elChupacabra!
member
- Joined
- May 29, 2008
- Messages
- 562
Hey everybody, this is my first time to post on THR, although I've lurked around this site for years. I came to the conclusion that this site has better conversation / more informed discussion / more competent posters as a whole than just about any other board on the net, and have always felt that if I could find information on what I was interested in here, it would probably be better informed / more objectively discussed than anywhere else. So thank all of you for allowing me to learn from you for a while now.
Getting on to the body of my post, I just bought a brand new Taurus PT1911AR (blue with rail) from Bass Pro / Outdoor World here in Nashville about 3 weeks ago. I've read so many posts, articles, discussions, etc. about this pistol, that I decided it would be my first 1911. I was truly, genuinely excited about the prospect of having a "custom" 1911 that would run and be tricked out, right from the box - it's difficult to find much evidence online that you will get anything else. Even people who hate Taurus as a matter of principle don't usually have very strong, or very reliable, stories of problems with PT1911s, so I was really thrilled when it came in and it was mine for the (comparatively) low price of $599. Here's when that started to change, and what finally drove me to register and post so I could share my experience with the world.
I brought it home and decided to give it a good cleaning to get the liberal amount of packing grease off / out of it. I started by detail stripping the slide, carefully and slowly, to get all the gunk out. Even though I've seen the guides for detail stripping the frame, I decided against that for my first time, not wanting to get into something beyond my powers at 9pm before I even fired it. I did give it a good wipe-down, re-oiled with Rem Oil, and re-assembled it. I racked the slide, eased it forward, and found that the hammer wouldn't stay locked - an immediate case of hammer follow for a gun that I hadn't even fired, let alone done trigger work on.
What's more, I was suprised to find that, even with an appropriate amount of lube (even though this was my first 1911, I've been shooting various handguns for several years and am no stranger to firearms. I have a good solid understanding of what is normal / what to expect / what's a real problem, and I read all I can from places like this when I'm not sure), the manual safety would very regularly engage oddly such that I couldn't disengage it with my left thumb (I'm left-handed so an Ambi safety isn't an option for me - it's a requirement). I would have to reach over the gun with my right thumb and push it down to get it to decisively drop into the "fire" position. That's unacceptable for a gun that you hope to use as a home-defense weapon, to say the least.
Beyond that, I also found that the detent for the slide stop was so stiff that neither of the magazines supplied with the gun were capable of locking the slide back on an empty chamber when manually racked. When reassembling the gun, I would have to place the slide stop pin through the link and as far down, close to the frame as possible, and literally "karate chop" it with the meat of my hand to get it to depress the detent and properly lock into position. Again, while that might ease up with time, to me, it was unacceptable in a brand new gun.
I called Taurus and after a long wait for a customer service rep, spoke with someone about the problems I was having with the gun. They offered to send FedEx to come pick up my gun and also put a rush on the repair since it was brand new, which I really appreciated. FedEx came on Monday, and the gun was back in my hands by the following Thursday - just 11 days end to end. I was thrilled the service was so fast and took the gun home immediately.
I performed a safety check and function check and was happy to see that the hammer would now properly lock back, but noticed that the trigger pull wasn't as good as it had been before - not terrible, but nothing to write home about, either. Also, the trigger was very loose in the raceway, rattling distractingly upon take-up, but I would deal with that, I thought. I also found that they had fixed the safety - it now always functioned positively and without any hesitation, a big improvement. However, I did notice one thing - the bar connecting the left and right paddles seemed to be too long, so that with the safety functioning properly, the ambi side wasn't flush with the frame but actually protruded about 1/8" - not far enough to bind against the grip, but far enough that, trying to use a high-thumbs grip, that protruding safety really dug into the web of my left (strong) hand. If I tried to push the ambi-side flush with the frame, the standard side nearly slipped over the detent and became inoperable. So it had to be loose on the ambi side, which wasn't pleasant even for dry firing.
On Saturday I shot it. I fired 86 rounds (WWB and Federal 230gr JHP) through 4 different magazines, 2 factory and 2 Chip McCormick Shooting Star. I had no failures to feed or eject, but I was suprised to have 3 failures to fire - the hammer dropped but nothing happened; thumb-cocking the hammer and firing again sent all 3 rounds downrange with no problems. (I should have removed the rounds to see if they had primer strikes, but didn't think to until after I was done - but it did happen with both brands of ammo, so I don't think it was hard primers). What's more, with that safety protruding, I had almost started bleeding from the blister the gun was giving me in my strong hand, so I called it quits.
