Smith& Wessons Governor

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reuben mishler

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I'm still on the fence about what I think about the Taurus Judge and Smith's new Governor. I do think they are an interesting concept. I've seen a lot of Judges having broken cylinder locks...other then that issue, heard no complaints.

Has anyone gotten their hands on a Governor yet? And if so, what do you like or dislike about it?
 
If S&W will make it in stainless, I will think about it. I not a fan of aluminum framed guns.
 
man now I'm interested.. does the judge shoot .45 acp as well? I thought it just shot 45 lc and 410 shells.
 
Gimmick that appeals to the novice, but is pretty worthless to the experienced shooter. There IS no outdoor use for the thing, well, snakes if you can't shoot well enough to hit a snakes head at 10 feet with a .22 and you're un-naturally paranoid of one of God's creations and just can't step around it. :rolleyes: i never understood this fear of snakes thing. If one comes in my yard, a garden hoe will rid my yard of it. Out on my land, my snake boots are good protection. It's the unseen ones I worry about. If I can see it, it's not a problem.

As far as self defense goes, the .410 out of a short barrel is not that impressive. If you get all shot on a target, well, it's like getting shot with 5 rounds from a Colt .31 pocket revolver. I guess that's powerful enough, but I'd much rather hit with ONE .38 special or .45 ACP or .357 Magnum or .40 S&W or, 9x19 or whatever service caliber you wanna name as your favorite. Heck, if you can haul around one of these things concealed, you can conceal a M29 Smith in .44 magnum, Harry Callahan's favorite. :rolleyes:

So, well, I've never ever thought I needed one of these things. I have a .45 Colt/.410 barrel I sorta like on my Contender along with other barrels for other duties. I have a .22 barrel that's killer on squirrel, a .30-30 that's killer on deer and hog. The .410/.45 colt is kinda sorta worthless except that the barrel IS choked, actually has some useful range unlike the Judge, and is kinda fun to knock around with out on my place. I've taken out grackles with it just for fun, shot a rabbit at 17 yards on the run with it once. That was cool, sorta made me feel like Wild Bill. :D When I actually am bird or rabbit hunting, though, I'll pick my 20 or 12 gauge every time.

I shot at a squirrel once at 25 yards with my Contender, tight as it patterns with that choke, the squirrel scampered off laughing at me. The pattern simply wasn't tight enough at 25 yards to not leave a squirrel sized hole in it. I knew that from the pattern board, but shot anyway hoping for that golden BB. I'd have had the last laugh with my .22 barrel installed, I assure you. Now, the Judge has 1/4 the range of that contender, no choke and shorter barrel, yet I hear guys waxing on about how this gun is such a great survival tool affield. Something tells me they're never tried to hunt with it. :rolleyes:

I really don't know WHAT the things are good for except sales figures for Taurus. The Judge probably outsells all other of their revolvers combined! I see guys chatting about 'em in gun stores or at shows swooning over how great one of 'em would be....for what, i have yet to determine, but Taurus does seem to get a lot of interest with the things. What's even stranger, the Thunder Five has been out for YEARS and never created much interest at all let alone THIS much interest. :rolleyes: Go figure.
 
I always thought the Magnum Research BFR was going to take off in .45/410, because of the variable choke capability. Furthermore, it's associated with a brand that's associated with the Desert Eagle, which is associated with a hundred cool Hollywood guys (none of whom I can remember ... mind like a sieve!)

So then Taurus comes up and beats the pants off of both MIL's Thunder Five and MR's BFR. I guess the recognizable Taurus name plus the swing-out, double-action features beat all. Let's see how S&W does. If it takes a gimmick or two to keep S&W in business, they have my greenlight.
 
BBroadside said:
So then Taurus comes up and beats the pants off of both MIL's Thunder Five and MR's BFR. I guess the recognizable Taurus name plus the swing-out, double-action features beat all.
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That and the name of the gun itself, I reckon.
 
The real issue with the Taurus is the angled rifling. My now-departed example was not terribly accurate with .45 Colt, and had about the same effective range as a .38 snub with snakeshot...that is to say, maybe 10'. Then the spin imparted by the rifling scatters the shot to the point of ineffectiveness.

Since the rifling isn't making the .45s shoot well, why not use twistless rifling and see if that creates a more effective range? Conventional wisdom always held that snakeshot worked better out of snubs than long barrels due to less spin imparted by too much barrel.

I don't look forward to murdering snakes, but copperheads are abundant down at camp, and we are a long way from an emergency room. I'd hoped that the Judge would give me a little range on my usual .38. It didn't, and as a PP noted, it's huge. It's also gone. I'll at least have a look at the Smith version.
Moon
 
Odd, the wife's 3" cylinder Judge will kick a can up into the air at 30' with #4 shot and several pellets striking home.
 
If you aren't interested in the self defense aspect and just want one because they are neat or fun, I'd recommend saving a few bucks and getting a Super Commanche. 10 inch barrel/single shot, decently accurate with the 45 and slugs and fun with skeet. It also rides shotgun for roadtrips.
 
Just trying to steer this back in the right direction. I understand these handguns are more for fun then maybe a practical use...but would still like to hear from someone that got their hands on Smith & Wesson's Governor. Just because it might not be practical, doesn't mean I don't want to hear feedback about them.

