Whee, a zwilling! (German word, essentially meaning "double-barreled gun where the barrels aren't the same calibre/type guns, from the word 'zwei', meaning two). There are also drillings(from 'drei', three') and even vierlings(of course 'four'). My sisters dad have, or at least HAD, one that I know of, in his case a drilling, a side-by-side shotgun, with an under-center-mounted...I want to say 6.5x55, which is a thoroughly Swedish round :) The model owned by your dad/grandfather is nearly a gun which the .410 reminded me of and I forgot to mention, in the shell post, namely the Air Force M6 survival rifle, which was a .410/.22 Hornet folding rifle.

>This shotgun is never
>going to be "tacti-cool".

Tacti? No. Just plain cool? Oh, yeah. Real cool people, or guns, don't need to advertise. They just ARE.

>Now, admittedly, this is a shotgun, they're not renowned for
>their... you know, precision. Still, they do have to be aimed
>at least a bit, and it seems to be that a bit of aiming is all
>you're going to do with this setup.

Yep. Rule of thumb, as *I* know it, is 1 inch of expansion for every yard. So, at 10 yards, you're at 10 inches. You can still miss by that. And even if you're doing bird-hunting, there is a LOT more empty air in a flock of water fowl than there is, well, fowl. So, you do need to aim at individual birds.

>Yep. It's a revolver designed to take .45 Colt (also known as .45
>Long Colt, because there used to be a .45 S&W that was shorter)
>cartridges or .410 shotshells. Because who doesn't want a
>revolver with a cylinder that's longer than some entire handguns?

You know, I was THIS (||) close to expand on the .410 post I made in the 'shell' thread, to include the Judge. Happy I didn't.

>Nowadays they've branched out a bit, although the Smith design lineage
>is still pretty apparent in their revolver line. The Judge here
>started out as a mortal .45 Colt large-frame revolver, until it
>occurred to someone that a .45-caliber chamber would accommodate .410
>shotshells if only the cylinder were long enough to hold them.

Taurus is primarily, today, known for the "Raging Bull", chambered for various mentally deficient calibers, like .454 Casull and .480 Ruger. And, since we're talking shotguns...they're working on a "Raging Judge" for 28 gauge. Because that's a good idea. Oy....

>Actually, The Insurance
>Adjuster would be a pretty good tongue-in-cheek name for e.g. a Mare's
>Leg style lever-action "rifle pistol". I mean, if I had one, that's
>probably what I would call it. But I digress.

Personally, it'll be my WWE wrestling name. Hey, they've had IRS...

>I'm guessing The Judge is a
>pretty unpleasant handgun to shoot. It seems to be made of a fairly
>lightweight alloy, and .410 might be a puny shotgun cartridge, but
>it's pretty frickin' big to put in a handgun.

If it's the alloy version, which I have to assume it is, with the look, as you say, it's at 24 ounces. That's not much for a long .410 OR .45 Colt. Painful would have to be my assumption.

>(As an aside, I have to wonder how many people are buying these things
>just for the novelty value, and because (unlike, for instance, those
>insane .500-caliber S&Ws or .50-AE Desert Eagles) they're very
>reasonably priced for the sheer amount of gun you're getting. Hell,
>that's what I did. Spotted it in a display case while looking
>to see if the shop had something I was actually looking for
>(they didn't), said, "What the hell is that? It looks
>preposterous, I must have it," and left with a small artillery piece.)

As good a reason as any, I suppose, but from what I understand, the shot part of the gun is really not up to it. The shell is too small(max of 5 shot) and the barrel is REALLY too short. You don't really hit anything beyond, more or less, contact range. Now, I've never shot it so I have *NO* idea, I'm just going from reviews, but...

>It is rifled, though; it has to be, or the ATF would classify it as a
>short-barrelled shotgun under the National Firearms Act and you'd have
>to pay a $200 tax to license one. (In California, they're deemed
>SBSes regardless and just flatly illegal.)

Ok, this is an interesting and weird one. Note that I am *NOT* a US citizen, but I tend to watch a lot of gun-related videos. And just recently Ian and Karl of InRange made a video about this very subject, so I looked it up a bit.
So, take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it, this is how it works:

A smooth-bore Judge wouldn't actually be an SBS, because it's not, and have never been, a shotgun. Shotguns, legally, are required to have a stock, in its original configuration. The Judge never had a stock, so it isn't a shotgun. That lack of shotgun-ness means that it can't be an SBS. What it WOULD be is an Any Other Weapon, because the over-all length is (significantly)less than 26 inches. An AOW has a $5 stamp tax, rather than the $200.

The reason that InRange brought it up is because Mossberg have managed to make something that isn't really any sort of a gun type other than 'firearm', and used a legal loophole, and this is very specifically a loophole. They've made a gun that isn't an SBS, because it's never had a stock, but which has a weird sort of long 'hand-grip' instead of a stock, which ALSO means that they managed to cut the barrel-length down without taking the gun to under 26". THERE is a good sign, when actual gun manufacturers make firearms specifically to avoid legislation.

>
>So, yeah. If you thought you'd never see a sillier firearm in these
>pages than the HK 416 pistol, well, so did I! But our Brazilian
>friends had other ideas.

Yep! Taurus is good at that. As noted above, the Raging Bull guns firmly fall under that one.

>"The Judge". Seriously. The last product I know of called The Judge
>was a special version of the Pontiac GTO that was offered in 1969, one
>of the musclecar era's last "like our factory hot rod, only even
>hot roddier!" packages. My dad bought one when I was in high
>school. It turned out to be a forgery (it was an ordinary GTO that
>someone had put a Judge deco kit on). That would be harder to do with
>this one, but I would believe that the name comes from a similar "more
>is more" philosophy sooner than that story about judges in Miami
>packing them. Although, then again, Miami.

Heh. Sweet car indeed, and, well, Miami indeed!

(Edit:Because spelling is hard)
...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!