When I disassembled the gun at home for cleaning, I noticed that it was very difficult to remove the series-80 firing pin block - I had to turn the slide right-side up and bang it against the table to get it to fall out. When it did, I noticed the firing pin block spring as well - it was completely crushed, like I've never seen before. I don't know how it happened, but I suspected that it had been improperly installed by the Taurus smith, since I hadn't touched it since I sent the gun back to them. Also, upon closely examining the firing pin block itself, I noticed that one inside edge of the "barbell" had been peened away all around its circumference - I can only guess that my 3 failures to fire were the result of the block failing to disengage from the firing pin properly and preventing it from striking the primer, and that the rest of the peening was from the block being broken in the "off" position just shy of where it should have been, being struck repeatedly by the firing pin that could just squeeze past it.
At this point, I was pretty upset. I decided to completely forget trying to get Taurus to fix it - as I've read elsewhere, Taurus may have a lifetime warranty, but I had come to the conclusion that you would really wait a lifetime to get the gun fixed, not to mention paying for the shipping (which you usually have to do - I had gotten lucky with that first repair). I didn't trust that Taurus had the competence to fix my problems without causing new ones, anyway.
I called Taurus and ordered a new firing pin block and spring, which they charged me $1 each for. I paid it - I was too sick of dealing with them to argue, even though it was their fault they were broken to begin with.
One last thing - I noticed, upon careful inspection, that the cocking serrations on the slide are much deeper - maybe 50-75% deeper - on the left side of the frame than the right. You can see it, but you can REALLY feel it. Looking at the slide in profile, the curve on top is much sharper on the left side than the right - it's not symmetrical at all. Further, the machining of the flat on the left side isn't even straight - there's a clear curve just forward of the rear cocking serration that I'm not too happy about. This is to say nothing of the finish, which as everyone knows, started to wear off immediately.
I went on Midway and bought a C&S hammer / sear / disconnecter / mainspring / hammer spring kit, hammer bar, pin set, manual ambi safety, and Ed Brown firing pin, ejector, extractor, trigger, and slide stop.
I took the whole mess to a local gunsmith with a good reputation for 1911 work and asked him to gut the old gun and give me a good one that I can rely on, with a good trigger pull, that won't fail or give up on me. That might have been over-reacting, but I don't think so.
Here is what it all comes down to to me. I paid $600 for a gun that's advertised as being a true custom gun. It's not. Here's what it does have:
It's accurate - for a combat handgun, it's more accurate than I am at 25yds, which is all I want it to be. I don't know if it can shoot 2" at 25yds, but honestly, I don't care about that. As Jeff Cooper put it once, printing tiny groups is only important if the purpose of the weapon / exercise is to print tiny groups, and with this one, that's not its purpose.
It has decent checkering on the main spring housing and front strap that you'd have to pay someone alot of money to do to a RIA or Mil Spec.
It has front cocking serrations, again which you would have to pay someone to do to a base gun.
It has good sights - you may not like the Heine Straight 8s, but they are quality sights that are easily (but not too easily) drift-adjustable with the included allen wrench. However, they are installed in a proprietary cut, so if you want Novaks, get ready to pay to have your slide re-cut.
The barrel and feed ramp are throated and polished and you should be able to feed HP ammunition thru it with no problems.
It has a rail, which for $600, I don't know you can find ANYWHERE else. I know many don't like the rail, but if this thing is to replace my Benelli Nova as a HD weapon, it needs a light, and the rail is the best way to get one on there. (Unfortunately, the Nova doesn't fit in a nightstand drawer, so a pistol will have to do from now on do to various reasons. I don't feel undergunned with a 1911, though).
Aside from these things, if you are like me and want a really GOOD 1911, you're going to have to pay $400-600 in parts and labor to turn it from what it is into a real fighting handgun. That makes this allegedly $600 "custom" gun more like a $1,000-1,200 TRUE custom gun, with alot of the expensive machining already done, although somewhat crudely. On the level, if you don't care as much about the asthetic issues, $1,200 isn't bad for a gun with all the features you get after a real smith has gone after it.
