Executioner

The Executioner (referred to as Raging Judge in early stages and game files) is a double-action revolver featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It fires 28 gauge shotgun shells as opposed to regular handgun rounds, giving it much more collective damage than other handguns at close range but inherently much less range.
==Campaign==
The Executioner can be unlocked in the customized loadout menu after the player completes five challenges in "Celerium". It also appears as Raul Menendez' signature handgun in the campaign. At the start of "Achilles' Veil", Menendez uses his Executioner to fire at some Quadrotors while making his way to the Citadel.
Once he reaches it, if the player chooses to shoot Menendez, he will grab Farid's arm before the player fires, then draw his Executioner, and then shoot him. Menendez will then lecture Farid on his loyalty and superiors before firing again, killing him. In "Odysseus", Menendez will hold Briggs hostage with the Executioner, then the player can wound or kill Briggs with the Executioner.
==Multiplayer==
The Executioner is the fourth handgun, unlocked at level 31.
Compared to other handguns, the Executioner has extremely high damage, but very poor range. The Exeuctioner fires eight pellets in each shot, an identical number to all shotguns except the slug shooting KSG. At any range shorter than 3.75 meters, the Executioner will deal thirty damage per pellet, meaning only four out of eight pellets in a shot must hit the target in order to kill. In hardcore game types, a single pellet will suffice. At 3.75 meters, the Executioner drops from thirty damage per pellet to fifteen damage per pellet. Between 3.76 meters and 12.5 meters, the Executioner will linearly decrease from fifteen damage per pellet to six damage per pellet. One shot kills are still possible after the drop from 30 to 15 damage per pellet, but they become very unlikely, and after roughly 8.5 meters, a one shot kill will become impossible in Core game types, and at the edge of the Executioner's effective range, a two shot kill also becomes impossible. The Executioner does no damage past 12.5 meters.
The Executioner has no headshot multiplier to speak of. A headshot will do the same amount of damage as a shot to any other part of the body. The Executioner, like the other pistols, has very low penetration power, meaning that the Executioner is only capable of piercing through the thinnest of cover. 
The Exeuctioner, in close quarters combat, has incredible per shot power, but this range is very short. Once the Executioner starts doing fifteen damage per pellet, its lethality is heavily diminished. Not being able to do any damage beyond 12.5 meters is also very restrictive, as it prohibits the Executioner from being used in medium range combat. The Executioner's performance also heavily wanes at the edge of its effective range, as around the 11 meter mark, the Executioner will need at least three shots to kill, which can easily lead to situations where the user fires all five shots at an enemy and the enemy does not die. The Executioner is intended to be used in CQC only.
The Executioner's rate of fire is the lowest in the pistol class, at 468 RPM. This isn't much of an issue, since the Executioner fires eight pellets in every shot to compensate for the lower fire rate. The Executioner's rate of fire is equal to the S12, and both are semi-automatic.
The Executioner's accuracy seems poor on paper, but is not a problem. The iron sights are extremely clean, with good definition on the front post, but recoil is very heavy per shot, with the gun kicking heavily upwards with every shot. The Executioner also has the lowest Centerspeed of all handguns, with a measly 900. However, although the recoil values seem very poor, they are not a problem, as the Executioner is almost always going to be used in close quarters, where the effects of recoil are lessened. On top of that, the Executioner, like any pellet based weapon, is not reliant on precision. The Executioner does have very high gunkick, which can obscue the user's vision and impair the ability to track targets while shooting. The Executioner also has by far the most idle sway of any of the pistols, having an amount of idle sway double that of the SMGs and LMGs. Aiming down the sight when using the Executioner reduces the spread considerably, although the Executioner's shot spread isn't large to begin with. As such, aiming down the sight should only be used at the edge of the Executioner's effective range.
The Executioner's handling traits are poor for a pistol. The Executioner has the standard pistol movement speed of 100% when moving and 84% when strafing, and it has standard switch speeds, but in all other facets, the Executioner's handling is poor. The Executioner has the slowest aim down sight time among any of the handguns, at 200 milliseconds, the SMG default. The Executioner also has the widest default hip-fire spread of all the pistols, although the Executioner's hip-fire spread is still better than the other pellet shooting shotguns. 
The Executioner reloads shell-by-shell, as it is a revolver and not a pistol. The opening of the cylinder and inserting the first shell takes 1.7 seconds, and all subsequent shells inserted take 0.6 seconds. Once the Executioner has been fully loaded, an additional 0.85 seconds is needed for the user to close the clylinder. The user can perform a reload cancel at any point during the reload, and can completely skip the animation of closing the cylinder. A full reload of the Executioner takes 4.95 seconds if no reload cancel is performed. The Executioner can take a very long time to reload, painfully so for a weapon with such a limited capacity. Because of this, Fast Mag is a very alluring attachment choice.
