The Rossi Circuit Judge .22 Convertible: Stylish, fun, cool, but there’s one drawback

The Rossi Circuit Judge .22 Convertible: Stylish, fun, cool, but there’s one drawback 

 

Adding a longer barrel and a shoulder stock (either temporary or permanently mounted) was a logical extension of the development of handguns using a revolver design. The additions give you a bit more power — out of the longer barrel — and greater accuracy due to the larger sight radius and more stable ergonomics. Over the years various manufacturers have come out with different versions of these guns.

The Circuit Judge in .22 LR/Magnum is a slick-looking little gun with a number of interesting features. As mentioned, it comes with synthetic stocks, which are tough and nice looking. The front sight is very much high-visibility. And the Picatinny rail system means that this gun is ready to be customized with your extras (lights, optics, small espresso machine) with minimal hassle. And like the other Circuit Judges, it has these little curved ‘wings’ on the sides of the main frame, which shield the shooter from gasses escaping from the cylinder gap — protecting your arm when you reach up to hold the front stock of the gun.

Performance

We put the magnum cylinder in the gun, since we were using it as part of the Ballistics By The Inch .22 magnum tests. The iron sights on the gun were perfectly fine for the short range shooting, so we didn’t bother mounting any optics on it.

One odd thing I noticed right off the bat is how different it felt to be able to shoot the gun in either single- or double-action mode, just as with any SA/DA revolver. Which is to say, you could either cock the hammer back, and then squeeze the trigger slightly, or you could just leave the hammer down and do a longer pull on the trigger, and it would cock and then fire. This set up on a rifle just felt strange, but in both cases the trigger was decent and not hard to pull. It broke at about 5 pounds.

The small deflectors for the escaping gas from the cylinder gap worked just fine. Even shooting the gun in short sleeves, I felt nothing from the gas.