Taurus revolvers - anybody have and what do you think?

[Stand_watie]

Wife's a new shooter, just finished her ccw class, so I thought a fairly low recoil revolver for her. I saw Taurus .380 acp and .327 for sale. Never had a Taurus. I've had a few NEF/Charters and a Rossi and was happy with them despite them being inexpensive.

[MillCreek]

Put me in the (perhaps rare) category of someone who likes his four Taurus steel or titanium revolvers.  All of them have worked right out of the box; have great fit, finish and function; and offer excellent value for the money. I have or have owned revolvers from Colt, Ruger and S&W too, and while nothing compares to a 1960's hand-fitted S&W, I find Taurus perfectly acceptable for my needs. I should note that all of my Taurus firearms were manufactured from the mid-2000's onward.  I use my Taurus revolvers as my car guns, my bicycle gun, and for daily carry.

[never_retreat]

Shot a few of them but don't own any, but I liked them.
Not a fan of their autos though.

[Doggy Daddy]

I have a .22, a .38, and a .357.  Wife has a .38, and a (gasp!) Judge.  We are completely satisfied with all of them.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Doggy daddy, we also have a *gasp* Judge.

It works for what we want (and the Judge haters may wail and gnash their teeth on the HD side of things, but I can tell you from experiance, one shot will kill a possem ) 'nuff said.

Tarus was once on the list of bottem feeder gun companies. Cheep crap, and they got a reputation.
However, I think that reputation is no longer warrented and hasn't been warrented in years. They're still relativly cheap, but in the "decent prices, basic guns that work" catagory.
My only beef with them these days is the billboarding. Ugly.

[lee n. field]

Wife's a new shooter, just finished her ccw class, so I thought a fairly low recoil revolver for her. I saw Taurus .380 acp and .327 for sale. Never had a Taurus. I've had a few NEF/Charters and a Rossi and was happy with them despite them being inexpensive.

I've had a 605 for a few years now.  Picked it up the day the Heller decision came down, whenever that was.  

It's been solid.  Trigger is good.  The gun is accurate, in that bullets from my 158grain slightly +P handloads go exactly where I point them.

The one time I dealt with customer service in the past decade (ordering a grip screw for an older wood grip set), the experience was positive.  I got what I ordered, in a timely manner.

So, yeah, I'm happy with it.

If it passes Jim March's inspection procedure, I'd so go for it.

Are you talking going with Taurus' .380 revolver?

[bedlamite]

My last experience with Taurus was with a Raging Bull next to me at the range. The only problem was that it was spitting lead out the side, and the owner insisted it wasn't. I promptly packed up and left with a new hole in the sleeve of my jacket.

Over the years I've seen and heard of several Taurus guns that have had problems. There were more good than bad, but I'm not sure of what percentage and I keep hearing their QC is better than it used to be.

If I ran into a good deal on a Taurus, I'd buy it, if there were any problems I'd probably send it back to the factory then immediately sell it.

[Stand_watie]

...Are you talking going with Taurus' .380 revolver?

Yes, the small .38's I had were too much I think for a new shooter. I don't want her to be afraid to practice. I've already got a couple of .380's so have a few boxes of that around.

[Perd Hapley]

For what it's worth, I've only fired a handful of Taurus revolvers (maybe 3 or 4), and 2 of those were lemons.

One was a 10-shot .22. The double-action pull was so stiff and heavy that it must have had something wrong with it. Don't know what. Single-action firing, it seemed OK. That gun was used for CCW classes, so maybe it was just worn out, somehow.

3. A friend of mine had a Circuit Judge. It was spitting lead out the sides, and loosening up on its first range session. He send it back, but it still had problems. Or maybe they sent him a new one; I don't remember. In any case, he still had problems, so he just sent it back, and had done with it.


For what it's worth.

[brimic]

I have a hard time warming up to taurus... for a bit more money, relatively speaking, you can get a known quality in a similar firearm from ruger, S&W, Beretta, etc...

