I just received a couple of Judge Chrono and I thought they were DOA.  One of them I just had to push the stem in.  The other, the stem was already pushed in.  The buttons didn't work.  I pulled the stem, set the time, pushed the stem back in and the chrono started spinning madly.  Then stopped. I pushed the button and the chrono started working and the watch appears functional. 
 
A lot of the watches at the local vault store have dead batteries.  It's rather odd. 
 
D