The Executioner has by far the lowest capacity of any of the handguns in Black Ops 2, holding only five rounds before needing to reload. Due to the Executioner's semi-automatic nature and the lacking damage per pellet it deals at the extent of its effective range, said five rounds can quickly evaporate. Up close, ammo can be conserved, seeing how the Executioner has very realistic one shot kill potential in CQC. Because of the low capacity, the Executioner user gets a measly twenty shots total at their disposal when spawning in. If using the Executioner in a primary weapon role, this may not be enough.
The Executioner has a limited set of attachments, as it is unable to equip the Extended Clip attachment. All other attachments remain available. The Reflex Sight is pointless on the Executioner, as not only are the Executioner's iron sights very good, but precision is not needed, and the Executioner can't be used in medium range combat anyway. At the ranges the player can use the Executioner, a Reflex Sight is simply unnecessary.
The Laser Sight tightens up the Executioner's hip-fire spread by 37.5%. This makes hip-fire with the Executioner much more precise. However, the Executioner's spread isn't too big, and tightening it up so much can reduce the room for aiming error in CQC. The Laser Sight is an attachment to consider carefully.
The Long Barrel borders on essential for the Executioner, as it increases the Executioner's total range and maximum damage range (the range which the Executioner can deal thirty damage per pellet) by sixteen percent. As the Executioner has a finite range in addition to extremely inconsistent damage inside said range, the Long Barrel allows the Executioner to be used at a longer distance, and also improves performance within the Executioner's range. The Long Barrel fixes what is by far the Executioner's biggest limitation, and allows the user to find more situations in which the Executioner is not only usable, but dominant.
FMJ increases the Executioner's penetration power, allowing the Executioner the ability to shoot through thicker surfaces. This gives the Executioner a unique ability among shotguns to shoot at enemies behind cover. FMJ also allows the Executioner to do more damage to Scorestreaks, allowing it to deal more damage to scorestreaks like Guardians and Sentry Guns. This attachment is an unneeded luxury, as there are simply other attachments that bring more to the table.
Fast Mag replaces the shell by shell reload of the Executioner and instead loads all five rounds in one animation. It functions identially to the Speed Reloader for the Python from Call of Duty: Black Ops. The Fast Mag reload will take 2.55 seconds, or 1.7 seconds with a proper reload cancel. A reload cancel with Fast Mag is on par with reloading just one shell normally, meaning that the Executioner's reloads are almost always improved regardless of how many shots are left in the chamber. This improvement is well worth investing in. A very popular attachment combination is to equip the Secondary Gunfighter wildcard and pairing this attachment with the Long Barrel. The two attachments in tandem go a long way to improving the Executioner overall.
The Suppressor is a terrible choice for the Executioner, as it lowers the overall range of the Executioner by ten percent. The Executioner's biggest weakness is its restricted range, and the Suppressor only exacerbates it. The Executioner is by far the worst pistol to use in a Suppressed manner. Even though the range penalty is minor, every bit of range the Executioner can get is priceless.
The Tactical Knife increases the swing speed of the Knife, allowing for faster follow up attacks with the knife. The Executioner can run out of ammo very quickly, and as such, the Tactical Knife can come in useful as a desperation move when the Executioner is dry and the player is in trouble. Overall, though, there are better attachments to use than this.
Dual Wield gives a second Executioner to use. Like with the Python in Call of Duty: Black Ops, using Dual Wield automatically gives the effects of Fast Mag, except it's even better, as a reload cancel can be perfomed in just 1.3 seconds instead of 1.7 seconds. Using Dual Wield increases the size of the hip-fire spread to a size on par with the pellet spread shotguns, making the Executioners much less precise overall. Dual Wield also slows down the switch speeds of the Executioner, making them less reactive as a secondary weapon. Dual Wield also prohibits the ability to use other attachments in tandem with it, most notably Long Barrel. The Dual Wield Executioners also significantly change the damage profile, as instead of dropping from 30 damage per pellet to 15 damage per pellet at 3.75 meters and declining linearly to 6 damage out to 12.5 meters, it drops from 30 damage per pellet down to 8 damage per pellet at 3.75 meters and linearly declines to five damage per pellet at 12.5 meters. This makes the Dual Wield Executioner monumentally less powerful, as a one shot kill will be completely impossible after 3.75 meters, and the two shot kill range is made significantly shorter. Dual Wield Executioners give a lot of firepower up close, but make the Executioners even more unwieldly outside of face-to-face combat. Dual Wield is an alluring attachment, especially considering that it speeds up the reload, but the downsides it brings and its incompatability with the Long Barrel make its value highly quesionable.