[HankB]

Based on observations at the range, Taurus puts out more "lemons" than companies like Ruger, S&W, SIG, Browning, Glock, Beretta, Springfield, etc. etc.

[Tallpine]

Yes, the small .38's I had were too much I think for a new shooter. I don't want her to be afraid to practice. I've already got a couple of .380's so have a few boxes of that around.

A friend of ours with pretty bad arthritis in her hands got a .38 Ruger LCR and doesn't have any trouble with the recoil at all.  This is her first handgun and she actually shoots pretty good with it.  She had the advantage of no experience so my oral teaching actually works better for her than for me.

[vaskidmark]

I've got an old Taurus .38spl - Model 5 I think it's called.  It's truely a beater gun - currently resides in my kitchen drawer to have one in that room (besides the one I tote around everywhere).  It shoots well, holds up to the stress/abuse I've dished out in the past, and feels reasonable with the Hogue grip.

I had a Taurus .327M 2" (sold it to a friend who wanted something for his wife & she liked it better than the Charter .38spl she tried).  Still have a Charter .327M in 4".  I like the cartridge mostly because when Charter screwed up my 2" .327M they tried to sooth my soul with a case each of the 3 flavors available for it.  If I had to do it over again (with less discretionary $$ to throw around) I would avoid the .327M not only beause it is an oddball caliber* but because there are few spare parts and fewer folks who know enough to fix them.

stay safe.

* - a selling point for the .327M is you can run .32H&R Magnum and .32 of various flavors through it.  For someone looking for an alternative to .380 I might even suggest .32H&R M HP with less "snap".

[BobR]

I have one Taurus revolver, the Raging Pipsqueak, at least that is what I call it. It is a heavy, 6.5" barreled 17HMR revolver with a 2x scope on it. It will shoot minute of gopher all day long. But, I may have mentioned it is heavy. I have had no quality issues with it, pull the trigger, it goes bang. Timing and lockup have been fine.

bob

[230RN]

Got a Taurus semi-automatic and a revolver.  Sample of two.  The auto had a slight problem with a too-light mag release catch, which I fixed, and the revolver also has a pretty light cylinder latch, which I left alone.  (Unrelated advice:  don't get one with Magna-Porting.  Mine is LOUD!)

I have a hard time warming up to taurus... for a bit more money, relatively speaking, you can get a known quality in a similar firearm from ruger, S&W, Beretta, etc...

I dunno about that "known quality" nowadays, what with Remington's new (latest) recall of Mod 700 triggers (they apparently have to fix the fix they applied to the old recalled triggers and safeties) and with having to send back new guns from S&W and KelTec for rework.

Unless by "known quality" you mean by modern quality standards, which are getting awfully barfy.  

Terry, 230RN

REF/FYI:
http://xmprecall.remington.com/pdfs/xmprecall-notice.pdf

[Triphammer]

I bought a Taurus small frame in 22 Mag., 4" barrel the day before Brady went into effect. I bought another small frame (85 I think) stainless .38 as my EDC when I got my CCW eight or  nine years ago. Never a single problem, although I installed a Wolff kit in the 38 & a Wolff trigger return spring in the 22 mag. I carry the Mag almost everyday I work in the yard & gave the 38 to my daughter as a graduation present when she got her RN. She shoots  it at least once a month. I don't have any experience w/ their autos but as they're Berettas  there shouldn't be any issues.
As to their being cheap, lower tier guns; so was Ruger when they were young. I remember plenty of disparaging remarks from some cop acquaintances in the early/ mid 70's.

[JN01]

I've had two.  One was a .38 snub that had serious timing issues.  The other is a 9 shot .22 revolver, horrible DA trigger pull, decent SA pull, reasonably accurate in spite of the fact that it tends to spit lead out the side.

