SavannahSteve

I have had few problems with Taurus and prefer them over S&W because I think I get more value for my money.

I currently have two Taurus revolvers, a 4-in Model 82 .38 spl and a 6-in Model 96 .22 LR, and one pistol, a PT-92 9mm. I shoot all of them, and I am very pleased with all of them.

Other Taurus revolvers that I have previously owned and traded away include a 2-in Model 85 .38 spl, a 3-in Model 80 .38 spl, a 6-in 7-shot Model 66 .357, and a 3-in Model 431 .44 spl. These were good guns too, but I frequently trade just to try something new.

I like S&W too, but think they are just too pricey even though their quality is a bit better. Currently, I only have one S&W revolver, a 2-in Model .36 .38 spl (Chief's Special)), but I have owned and traded away Models 10, 15, and 19, which were all good guns as well.

The bottom line is that my experience has been so good with all revolvers that I don't expect problems.

Parker

I own a taurus model 66 and it has never let me down. I use it for hunting plus i do alot of plinking with it and its never let me down.

Boss Spearman

I have a Taurus 617 that is just as nice and works as well as my S&W 19.

LASTCALL

I purchased a model 905 revolver in 9mm. After firing around 100 rounds through it a spring broke. The cylinder would no loger close and the release latch would not function either. I took the gun back to the dealer. He sent it back to Taurus. Three weeks later, I get a call from the dealer stating the gun is back. I pick the gun up. I head to the range. I open the cylinder. the ejector rod shoots out of the front of the gun. I gather all of the parts and I take it back to the dealer. Luckily, he had an extra spring for the weapon as I aparently did not find all of them when the rod flew off. After the weapon was fixed I traded it right away. I told the new owner my tale of frustration. He took the trade anyway. This was about a month ago. He told me today that while shooting the revolver the cylinder latch flew off of the gun and he can't find the screw that connnected it to the frame. I know people who have had good luck with Taurus but I have absolutely no confidence in ther products.

nrd515525

My very first gun was a Taurus .38, model 83N (Nickel, heavy barrel). Looked great, at least at first glance.

What a disaster it was, the timing was a mile off, it spit lead badly, but the barrel was even worse, the rifling was amazingly bad, and the gun would load up so badly with lead that after only a couple of shots, the rifling was gone under the layer of lead that was laid down. I remember breaking off my Lewis lead remover due to the muscle required to pull it through. A soft brass screwdriver worked well as a "chisel" to get the main chunk of lead out, then the lead remover went through ok.

I bought a Dan Wesson 357 and sent the Taurus off for warranty "repairs". It was gone a long time, and when it came back, it was totally non functional! They had incorrectly assembled the action, so I had to open it up and put it back together correctly. Well, it didn't spit lead, but the barrel hadn't been touched at all, and seemed to actually lead up worse than it did before!

I was offered pretty close to what I paid for it by some guy I knew, and even after I showed him the barrel, he still wanted it, I have no idea why.

Years later, I ran into someone who had the same model Taurus, this one shot fine, no lead problem, but the trigger was worse than my 83 was. Downright crunchy. But it was miles ahead of the one I had.

About 12 years ago, I saw a PT92 at a local show, and bought it, and a Bernardelli P018 Compact. The Taurus had a lot of slop in the slide, and was super touchy about magazines, it seemed. The P018 was great and I kept it, but I sold the PT92 was sold to a friend's brother, for more than I paid for it, so I was happy.

Mossyrock

I recently purchased a model 455 .45 ACP stainless snubby that is proving to be kind of interesting. First off, it has a 2" UN-ported barrel. I can't recall seeing a non-ported .45 ACP Taurus snubby before. Out of the box, the action was pretty rough and heavy. Being someone who can't leave well enough alone, I tore it down and polished those areas that looked like they would benefit, lubed it well and dry fired it about 500 times (using snap caps). While the action is still kind of heavy, it smoothed up a great deal. I also contoured the edges of the trigger and polished the face to a mirror finish which made the trigger much more comfortable to deal with.