I know this is a long post, but I am really so upset that I fell for the marketing hype that I had to let someone else know what they are getting into so they don't make the same mistake.
I hope you happy Taurus owners have better luck than I have - if your guns don't have these problems, then more power to you. But buyer beware.
Take care folks.
Getting on to the body of my post, I just bought a brand new Taurus PT1911AR (blue with rail) from Bass Pro / Outdoor World here in Nashville about 3 weeks ago. I've read so many posts, articles, discussions, etc. about this pistol, that I decided it would be my first 1911. I was truly, genuinely excited about the prospect of having a "custom" 1911 that would run and be tricked out, right from the box - it's difficult to find much evidence online that you will get anything else. Even people who hate Taurus as a matter of principle don't usually have very strong, or very reliable, stories of problems with PT1911s, so I was really thrilled when it came in and it was mine for the (comparatively) low price of $599. Here's when that started to change, and what finally drove me to register and post so I could share my experience with the world.
I brought it home and decided to give it a good cleaning to get the liberal amount of packing grease off / out of it. I started by detail stripping the slide, carefully and slowly, to get all the gunk out. Even though I've seen the guides for detail stripping the frame, I decided against that for my first time, not wanting to get into something beyond my powers at 9pm before I even fired it. I did give it a good wipe-down, re-oiled with Rem Oil, and re-assembled it. I racked the slide, eased it forward, and found that the hammer wouldn't stay locked - an immediate case of hammer follow for a gun that I hadn't even fired, let alone done trigger work on.
What's more, I was suprised to find that, even with an appropriate amount of lube (even though this was my first 1911, I've been shooting various handguns for several years and am no stranger to firearms. I have a good solid understanding of what is normal / what to expect / what's a real problem, and I read all I can from places like this when I'm not sure), the manual safety would very regularly engage oddly such that I couldn't disengage it with my left thumb (I'm left-handed so an Ambi safety isn't an option for me - it's a requirement). I would have to reach over the gun with my right thumb and push it down to get it to decisively drop into the "fire" position. That's unacceptable for a gun that you hope to use as a home-defense weapon, to say the least.
Beyond that, I also found that the detent for the slide stop was so stiff that neither of the magazines supplied with the gun were capable of locking the slide back on an empty chamber when manually racked. When reassembling the gun, I would have to place the slide stop pin through the link and as far down, close to the frame as possible, and literally "karate chop" it with the meat of my hand to get it to depress the detent and properly lock into position. Again, while that might ease up with time, to me, it was unacceptable in a brand new gun.
I called Taurus and after a long wait for a customer service rep, spoke with someone about the problems I was having with the gun. They offered to send FedEx to come pick up my gun and also put a rush on the repair since it was brand new, which I really appreciated. FedEx came on Monday, and the gun was back in my hands by the following Thursday - just 11 days end to end. I was thrilled the service was so fast and took the gun home immediately.
I performed a safety check and function check and was happy to see that the hammer would now properly lock back, but noticed that the trigger pull wasn't as good as it had been before - not terrible, but nothing to write home about, either. Also, the trigger was very loose in the raceway, rattling distractingly upon take-up, but I would deal with that, I thought. I also found that they had fixed the safety - it now always functioned positively and without any hesitation, a big improvement. However, I did notice one thing - the bar connecting the left and right paddles seemed to be too long, so that with the safety functioning properly, the ambi side wasn't flush with the frame but actually protruded about 1/8" - not far enough to bind against the grip, but far enough that, trying to use a high-thumbs grip, that protruding safety really dug into the web of my left (strong) hand. If I tried to push the ambi-side flush with the frame, the standard side nearly slipped over the detent and became inoperable. So it had to be loose on the ambi side, which wasn't pleasant even for dry firing.
On Saturday I shot it. I fired 86 rounds (WWB and Federal 230gr JHP) through 4 different magazines, 2 factory and 2 Chip McCormick Shooting Star. I had no failures to feed or eject, but I was suprised to have 3 failures to fire - the hammer dropped but nothing happened; thumb-cocking the hammer and firing again sent all 3 rounds downrange with no problems. (I should have removed the rounds to see if they had primer strikes, but didn't think to until after I was done - but it did happen with both brands of ammo, so I don't think it was hard primers). What's more, with that safety protruding, I had almost started bleeding from the blister the gun was giving me in my strong hand, so I called it quits.