Overall, the Executioner is a highly specialized handgun that is much less palatable as a true secondary weapon than the others. The Exeuctioner is - by a wide margin - the most flawed handgun out of all of them. Between the finite range, radical damage drop-off in said finite range, the poor handling characteristics, the utter lack of sustained fire capability, and the terrible starting ammo loadout, the Executioner is much less useful as the backup weapon to a primary weapon. With that said, many of its weaknesses can be remedied significantly through attachment usage. As such, the Executioner is much less suited to being a backup weapon and is better suited for those who build a class around a secondary weapon. Those that can endure through the Executioner's many weaknesses will find themselves a weapon that can provide rare one shot killing power up close, and if not a one shot kill, an easy and consistent two shot kill. More than any of the other handguns, the Executioner needs at least one attachment equipped, and those that like to have a secondary weapon with no attachments will find next to no use for the Executioner. Even those who do equip an attachment on the Executioner will often feel the absence of attachments like Fast Mag or Long Barrel. 
The Executioner is the third weapon tier on Gun Game, where it is equipped with the Laser Sight attachment.  
The Executioner has since been buffed as of January 26, 2013's Title Update by having its damage at medium range increased from 10 to 15. It will now rarely take more than four shots to kill within short to medium range, making it a much more effective weapon overall.
==Attachments==
*Reflex Sight (unlocked at weapon level 2)
*Laser Sight (unlocked at weapon level 3)
*Long Barrel (unlocked at weapon level 4)
*FMJ (unlocked at weapon level 5)
*Fast Mag (unlocked at weapon level 6)
*Suppressor (unlocked at weapon level 7)
*Tactical Knife (unlocked at weapon level 8)
*Dual Wield (unlocked at weapon level 9)
==Zombies==
The Executioner is available from the Mystery Box for 950 points on all of the maps except Origins. It has high damage by default, being able to kill zombies in one shot approximately up to round 15, depending on range and how many pellets hit. The raise and drop times are also very fast as it is a handgun, making a trusty sidearm for close range situations. However, the weapon's main downside is its somewhat low cylinder capacity of five rounds and a lengthy reload, as well as lack of range; while arguably one of the best close range weapon from the Mystery Box, the weapon has quite low damage at distance due to its shotgun nature. Speed Cola greatly speeds up the reload, which can be a life-saver at tricky situations. Reload cancelling can also shorten the reload time by a few hundred milliseconds. Double Tap Root Beer is a great help, further augmenting the Executioner's already exceptional damage by doubling the amount of pellets shot. Compared to the Python, the Executioner is far more powerful at best, but suffers from a slightly lower cylinder capacity and much less range.
When Pack-a-Punched via the Pack-a-Punch Machine, it becomes the Voice of Justice. It gets more reserve ammo, range and damage, with the potential to get one-shot kills up to round 35 from close range, making it a worthwhile weapon choice in Zombies. It can be Pack-a-Punched multiple times to attain the Long Barrel attachment.
In the Zombies Game mode Turned, the Executioner is the first weapon to be used when the player is human.
===Executioner vs Voice of Justice===
==Gallery==
Executioner BOII.png|The Executioner in first person
Executioner Iron Sight BOII.png|Iron sights
Executioner Reload BOII.png|Reloading
Executioner Bringing out BOII.png|Drawing the Executioner
Executioner Long Barrel Odysseus BOII.png|A side view of the Executioner with a Long Barrel when Menendez holds Briggs hostage in "Odysseus"
Raging Judge Pickup Icon BOII.png|Pick-up icon; note how the early name was Raging Judge
==Trivia==
*There is a visible fingerprint on the cylinder.
*While reloading in the campaign, it is possible to see the words "ANGER MANAGEMENT" on the shell casings.
*With the Long Barrel attachment, the Executioner will actually visibly gain a longer barrel. This can be seen by the counting the vents in the barrel rib; the normal one has two, while the long barrel has three.
*Originally, the Executioner had a Long Barrel by default, which had the word 'Executioner' engraved along the side of it.:File:Executioner Beta Menu Icon BOII.png This was changed in the final game.
*The Executioner is the favored weapon of Samuel Stuhlinger and Michael "Finn" O'Leary.
*With the Tactical Knife attachment, the left hand is held lower than other pistols as less of the wrist datapad is visible.
**Unless paired with the Fast Mag attachment, the opening and closing of the cylinder and ejection of spent shells is done with one hand.
**If all of the weapon's ammo is expended, the blade held with the left hand will disappear. Furthermore, when aiming down the sights, the iron sights will be severely misaligned. This seems to have been fixed or only occurs in certain circumstances.
*"Made in Brazil" and "ZOM 1919" are inscribed on the side of the weapon, above the trigger.
*When camouflage is applied to the Executioner (with the exception of Diamond Camouflage and the Pack-A-Punch camouflage), it will cover everything except the cylinder.
*While the Executioner is chambered for 28 gauge, Marlton Johnson incorrectly identifies it as having a .410 bore.
Category:Call of Duty: Black Ops II Handguns