Member consensus on Taurus

lee n. field said:

Taurus really doesn't want end users taking off a revolver sideplate, and won't sell parts that require that.

Click to expand...

I have had Taurus sell me a lot of internal parts over the years, including parts which Ruger lists as “factory installation only.” The “issue” with Taurus parts is largely that they do not have consistent parts across a model line and do not do a good job of identifying which is which. For example, I needed a new pawl for an 85 a few years ago, and they sent me 4 different pawls for 85’s… none of which were the correct length, so I had a local guy weld it up, then I reprofiled and rehardened it.

I won’t say I’m a Taurus fan, but I will say the Taurus pistols I own, I’ve never had a single problem with any of them(all have at least 7-800 rounds through them).
The Curve is the only one that I don’t find comfortable to shoot( to short of a grip).
I own a 856ul, G2c, Curve, Spectrum, 617 and just purchased the M327.

LiveLife said:

What are the members impressions of newer Taurus models like these in recent years?

• Taurus G2C
• Taurus G3
• Taurus G3C
• Taurus GX4

Click to expand...

Yea, all the bad reviews seem to be mentioning models that have been discontinued at the very least a decade ago.

I believe it's going to take until that older generation of gun owners are gone for the majority of the critical reviews and baseless bashing to start to die down.

I really only have experience with 2 Taurus handguns. One is a model 85 my wife had when we met. It had been given to her but she had never shot it. I told her if that is your gun you need to shoot it. She did & promptly decided she didn't like it. I have since gotten her something better suited for her use. I have shot it but not a lot. Nothing wrong with it. I'm just not a into snubnosed revolvers.

I had a PT-111 Millenium Pro G2. I carried it for a while. I wound up selling it & an old XD-40 & buying another gun I preferred. The G2 had a weak blued finish & I really didn't like the inconsistency of the trigger. I figured out I could get something a lot nicer for about $100 more. With all of that said it did work.

triplebike said:

There's a sucker born every minute (David Hannum) , which is why Taurus is still in business.

Click to expand...

Very "high road" of you. I'm not a sucker, and I don't believe all of the tens of thousands of gun owners who are buying the 600k-900k+ firearms that Taurus imports and manufacturers annually are fools or suckers. If they were that bad in all reality, then the internet would be flood with complaints based on what they make now (not a decade or so ago) if we are going to take into account that they manufacture several hundred thousand of Firearms each and every year.

I have the finances to buy most handguns I really want, and I already have a plethora of handguns to choose from for both conceal carry and home defense. I spend hours reading firsthand forum, social media, and online gun mag reviews. I watch almost every YouTube video I can find along with the comments within. I read the online gunshop vendor reviews if any as well. I may even stop by my LGS to see and fondle a firearm in person. Needless to say that I research all my firearm purchases, Taurus included, before I order one online.

Kind of on-topic with what someone posted earlier...

I have a bunch of handguns. My "needs" for SD, range toys, plinking, etc. are well covered.

If I buy a handgun that's a used Taurus or military surplus or police turn-in or whatever... if it is a piece of junk, it doesn't matter. I already have a bunch of handguns. My budget allows for me to buy an inexpensive handgun every few months if I want to, and if it doesn't work out, NBD.

It was different when I was poor and young and broke. I spent most of our tax return on a used Taurus 357 because my first wife was concerned that my only firearm was a Single Six (she grew up in a rough neighborhood). Luckily I got it from a friend's brother and it worked as advertised. If it were defective or iffy, we still would have had no strong SD firearm, and no money either.

I understand why Hi-Point sells so many cheap hideous pistols that go bang.

I have to admit to looking occasionally at Taurus 4" .44 mag offering.

Here in Ohio, we have a 5" minimum barrel limit for hunting and I already have a couple of S&W 629's but, in 6" config.

Really want a handy 4" just to play with and can't justify the pre-lock price of a Smith nor have no interest in a new model with a lock.

I believe it's going to take until that older generation of gun owners are gone for the majority of the critical reviews and baseless bashing to start to die down.

Click to expand...

Or....maybe it will be when us old purists have faded away. The ones that remember a high quality revolver when we shot one & that high quality was standard fare when they wore the brand name Smith and Wesson (or Colt).

I’ve owned several Taurus handguns. My experience has been inconsistent quality and poor customer service. I dumped my Taurus guns in the used gun market and will never own another one.

Hal said:

Or....maybe it will be when us old purists have faded away. The ones that remember a high quality revolver when we shot one & that high quality was standard fare when they wore the brand name Smith and Wesson (or Colt).

Click to expand...

