Rossi Brawler - A Single Shot Pistol

 I'm not sure what's going on with Thompson Center these days but I haven't seen a Contender or Encore for sale in a while. With my increased focus on hunting guns, I like the idea of having a pistol of some kind that could be used to take whitetail deer. I don't have lots of money to buy a good revolver and do any work needed to accurize. I had thought about hunting down a Contender frame and building out a 44 Magnum or 454 Casull to hunt with but the frames can only be found on Gunbroker and are usually price gouged. Then I found out that Rossi has the Brawler. 

From the Rossi website.

The Brawler is a single shot, break action type weapon with a 9 inch barrel. It's chambered for 45 Colt and 3 inch 410 shells. Similar to the Taurus Judge revolvers, it still has a rifled barrel. 

I personally don't have much use for the 410 shotshell portion, however, I have seen some people hunt turkey with a similar 410 which I thought was interesting. I'd rather handload some hot 45 Colt for deer. According to Ballistics By the Inch, a +P loading of 45 Colt with a lightweight bullet should reach around 1100 to 1200 feet per second velocity from a 9 inch barrel. You can find their chart here. That said, the manual says to not use +P ammunition or .454 Casull. 

With the correct hollow point, that should be enough velocity out to around 50 yards for whitetail by my guess. That would, of course, depend on the bullet's velocity window. 

The pistol appears to come with a picatinny rail for mounting an optic of some kind but does have iron sights. The barrel doesn't have threads for a silencer and based on the profile of the barrel, it cannot be cut for it. The sides of the barrel are flat and close cut leaving no room for threads most likely. 

In the current configuration, it could be useful but what I'm holding out for will be either a .454 Casull version or even a 44 Magnum version that doesn't use shotshell. 

The best part of this is the price. The MSRP is $239 and I'm seeing early street prices under $200. That is very hard to ignore. Given the price, I may purchase one anyway, even if it isn't setup for good hunting ammunition. I do really hope that Rossi brings out a 44 Magnum or 454 Casull version of the Brawler.