When I disassembled the gun at home for cleaning, I noticed that it was very difficult to remove the series-80 firing pin block - I had to turn the slide right-side up and bang it against the table to get it to fall out. When it did, I noticed the firing pin block spring as well - it was completely crushed, like I've never seen before. I don't know how it happened, but I suspected that it had been improperly installed by the Taurus smith, since I hadn't touched it since I sent the gun back to them. Also, upon closely examining the firing pin block itself, I noticed that one inside edge of the "barbell" had been peened away all around its circumference - I can only guess that my 3 failures to fire were the result of the block failing to disengage from the firing pin properly and preventing it from striking the primer, and that the rest of the peening was from the block being broken in the "off" position just shy of where it should have been, being struck repeatedly by the firing pin that could just squeeze past it.
At this point, I was pretty upset. I decided to completely forget trying to get Taurus to fix it - as I've read elsewhere, Taurus may have a lifetime warranty, but I had come to the conclusion that you would really wait a lifetime to get the gun fixed, not to mention paying for the shipping (which you usually have to do - I had gotten lucky with that first repair). I didn't trust that Taurus had the competence to fix my problems without causing new ones, anyway.
I called Taurus and ordered a new firing pin block and spring, which they charged me $1 each for. I paid it - I was too sick of dealing with them to argue, even though it was their fault they were broken to begin with.
One last thing - I noticed, upon careful inspection, that the cocking serrations on the slide are much deeper - maybe 50-75% deeper - on the left side of the frame than the right. You can see it, but you can REALLY feel it. Looking at the slide in profile, the curve on top is much sharper on the left side than the right - it's not symmetrical at all. Further, the machining of the flat on the left side isn't even straight - there's a clear curve just forward of the rear cocking serration that I'm not too happy about. This is to say nothing of the finish, which as everyone knows, started to wear off immediately.
I went on Midway and bought a C&S hammer / sear / disconnecter / mainspring / hammer spring kit, hammer bar, pin set, manual ambi safety, and Ed Brown firing pin, ejector, extractor, trigger, and slide stop.
I took the whole mess to a local gunsmith with a good reputation for 1911 work and asked him to gut the old gun and give me a good one that I can rely on, with a good trigger pull, that won't fail or give up on me. That might have been over-reacting, but I don't think so.
Here is what it all comes down to to me. I paid $600 for a gun that's advertised as being a true custom gun. It's not. Here's what it does have:
It's accurate - for a combat handgun, it's more accurate than I am at 25yds, which is all I want it to be. I don't know if it can shoot 2" at 25yds, but honestly, I don't care about that. As Jeff Cooper put it once, printing tiny groups is only important if the purpose of the weapon / exercise is to print tiny groups, and with this one, that's not its purpose.
It has decent checkering on the main spring housing and front strap that you'd have to pay someone alot of money to do to a RIA or Mil Spec.
It has front cocking serrations, again which you would have to pay someone to do to a base gun.
It has good sights - you may not like the Heine Straight 8s, but they are quality sights that are easily (but not too easily) drift-adjustable with the included allen wrench. However, they are installed in a proprietary cut, so if you want Novaks, get ready to pay to have your slide re-cut.
The barrel and feed ramp are throated and polished and you should be able to feed HP ammunition thru it with no problems.
It has a rail, which for $600, I don't know you can find ANYWHERE else. I know many don't like the rail, but if this thing is to replace my Benelli Nova as a HD weapon, it needs a light, and the rail is the best way to get one on there. (Unfortunately, the Nova doesn't fit in a nightstand drawer, so a pistol will have to do from now on do to various reasons. I don't feel undergunned with a 1911, though).
Aside from these things, if you are like me and want a really GOOD 1911, you're going to have to pay $400-600 in parts and labor to turn it from what it is into a real fighting handgun. That makes this allegedly $600 "custom" gun more like a $1,000-1,200 TRUE custom gun, with alot of the expensive machining already done, although somewhat crudely. On the level, if you don't care as much about the asthetic issues, $1,200 isn't bad for a gun with all the features you get after a real smith has gone after it.
I know this is a long post, but I am really so upset that I fell for the marketing hype that I had to let someone else know what they are getting into so they don't make the same mistake.
I hope you happy Taurus owners have better luck than I have - if your guns don't have these problems, then more power to you. But buyer beware.
Take care folks.
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