Initial Range Report For Rossi Circuit Judge

[8uck5nort]

Not impressed so far. However, I have only ran 50 rounds of commercial Remington 45 colt using lead wad cutters. At 25 yards It did OK. I was putting 3-4 inch groupings on paper. I have noticed a lot of lead fouling when cleaning afterwards. Don't know if that is normal with this type of ammo or cause it is new gun and/or barrel.

 

I got my 45 LC dies in and tumbled the brass so I am going to load up some Hornady flextip 225 gr bullets and some HP38 and Herco powder (not mixed of course) to see if this thing can perform better. I added a 4x32 Simmons scope to it as well. If I don't get decent groupings then I am going to trade it for something else. I gave into impulse and will probably eat some cash. I'll just look at it as "rental" gun. I have my eye on a few old milsurps at the local pawn... ;-)

[pacrat]

Remington WC and SWC bullets are dead soft swaged boolits and lead terribly.

[AzRednek]

Remington WC and SWC bullets are dead soft swaged boolits and lead terribly.

 

They shoot great with no leading in my Ruger after I had the cylinder reamed to .452. Prior it wouldn't shoot any lead without leaving a mess in my barrel. The cylinder mouths measurements were all over the place, as tight as .448 but most were around .450. If the Taurus Judge is like the Thomson-Contender 45 Colt/410 barrels. The rifling is really shallow, it is supposed to improve 410 patterns but it wont grab a lead slug properly. 45 shot groups might improve with jacketed bullets according to gun rag authors. If you're a hard core lead slinger, slug the bore and possibly you might be able to cast an over-size lead slug that might work. If the Judge's cylinder mouths measure under .452 it will never shoot lead worth a tinkers darn. What I learned from the smith that reamed my Ruger's cylinder. The only way to properly measure a cylinder's mouth is to slug each cylinder. he claimed a mike just wont show an accurate number.

[8uck5nort]

That may explain the erratic patterns so far. I ran about 30 jacketed bullets so far using the Hornady bullets and am getting improved accuracy on about 3 of 5 shots at 25 yards, but still not happy with it. It is not near as accurate as my 357 mag Carcano bolt action or the 44 mag Styer bolt action for that matter. I never put together that the cylinder measurements coud vary that much. I also may have had a loose scope that was causing issues. So I am not ready to call it a bust just yet. Did not discover that until last night when cleaning it after shooting yesterday. So I am not ready to ditch this just yet. Jury is still out. I am loading up another 50 rounds and will shoot some more by mid week. This is this things last chance. If no siginigficant improvement is noted it's getting traded in.

[8uck5nort]

Well, it looks, cool, it feels cool, but it shoots like crap with 45 LC. I tried several differnt loads. I got 1 decent 3 shot group (touch at 25 yards) one time of a rest with 7.5 gr of HP38 and a 225 Hornady flextip bullets, but also had two fiers in the same 5 shot group. It would probably do ok at very short ranges (50 and under) for deer, but I got a bow for that. I never ran 410 shot through it cause I really didn't get it for that reason. Just a bonus if it did well. It is getting traded today or tomorrow.