i'd like to get a revolver in a few months...never owned one...ive only owned semi autos..the ability to shoot 410's and long colt seems like an interesting feature in a gun that is still small enough to be a CCW...i kinda feel like it might be gimicky though? anyways what are some of your experiences with the public defender and feel free to throw in your favorite small frame revolver

and im not looking to spend more than the $600's

I'm not sure I'd want to conceal carry any Judge but they're fun guns. They're great for toting around the ranch/lease, but for CCW there are much more compact and effective guns.

For carry, the 642/442 is legendary. Very light weight. Can ride high in a pancake holster or go in a pocket. And with rat shot, they're hell on snakes.

I may be in the minority but I owned a Judge and shooting it was about as much fun as smashing your thumb with a hammer. It is very forward (front) heavy so all the recoil is straight back. The recoil was enough that the back of the trigger guard would hit my middle finger where it wrapped around the grip. I had to wear leather gloves to shoot it and it still hurt a bit.

I saw all the ads about shooting a watermelon with it. In reality, shooting 410 shells, it would hold about a 20" pattern at 30 feet using #4 shot. Using 000 buck, the pattern was still big and the balls had very poor penetration on plywood. The 45LC was better.

When they first hit the market, everybody had to have one. Then about 2 months later, used Judges were popping up for sale on every forum I visit.

So that's my experience with the Judge. I got rid of it as quick as I could.

^^^^ This is a fairly typical scenario. You see them in the Trading Post – Swap – Classifieds section frequently.

Some people just got to have them... so people just got to get rid of them.

This post is dead on. You can get the stainless 642 at a good price on line. Bud's guns. It's well known. I shot the Judge several times--it's just a fun gun to shoot. I can throw up plastic bottles and blow them up in the air. I've patterned it at 15 to 20 feet and you would not want to be on the
receiving end.

I think they are more of a novelty than anything. They are fun to play around with but when shooting .410 at anything over 7 yards you are just going to sting the crap out of them.

The only place in the defensive world that this gun has a place (in my opinion) is for shooting a carjacker/mugger that is right up on you. And by then you probably wont get a chance to draw it anyway.

I watched a review on the judge, all negative

X2 on the novelty item. In 50 years of shooting I've owned a lot of guns and it's the only one that I would rate "worthless". Heck, I have a 22 rifle that has the bolt and magazine missing that I kept instead of the Judge. Just my humble opinion of course.

thanks guys...i've got a few semi auto's but no revolvers and dont know squat about them...the judge seemed like the best of both words but i guess like many products that try and do too many things they end up not doing any of those things good. def not looking for a judge anymore. guess ill start looking for a new revolver now

I carry a S&W 642 frequently. However, you might consider getting a small snubbie with a hammer. There are occasionally good deals on the 1 & 7/8 snubbies on here with the hammer, that way you can shoot them single action. Hammerless is nice for carry, but not a necessity. Lots of good deals on .38-only ones but you can occasionally find you a Model 60 that will handle .357 and .38 both.

I sometimes use the analogy that there were some people that wanted a car and some that wanted a truck. We gave them an El Camino and now nobody's happy.

The Judge kind of fits into that. It's very much a niche gun. If you have everything else to fit your needs, then it's pretty cool to own and play with and it's a hell of a conversation piece when you pull it out, but there are better tools for the job. I've toyed with selling mine and might one day, but I like blowing stuff up with it. Theres just something about .410 shells out of a revolver that's cool. I think I'll have to go shoot it this weekend now that I'm thinking about it.

I don't know if any of you follow this guy on youtube but he does some great weapon reviews and talks about real world scenarios with them. He just did one on the Judge a few days ago, pretty interesting. He tests several different .410 loads and there effectiveness at close range.

gbeard, after watching that video-you might have some laughs by driving up to my ranch and letting me shoot you at over
"7 yards" and see how that "sting" would be. Probably would be like feeling a paper cut.

A buddy got one as a Christmas present from his wife so I got to play with it in January. To me, it didn't feel very comfortable in my hand. We shot both the 45 and the .410. We wanted to see how the .410 patterned so we set a 4x8 piece of plywood against a fence. He shot it with 4 shot I believe from about 20 feet away...and that plywood was hit from top to bottom....HUGE spray, yet none of them penetrated very deep. Maybe with a heavier load it would be better, but I was not impreseed.

Great review.

Didn't care for it.