Yes, Taurus has been selling the heck out of the various Judges so S+W decided that they wanted some of that high dollar snake gun pie.surprise_i'm_armed wrote: Surprisingly to me, Smith and Wesson has now come out with a similar revolver known as The Governor.
They have improved upon the Judge by making it 6 rounds instead of 5.
A further improvement they have made is allowing it to use .45 Long Colt, .45 ACP, and .410 shotgun shells.
Please comment on your experiences/perceptions of the Judge/Governor style of revolvers.
Have the Judge sales stats been so good that SW had to come up with the Governor to take market share?
TIA / SIA
These are my perceptions.
As a self defense gun it has a lot of problems. Limited capacity and slow to reload. Well, my J-frame has some of the same issues but it is much more concealable and with speed loaders I can get a shot to shot reload time of around 4 seconds. I don't think they make any 5 shot 45 LC speed loaders for the Judge, it would be interesting to see if the ones for a S+W 25-5 would work on the S+W Governor.
410 shot shells are not proven self defense performers. The latest Box Of Truth link showed that some of the loads did have adequate penetration but most did not. Additionally, when shot out of a rifled barrel, pellets spread way to much to keep on a target. Look at the last page in this BOT feature.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot41.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
#6 birdshot goes off a 18" X 25" target at 7 yards.
#4 buck goes off a 18" X 25" target at 7 yards.
PDX1 load goes off a 18" X 25" target at 7 yards.
What happens when your attacker is at 10 yards? 15? What are you going to do about those stray pellets or buckshot that are flying down range. If he's 8 yards down the hallway with the kids bedroom beyond, what are you going to do?
Taurus pretty much markets this gun as a self defense gun. It looks very intimidating at first glance. But, IMHO, It's a very poor choice for self defense. Heavy, limited capacity, slow to manipulate and inaccurate with shot shells.
The commercials look cool, though.
Gringop