My first trip to the range was a mixed bag of results. First off, the clips that come with the Taurus are absolute crap. I swear that they are made with recycled gum wrappers or something. They are VERY flexible and will bend out of shape if you look at them wrong. There is an alternative, however.... www.moonclips.com TK Customs offers 5-round .45 ACP full-moon slips made for the Taurus that are VERY well made. The web site says the cylinder must be modified to use the clips. NOT TRUE. I contacted TK Customs to verify and they told me the website is incorrect; they work just fine right out of the package.

Anyway, back on track....Like I said, my first trip to the range was a mixed bag of results. With several brands of ammo, case heads were dragging on the recoil shield, making DA shooting very difficult. This was a problem with or without clips. (Yes, you can shoot .45 ACP in this revolver without clips; it headspaces off of the case mouth. Just don't expect the cases to easily extract.) On the other hand, accuracy was very good for a snubby, going into 2" or so at 25 feet. It even shot to point of aim (more on this later).

When I got home, I got out the wet/dry paper and polished the recoil shield to a mirror finish, starting out with 800 grit and moving to 1500 grit. The dragging problem seems to be solved. I also noticed the forcing cone of the barrel wasn't cut square and it was dragging on the cylinder face a bit, so I cleaned that up.

Before my second range outing, I swapped the factory Ribber grips for some rubber Hogues. I like the Hogues, but the Ribbers handle recoil better. Six of one, a half dozen of the other. I will keep the Hogues on for now, but I am thinking about carving a set of grips out of a piece of walnut that is currently sitting on my bench. My plan for the end-result is something akin to Spegel boot grips. We'll see if I can pull this off.... I also installed a Wolff spring kit, hoping to improve the trigger pull a bit.

My second trip to the range was a bit different than the first. The case-head dragging problem being solved greatly improved the DA pull and made the range session much more enjoyable. The Wolff spring kit, while improving the feel of the trigger, resulted in a 25% misfire rate. Aside from the misfire rate, things were going pretty well until I noticed that my groups were drifting right..... Yup...the barrel was unscrewing itself from the frame under recoil torque! So much for THAT range session!

When I got home, I got out the frame wrench, unscrewed the barrel, degreased it, applied some red Lok-Tite and reinstalled it. I suspect this will solve the problem. I also replaced the Wolff spring with the factory mainspring. So, why am I going to all of this trouble with what may be a problem child? Well, don't tell the S&Ws in my safe, but I LIKE this little beast! Think about it...it fills a unique niche. It is compact, powerful, accurate, fast to reload and reasonably comfortable to shoot. I don't know that it will ever replace my Lightweight OACP as my primary carry gun, but, after I get all of the bugs worked out, I will carry it occasionally. You have to admit...there is just SOMETHING about a little, dinky revolver with a BIG hole!

Tom in CA

My PT-22 was reliable once I bought a new mag for it. It fired about 600 rounds and then the slide cracked - Tarus will replace it for free which is nice. The pistol is excellent ergonomically - the workmanship could be better - but hey, for $200 what do you want! Tarus is NOT Kimber.

I had a Tarus 22 revolver which was the worst handgun I ever owned. I hear they are better now but a Smith revolver is only about $200 more and are always great.

one eye joe

Do yourself a BIG favor Jester, and buy yourself a different brand of gun..............

one eye joe

Junk ! !

gunsmith

We have had several Taurus handguns in the house over the years. A 441 that half of the barrel was not rifled, A model 85 ultra light that shoots like a house on fire, minute of groundhog head at 25 yards, a 44 mag replacement for the 441 that they could not repair, that came from the President of the companies desk, An early 66 that is a Smith all over and under, Parts interchange with Smith, and a P145 that drags the firing pin over the fired primer so bad I expect it to break any day. Taurus says this is normal, and go ahead and shoot it. Not anything great at 25 yards, but usable for close in stuff.
I have done trigger jobs on many, and they do up well.
To the person that said it is better than a Freedom Arms. I guess you never fired one have you. Picking it up, and shooting it are too different things. Check out the cylinder lockup on the Taurus, then the Casull. No comparison.

one eye joe

Pure junk ! ! Buy a colt or a smith......

cohee

Looking at the dates on this thread, I can only think "some things never change".