Neither of which has ever turned out a bunch of turds of course....

I have had a few Tauri over the years, a magnum judge with the long barrel being a purchase made in the last month. The fine details leave a little to be desired but It is nice enough. It seems well made, but I haven't had the opportunity to fire it yet.

I've had a couple Raging bulls, one was great and I gave it to my brother as a graduation gift, with the other, it had severe finish issues so I did not accept it from the dealer, its replacement was fine. Both were very accurate, I wouldn't hesitate to get another if the price was right. These have all been within the last 6 years.

Hal said:

Or....maybe it will be when us old purists have faded away. The ones that remember a high quality revolver when we shot one & that high quality was standard fare when they wore the brand name Smith and Wesson (or Colt).

Click to expand...

S&W revolvers had issues in the past, and much more in the present. Again, IMHO based on what I seen, S&W puts out more pragmatic revolvers than Taurus, Ruger, Kimber, and Colt are. Colt current crop of revolvers also had their own body issues though, but I can not speak on what they put out in the past.

Taurus current crop of revolvers aren't meant to be BBQ guns, win beauty contest, be a collectors item, or have a target trigger. They are meant to be a no frills, affordable, and reliable option that fires when the trigger is pulled. The are meant to be self basic carry guns.

A lot of this question seems to boil down to customer service.

Everything that was made by human beings has at least a chance of being sub-par.

In the case of firearms, especially in these last few "panic buying" years it seems more and more manufacturers are just getting them out the door (for a profit of course) and not doing some basic QC beforehand.

It then falls on customer service to make it right and, to me, that's where a company can keep a customer or lose that one and probably many more by word of mouth.

Taurus has never, IMO, been known for customer service.

Sure, many buyers get good ones as evidenced by many of the posters in this thread (myself included) but the unfortunate ones that don't and then receive poor to nonexistent customer service are the ones that are vocal about it.

Maybe that's changing but it seems to be a strong part of their past reputation and probably a reason why this question comes up from time to time.

I've owned two and have friends that have owned two.

The friends owned first gen Millenium Pros in 40 S&W. They all shot super low to point of aim in their hands and mine. They got rid of those guns asap.

My Taurus 85UL was an okay gun out of the box, but the cylinder would backspin off the cylinder locking notch on occasion. I had to clean up metal burrs to fix that and also take care of other less critical problems. On the plus side the innards are simple and easy to work with, but you can clearly see those innards were made to a price point compared to the S&W it was designed to look like externally.

My Taurus TCP732 was a total POS out of the box. I went back and forth with customer service and ended up fixing the gun myself with innards from a KelTec P3AT or Ruger LCP. It's been so long ago, that I can't remember which gun parts were used anymore. Anyway, that gun has functioned flawlessly after I got it running the way it should.

Having said all that, I do think a Taurus revolver can be a mighty fine economy priced gun. Much better than a current Charter Arms, in my personal experience.

I can't say about the current state of Taurus' polymer framed guns. My eyes got opened to other brands and I haven't looked back.

I had a bad taste from Taurus many years ago. Had a 9mm pistol that was true jam-omatic couldn't hit a barn, junk.

I think they improved and I gave them another try a couple years ago. I now own a Taurus .357 revolver, Spectrum .380, and a G3c 9mm. All of these have been good. They're not range guns. I bought them for duty as back ups and glove box emergencies. I don't expect them to age as well or survive the same round count as a S&W or Ruger, but they have been good value for the price I paid and my intent for them.

Neither of which has ever turned out a bunch of turds of course....

Click to expand...

S&W revolvers had issues in the past, and much more in the present

Click to expand...

I'll just fall back on the "older generation" part.
S&W and Colt products were exceptional when us old farts first got into shooting.

Hal said:

I'll just fall back on the "older generation" part.
S&W and Colt products were exceptional when us old farts first got into shooting.

Click to expand...

Yea but to be fair, the inet, gun forums, YouTube, and social media didn't exist back then. If not for the internet and based on my own experience in my bubble, I wouldn't be aware of a lot of issues and things that are going on with firearm manufacturers and in the firearm industry. If I were to go solely off my personal experience and the experience of people I know and came across in real life, I'd think that S&W and Ruger semiautos would be extremely unreliable crap as those are the only handguns that failed on me mancanicaly before forever even running 100 rounds through NIB guns.

I've seen and heard of a few stories and issues that have been brought up and talked about over on the Smith-WessonForum.com. S&W had problems with their prelock guns too so I have heard from multiple sources. Things weren't all peaches and cream back then.

I don't know much about older Colt revolvers. I will take your word on that.

