I have this sliding scale for silly guns and often useless guns. Sometimes, useless guns are the most fun guns. I love fun guns. The scale in my brain combines price with weirdness and potential for fun, and the Rossi Brawler is no different. The weird and fun scores of the Brawler seemed to peg high, and when I saw the price, it instantly pegged high on all three scales. For about $200, you could have something that resembled a modern pirate pistol.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Rossi Brawler is a single-shot pistol that chambers both the .410 and .45 Colt. The barrel is 9 inches long, but it’s not a short-barreled shotgun or “Any Other Weapon” because it comes with a rifled barrel. It’s a handgun and nothing more. If I had to guess, Rossi took their Tuffy shotgun, cut the barrel off, swapped to a .410 compatible .45 Colt barrel, and slapped a rail across the top.
The Rossi Brawler: Take It Outside
Rossi sells the Brawler for about $200-$250. I’m an instant buyer at that price point because it seems so dang fun. The barrel is 9 inches long and can chamber up to a 3-inch long .410 shell. The Rossi Brawler comes with a fairly long rail across the top, and hidden in that rail is a small rear sight. Up front, we have a simple fixed front sight. The rail is long enough to fit a long eye relief scope or just about any red dot on the market.
Rossi has designed the Brawler with user convenience in mind. The extractor and ejector combo ensures that the cartridge is automatically ejected when you open the barrel. This feature eliminates the need for manual extraction, a common task with other firearms in this price range. It’s a small detail, but one that adds to the overall user experience.
Like a single-shot shotgun, the gun features a break-open action. The barrel release sits to the right of the hammer, and beneath the hammer sits a manual crossbolt safety. The large, rubberized grip is a nice touch. With high-recoiling guns, you want as much grip as you can get. The soft rubber design also helps absorb some recoil and spares your hands from a little pain.
The Brawler measures 14 inches overall, weighs 36.8 ounces, and is a very silly little gun. Does that mean it’s useless? No, but let’s make sure it performs before we start talking about usefulness.
Hammering With the Brawler
I like single-action, manually cocked weapons. There is something satisfying about cocking the hammer to the rear. The Brawler gives you that satisfaction as it boasts a hammer-fired design. But having long thumbs helps, as the hammer is hard to reach. Honestly, using your offhand is the best way to cock the gun. It’s just huge. Once the hammer locks to the rear, a short but somewhat stiff trigger pull gives the full send reaction.
Let me tell you, you think an almost 40-ounce gun would eat recoil, but it seemingly does nothing for you. The .45 Colt cartridge is a bit snappy but not uncomfortable. It’s a bit of a stiff recoil push, but it’s not terrible. Once you move to .410, you get less of a push and more of a shove. The big rubber grip does a great job of helping reduce recoil and keeping the weapon safe.
It doesn’t twist or attempt to escape your hand, and I think Rossi thought out the grip of this gun. The Brawler feels like it once to fight you because it’s punching you in the hand with every short of .410. The grip does a great job but can’t eliminate the force generated by a 3-inch load of 000 buckshot. Grip it with two hands and keep ahold of it.
Accuracy and Patterns
The Rossi Brawler should be judged on its accuracy with .45 Colt and patterns with .410. I started with .45 Colt and only used the included iron sights. They are small but still usable. The 200-grain .45 Colt rounds dropped right in, and I carefully aimed at a B8 target and let the lead fly. I fired five rounds slowly, in an offhand position without a rest.
I trotted up to the firing line and looked at the target. The .45 Colt rounds all hit the target but were all over the place.
I’m not a pro shooter, but I know I can accurately drop five rounds from a Sig Sauer P365 into the black of a B-8 at 25 yards. The accuracy issues likely come from a few sources.
First, I’m using a cheap cowboy .45 Colt. It’s not the most accurate stuff, but that still shouldn’t create such a deviance. The chamber is 3 inches long, so there is roughly a 2-inch unrifled opening the .45 Colt has to jump through, which will affect stability and accuracy. Finally, the light rifling inside the barrel isn’t going to be the most accurate option either. They use a light rifling to help with shotgun patterns.
The Shotgun Aspect
The gun performs below average with a .45 Colt but hits the “F” mark with most .410 shotshells. The patterns suffer the donut of death effect well known to occur with the Taurus Judge (excluding the Home Defender). The short barrel and rifling don’t play friendly with patterns.
When shooting the Judge, I noticed an extreme spread that was inconsistent with buckshot. We achieved the donut of death with birdshot, where pellets created a circular pattern with a large gap in the middle. If I aimed it at a snake, I might hit it.
We saw an improvement with purpose-built loads designed for the Jduge and other similar .410 pistols, rounds like the Hornady Critical Defense loads, the Winchester PDX .410, and the Federal .410 Handgun. I tried these loads, and they work well. The tightest patterning is the Hornady Critical Defense.
Going Bang
The gun can work well with some very specialty ammo. Other than that special ammo, the Brawler doesn’t perform exceptionally well. The accuracy with .45 Colt isn’t stellar, and standard shotgun ammo sucks through it. The gun has some potential and is a neat idea, but it’s a tough sell for anything serious. I think this would be a sweet option for survival if it worked.
Between .410 and .45 Colt, the Brawler could be a stellar survival gun. The powerful .45 Colt could take deer and even bear with the right load. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s a choice. The ability to use .410 makes it solid for killing small game at close range, like squirrels and rabbits. It could still be used for that role, but you must have specialized .410 on hand.
As a cheap, fun, and weird gun, the Brawler is fantastic. I don’t mind cheap, fun, and weird at all. It’s enjoyable to shoot, especially if you like heavy recoiling weapons. If you just want to pop balloons and ring steel, it will satisfy you. It’s got the fun gun thing nailed, but not much more than that.
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