cartridgecollector

The people who are bashing Taurus in this thread for no rhyme or reason and with no anecdotal relative examples are kind of lame.... I have a Taurus 24/7 Longslide in .40S&W, a 4" Tracker in 44mag, and also a fairly scarce 4" 616T titanium .357mag, and I have had no problems whatsoever. I've had around 400rds through the 24/7 and around 100rds through the 44mag and 616T. I think the issue with Taurus' reputation is that many people who buy Taurus guns are buying the gun because of low price. These buyers will tend to buy the lowest priced guns that Taurus has to offer, and therefore, there will be many more Taurus gun owners who own the cheaper guns, than who own the more expensive & nicer guns from Taurus. Having more owners who own the cheaper end of the spectrum leads to more complaints, especially since the cheapo buyers are usually mechanically handicapped and might not take care of a routine gun maintenance issue like an advanced gun owner would. Taurus makes (and has made) a wildly broad array of models at many price points. You get what you pay for, and my experience is that Taurus quality has been relatively the same as other guns in the price range of the gun you buy. If you buy a cheap Taurus gun, it is going to perform about as well as a KelTec or Hi-Point or Vulcan; and those are all cheap guns. The nicer / more expensive Taurus guns that I have are right up there with Beretta & S&W in terms of function, features, and looks. Also, about 10 years ago Taurus did a bit of an overhaul on their product line, image & marketing and have improved since then. Before 2000, they carried more junk guns than they do today, but that's cause there was (and is) a big demand for cheap junk guns in the U.S.

one eye joe

Here's an anectdote Cartridge collector. I owned a snubby Mod 94 in .22LR, a snubby Mod 941 in .22Mag, and a Total Titanium 7shot, ported .357 Mag. They were JUNK ! ! spent time and money on each of them to attempt to smith them into acceptable CCW guns for my wife and myself. A fools errand--you can't turn a tramp into a lady. i tried selling them on the Taurus forum to the kool-aide drinkers on there. NO LUCK ! I finally took them up to Kittery Trading Post in Maine and sold them for less than 50% of what I had into them, AND WAS GLAD TO BE RID OF THEM ! ! I have owned Colts and S&Ws for over 50 yrs. Most of them were excellent out of the box, or could be made so with a slight tweak. I NEVER sold a Colt or an S&W at a loss, and NEVER regretted buying one.....

cartridgecollector

What can I say, there are thousands of people who have bought Taurus guns like me and who have had no problems with them. I think your situation with the 3 guns having problems is on the extreme end of the spectrum. To be fair, I would be ripped if I were you too. Alas, somewhere out there, there's some poor guy who has had 3 failures with S&W guns, but probably chalked it up to freak occurrence since it's not a typically complained about issue online. Again, I attribute this to the fact that most people expect more expensive guns to work better, and they usually do, and the fact that many buyers of Taurus guns look for the cheapest models which might require a little more TLC. When it comes time for the TLC, many of these owners are not up to it (not saying you, just in general). With more Taurus owners owning more of that company's cheaper spectrum guns, there's bound to be more complaints, leading to a general perception of poor overall namebrand quality. S&W would never put to market some of the guns that Taurus puts to market because they want to be perceived a certain way, but again; Taurus is filling a much demanded niche in the gun market for low-cost guns. And people gobble them up.

cohee

I have always maintained that if you had a good taurus, you had a good gun in that price range. However, if you got a bad taurus, you have a problem.

It's not the guns, it's the hostile and non responsive trolls that provide their customer service. It that's not the case in AD 2010, good on ya. In AD 1988 and AD 2006, they sucked and richly deserved the bad rap that they honestly earned.

I would not own one because of the problems that I had with the organization in the past.

cartridgecollector

Well that explains it, I had no idea about their customer service or warranty handling because I've never had to call them. Although, I wonder how strict they were with warranty rule enforcement to cut down on their overhead? Like were they refusing people who had not registered the warranty card originally, or who did not have their original receipt? Did they have lousy office hours, etc...?

one eye joe

Hey Cartridgecollector, I wanna welcome you to the Forum. I just noticed that you're from Maine, soo you're familiar with Kittery Trading Post. I had to resort to KTP because my 2 usual FFLs didn't want to take my Taurii in trade or clutter the case up with them on consignment. (limited space and little profit) As you know, KTP will take ANYTHING ! Good luck with yours.......