If you've had personal experience with the Governor, speak up!
 
I expect someone might answer you when Smith and Wesson finally starts shipping the things. :rolleyes: I've not been really looking hard, but have heard they're not shipping, yet.

The real issue with the Taurus is the angled rifling. My now-departed example was not terribly accurate with .45 Colt, and had about the same effective range as a .38 snub with snakeshot...that is to say, maybe 10'. Then the spin imparted by the rifling scatters the shot to the point of ineffectiveness.

Since the rifling isn't making the .45s shoot well, why not use twistless rifling and see if that creates a more effective range? Conventional wisdom always held that snakeshot worked better out of snubs than long barrels due to less spin imparted by too much barrel.
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My contender barrel uses straight rifling in the screw on choke tube to stop the spin. It shoots like a rifle to 15 or 20 feet and is pretty effective to 20 yards. Far as accuracy goes, too much freebore for much accuracy. Even the rifle accurate Contender is only so, so with .45. I scoped mine when I first got it just to see what I could do at 100 yards, and 8" is about it. I can get 4" groups out of my Blackhawk at that range and 1.5" out of my .30-30 barrel.
 
Remo223 said:
...and that's probably the reason why the S&W version will never take off.
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Yeah, it probably won't (but who knows?). I realize that S&W's marketing department was thinking that a governor is a higher-ranked official than a judge, but it just doesn't have the same Hollywood-style "ring" that appeals to the masses. Besides, for those who overthink these sorts of things, mostly what a governor can do with regard to court cases is commute sentences--yawn. They might as well have called it "The Plea Bargain." :)

Instead of "The Governor" I think that S&W should have named it something like "The Verdict". :D And that's only because I'm guessing that "The Executioner" would be a bit much. ;) I wonder what's next, a 12-shot .22 Magnum revolver named "The Jury"? :rolleyes:
 
I heard a rumor S&W is coming out with a 4mm airsoft revolver called "The Recused"...

OK - enough fun. I'm actually planning on picking one of these things up for ONE reason only...to get that dang squirrel that sneaks up behind me every year I bear hunt and makes my greenish camo more brownish with his sudden chattering :)
 
Smoovebiscuit,
Yes it does shoot 45acp and it comes with moon clips. Spoke with S&W on Monday and rep said he doesn't know when the company will release them.
 
I always thought one of these would be good to carry while working on my food plots, say if a stupid partridge showed itself.
 
People who use shotguns often know that they need to pattern the loads. The idea isn't to decide that, because one load shoots poorly, the gun is useless, but, rather, to find the most effective load for that particular gun.

Obviously, some people have gotten their Judges to shoot out to 30' with shot loads, as quoted above. I also wonder about the accuracy, or lack thereof, that is so often quoted. Not everyone can shoot a pistol into 1"@ 25 yards. Nor does every pistol like every load fired through it.

I, personally, have used .38 CCI shot loads on a pattern board at 10', and believe me, a snake is safe from all but the "golden BB". This was in a S&W Model 10 6", a Taurus Model 66 3". and a Ruger Security-Six 4".

I patterned a 3" Judge with the Fiocchi #4 load at 10 yards, and got lethal to snakes patterns there. With Estate loads of #4, there were holes in the pattern at 10 yards that a coiled rattler was safe in.

It's too easy to dismiss something that one doesn't care for. A little actual research might just fix all those pesky "problems". However, that would eliminate the pontificating as well. Darn.:)
 
If you really want some fun, get out your BFR 410/45 with the 7 1/2" barrel and modified choke, and try to hit some clay pigeons with 3" 7 1/2 shot.
 
JR, I patterned everything in the .410 drawer (which was quite a lot as we have an 18" H&R .410); none of them patterned especially well once you got beyond the 10' mentioned. I'm an okay handgunner, and wasn't able to get any respectable groups on a bull at 50', tho' it held center mass on a B-29 silhouette at that distance. But then, so will a Centennial or a Kahr P380, and in smaller groups.
Tried some triple buck loads at the same distance in lane one with carefully aimed shots. I mention lane one because it is against the range wall, and some of the pellets struck the wall before they could reach the target.
I like the notion of a straight-rifled chaser tube for shot loads to maybe remove the spin.
My 2" Centennial will make a deadly buzz for a snake at 10'; if I were filing notches on my snub, it would have quite a few. And I'm apt to have my snub if it is really needed.
Moon
 
Your Centennial proves the point, sir.

I'm an okay handgunner, and wasn't able to get any respectable groups on a bull at 50', tho' it held center mass on a B-29 silhouette at that distance. But then, so will a Centennial or a Kahr P380, and in smaller groups.
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Do either of them hit anywhere nearly as hard? That strikes me as saying that you can get center-mass hits at 50' with a S&W .500 Mag, but that your Ruger Mk.II Bull-barrel can do it also, and with smaller groups. Again, did you try different loads.

My ".410 drawer" currently consists of Winchester, Remington, Fiocchi, Estate, PMC, and Rio brands. In each are several different shot sizes, slugs, and Buck loads. Including the Winchester PDX.

My ".45 Long Colt drawer" has ammo from Winchester, Remington, Garrett, Federal, Cor-Bon, Hornady, and Speer.
 
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