled barrel, they will 'donut' as in spread the shot out leaving a hole or gap in the centre of the pattern. From memory that gun comes with a 'straight rifled' choke tube, which you insert before using 410 shot loads, which will return it back to a normal pattern. So you cant just run both 410 and 45 colt interchangeably, you need to switch that choke out depending on what you are shooting at the time. I never tried 410 ammo when I had mine.

If I had to sum up a real purpose for the gun, it might be in countries where you can use them for self defence- they would be a good point and click option for a family member to use. Easier to control than a hangun, no action to work for newbs, not prone to jams, just keep pulling the trigger. There are some self defence loads that work in 410 even with the rifled barrel like 000 buckshot and the shells filled with flat disks and slugs as its stacked in one line in the shell.
It can take medium game and handle dispatch tasks as well. One advantage might be you can one hand it on a bike or boat.

If I were to get another revolver rifle and actually use it for hunting it would be the 44mag version as the chambers are normal length for the cartridge which might help accuracy but I'd load it down to reduce the blast.

[Harrison S]

Interesting... I did look for the 44mag variant, but they seem rare as hens teeth