[Fly320s]

Stand_watie, does your wife want a revolver? Has she shot a variety of guns?

Let her decide, or at least have input, on the gun you buy her.

[Brad Johnson]

The last few years their product quality & consistency has improved markedly. I'd stay away from earlier stuff though.  Metallurgy, build quality issues, etc.

Brad

[roo_ster]

I own a 651sh2.  Total titanium .357mag.  It has worked for me but was a drama queen at first.  For what it cost i could have gotten a sw airweight .38sp plus p j frame.  Wish i would have gotten the sw.

Let your wife try lots of different guns.  Mine lit on 1911s.

If you are bound and determined to get her a small revo i woud go sw or ruger .38spl and feed it 148gr target wadcutters.  Better than .380acp ball and likely better than .380acp jhp.

Whatever you do dont buy her a bundle of pita...which is more likely withtaurus and rossi.  If sw or ruger puts out a lemon they put it right.  Taurus not so much.

Ymmv and all that jazz.

[Stand_watie]

Stand_watie, does your wife want a revolver? Has she shot a variety of guns? ...

Yes and no. I can always buy her
another gun, I just want the first one not to put her off shooting. She used my Bersa for her class.

[Hawkmoon]

Wife's a new shooter, just finished her ccw class, so I thought a fairly low recoil revolver for her. I saw Taurus .380 acp and .327 for sale. Never had a Taurus. I've had a few NEF/Charters and a Rossi and was happy with them despite them being inexpensive.

Junk. (Says the man who owns two of them.)

My first was a Model 94 in .22 LR. I bought it to use for the live fire segment when I teach NRA Basic Pistol classes. It looks gorgeous, but beauty is only skin deep. The trigger pull out of the box was horrible. Gritty, ugly, and the DA pull was about 18 pounds. After polishing everything inside and installing a Wolff spring kit, I got the trigger down from "horrible" to just plain "bad" and decided to quit. FWIW, a cheap Armscor M200 had a far better trigger out of the box than the Taurus has after being worked on.

My other is a Model 327, in (naturally) .327 Federal Magnum. It's a snubby that I bought out of curiosity when CDNN was selling them off cheap. Trigger was just as bad as the Model 94 (hardly a surprise, since it's the same frame), but the 327 also had a nasty habit of either not firing at all in DA mode, or firing one shot and then either locking up ... or not locking the cylinder at all. It took awhile to figure out that both the bolt and the bolt slot in the receiver were machined so crudely that the bolt was either hanging up when extended, or tipping sideways and not extending at all. VERY unsafe.

And it was impossible to get a file into the slot to clean it up because other parts of the receiver blocked it. I finally cheated and thinned the tip of the bolt enough to ensure that it couldn't get stuck and not extend. The cylinder now doesn't lock up solid, but the rotational play is slight enough that it's safe to fire. I'll probably never fire .327 Magnum through it, anyway -- the appeal was that the same gun will also fire three other, less powerful rounds.

Don't buy a Taurus.

[zxcvbob]

I have a stainless steel Taurus Gaucho, and it is a POS.  It had several defects right out of the box, and when I called Taurus to send it in for repair (that "lifetime warranty" thing) the receptionist put me on hold and 10 or 15 minutes later disconnected.  I ended up taking it to a local gunsmith and he made it safe to shoot, but it's still crap.  Better after I changed out the base pin with a hardened one from Belt Mountain, but it still leads like a SOB from all the tool marks in the barrel.

How the hell do you screw up a gun that is a copy of a 150 old design?  Like Hawk's it looks great, just don't try to shoot it.

[freakazoid]

Friend had a Raging Bull that was a blast to shoot, don't remember the caliber.

[lee n. field]

The firing pin spring is a possible Achilles heel for the Tauri.

Taurus' manual recommends against dry firing.  From experience: I had an old (~'88 vintage) Model 66 that got to the point where it would mash firing pins into uselessness.  Eventually that one got traded off.