‐--------
@Y-T71 makes a fair point. Out of modern day S&Ws, Rugers, Colts, and Tauruses, I hear the most complaints about Taurus CS. They it is hit or miss whether they'll pay shipping to and from, and turnaround times are slow. After Taurus, S&W gets mixed reviews about them claiming a clear defect or issue is normal, and or the guns they allegedly fixed are being shipped back with the same exact problem. I don't hear much bad if at all when it comes to modern day Colts and Rugers with regards to CS and warranty service, but there aren't as many Colts in the wild compared to the others.

Styx said:

Yea but to be fair, the inet, gun forums, YouTube, and social media didn't exist back then. If not for the internet and based on my own experience in my bubble, I wouldn't be aware of a lot of issues and things that are going on with firearm manufacturers and in the firearm industry.

Click to expand...

Before "Glock KaBoom", all the guns that blew up were non-Glocks.

During my 30 years of shooting and competing in USPSA, I have seen many guns fail, blow up, split barrels at chamber end, even to cause serious enough injuries to be sent to the hospital and most of them were not Glock-related. But thanks to the internet and "Glock KaBoom" pictures posted, notion of Glocks blowing up were imprinted in people's minds and "All the guns that blew up were Glocks and all Glocks have unsupported chambers" persisted for a long time even though Glock chamber support improved and many non-Glock pistols continue to blow up.

IMO, similar has happened with Taurus' past issues imprinted on people's minds to pass prejudice towards new/newer Taurus models to not even consider them but the notion of "Buying Taurus and quality control is bad/crapshoot" will persist for some.

I started shooting with 1911 and built my first USPSA match pistol on 1911 and some people have the notion that 1911s are Jam-O'Matic, particularly with SWC/HP bullets. Of course, this is not the case with all 1911s and people were surprised when my railed Sig 1911 with tightest chamber dimensions I have seen reliably fed SWC reloads all day long.

I believe RIA also experienced similar fate as Taurus when earliest models experienced feeding issues (magazine related) and even after magazine/feeding issues were addressed, some people cautioned against buying RIAs. Over the years on THR, I have posted that RIA Tactical models I have shot and closely examined/cleaned have generous tapered chamber mouths to reliability feed even sloppy SWC reloads to consider them "Glock" of 1911s but I don't think I will be able to convince all the nay saying members.

I've owned several Taurus handguns. 3 PT1911s, 3 PT24/7 OSS ( 2 9mm & 1 45 ACP ), 1 PT99, 1 PT92, 2 94s ( 2 in & 5 in ), 1 605 ( 357 mag ) & 2 G2Cs ( also gave 2 G2Cs as gifts ). Still have 1 PT1911, a PT92 & 1 G2C. My experience is all the semi-autos were good pistols. All the revolvers were below average. I've heard Taurus is coming out with this "Executive" series of revolvers. Curious to find out if it's just a marketing label, or a true step up.

Well - I didn't and I don't build any of them - so - I'll stick with what I like.
I didn't like the Taurus I shot. It wasn't up to my standards of how accurate a revolver should be.

I pretty much swore off taurus/Rossi after getting a couple of lemons and then having to deal with their absolutely horrible customer service.

I like their g3 pistol, though.

I have only owned a M44 back in the 90’s and it shot fine. No complaints. I have a friend with an older .357 and it is reliable an shoots well.

I believe strongly that you generally get what you pay for. A $500 1911/revolver/etc. should NOT be “as good/fine/well made” as a $1500 gun same design. It’s the same with AR’s, bolt guns, shotguns, etc.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for the $500 gun. Folks who put a few hundred rounds a year through their guns will likely never “need” the benefits realized from the $1500 gun.

I listened to a good interview with a new Taurus guy (Cody Osborne) recently on Gun Talk. He used to look down at Taurus, but now says they are regaining their QC. I know folks will say now that he’s an employee, he cannot say anything else, but I feel this interview is worth listening to if one is considering a new Taurus gun:



I don’t own any Taurus guns currently.

YMMV

CoalCrackerAl said:

A tracker in 357. But laying it next to my Ruger GP100. You can see the quaility differences.

Click to expand...

Yep, Taurus revolvers put those Rugers to shame when it comes to "quality differences".

Member consensus on Taurus

Click to expand...

My current wife came with one. I would never purchase one.

When I buy a Taurus, I prefer to buy used. My goal is to get a handgun whose trigger and accuracy are comparable to the original Beretta or Smith & Wesson, but the finish isn't as nice and the grips are ugly and it's a little beat up and costs half of what a used Beretta or Smith costs.

I've mostly been successful, but not always.