TTAG doesn’t have a monopoly on firearms-related truthiness. From time to time, gunsamerica.com is not averse to telling it like it is. “If you remember back to our original story on the Taurus Judge Polymer, one of the biggest problems with the gun was an almost complete lack of ballistic integrity.” OK, they almost didn’t sugar coat it. The hedge: Taurus’ shotshell revolver is effective at point blank range. Further out, not so much. Depending on the ammo involved, well, let’s just say they’re perfect for shooters who can’t hit the broadside of a barn. Or don’t mind collateral damage. (Non-LEOs need not apply.) And so “Hornady has engineered a new addition to their Critical Defense handgun ammo specifically for short barreled .410 pistols, called Triple Defense, and through powder blending and some interesting projectile choices, the .410 revolver can now at least be used as an effective self defense weapon.” As opposed to a target pistol. Here come da judge, here come da Judge . . .
That hollow base front bullet is bumped by the ball behind it, expanding it to bore diameter. This catches the actual rifling of The Judge and allows the bullet to hold point of aim out to 10 yards and beyond. The two balls are sub-caliber, so they seem to somewhat “float” forward with the main bullet. This allowed us to reliably hit a 6” circle at 10 yards. In maybe 4 out of 10 shots, one of the balls would be off the target, like we have seen with standard buckshot, but overall it wasn’t a bad average considering that most shots seemed to do exactly what you would expect them to do at this distance.
The big surprise was in our 10 feet tests. This is far from “point blank” distance, and we were able to reliably, every shot, pick out the bad guy in the Birchwood Casey hostage targets. The way this new Triple Defense .410 round is constructed, it seems like it will be consistent, regardless of where it shoots in your gun. The round itself is ballistically viable for self defense, and when you couple that with repeatability, it means that you can train reliably with your firearm for an actual gunfight situation. Knowing that the round is going to behave the same way shot after shot after shot makes all the difference.
Ya think? On the other hand, snake gun. And gunsamerica.com forgot to mention that the new round runs $18.20 for a box of 20. So that training’s gonna cost ya. Big time.