I got to take my 85CH home today and I shot it at the range.
It is apparently an older model. It has an odd front sight- extremely thin and very long, almost the entire length of the barrel. It is without the lock that many people hate so much. I checked it on the Taurus website and the serial number comes out as made in 1991.
It didn't have much, if any, holster wear. It did have wear to the finish in one odd place though- the crown of the muzzle was almost completely without finish, but the crown itself was just about perfect. It did have a lot of lead build up in the barrel I had to clean out before shooting it so I think it might have received a lot of use by the previous owner.
There was a little endshake (I think that is the term for the back and forth movement in the cylinder), not much but a little. The lockup is ok and timing is pretty good. It performed great and showed no bad habits such as spitting at me.
It came with a larger grip, the Butler Creek/Uncle Mike's style, that fills the entire hand. For this kind of gun I wanted something trimmer so I bought some no-name boot grips off the net before I even got the gun and I put them on before getting to the range. These grips are also in the Butler Creek/Uncle Mike's boot grip style. They do not cover the back strap but they do have finger grooves for two fingers.
This is a small framed snub but so was the 605. However, with the bobbed hammer and boot grips it seems much smaller- this gun will probably completely disappear in a pocket. This is just about a perfect deep concealment CCW piece (though at 21oz an aluminum alloy version may be a tad better).
When firing the gun I found it to be a keeper. Those who remember my experience with the 605 might be surprised to learn that I found this gun to be extremely comfortable to shoot (I shot 100 rounds of 158gr LRN UMC ammo and about 25-30 that I had left of a reloaded 158gr SWC I bought at the range some time ago). With these grips I found it to be very controllable and I think I might have been sold on rubber grips on this kind of gun (the fact that my pinky dangles off the bottom of the grip doesn't effect controllability, while I would imaging with less tacky wood it probably would slip in my hand). It was completely reliable with no light primer strikes. I found accuracy to be wanting but that is probably me (I now think I need a .22lr snub as a trainer), but I was ok at ranges up to about 15-20 feet which is about as far as this type of gun is likely to be used anyway. The DAO trigger was incredibly smooth.
If the 431 I just bought on auction is half as good as this gun I can't wait to get it into my hands. All-in-all I am quite happy and this will probably be my most carried gun when I get to a carry state.
It is apparently an older model. It has an odd front sight- extremely thin and very long, almost the entire length of the barrel. It is without the lock that many people hate so much. I checked it on the Taurus website and the serial number comes out as made in 1991.
It didn't have much, if any, holster wear. It did have wear to the finish in one odd place though- the crown of the muzzle was almost completely without finish, but the crown itself was just about perfect. It did have a lot of lead build up in the barrel I had to clean out before shooting it so I think it might have received a lot of use by the previous owner.
There was a little endshake (I think that is the term for the back and forth movement in the cylinder), not much but a little. The lockup is ok and timing is pretty good. It performed great and showed no bad habits such as spitting at me.
It came with a larger grip, the Butler Creek/Uncle Mike's style, that fills the entire hand. For this kind of gun I wanted something trimmer so I bought some no-name boot grips off the net before I even got the gun and I put them on before getting to the range. These grips are also in the Butler Creek/Uncle Mike's boot grip style. They do not cover the back strap but they do have finger grooves for two fingers.
This is a small framed snub but so was the 605. However, with the bobbed hammer and boot grips it seems much smaller- this gun will probably completely disappear in a pocket. This is just about a perfect deep concealment CCW piece (though at 21oz an aluminum alloy version may be a tad better).
When firing the gun I found it to be a keeper. Those who remember my experience with the 605 might be surprised to learn that I found this gun to be extremely comfortable to shoot (I shot 100 rounds of 158gr LRN UMC ammo and about 25-30 that I had left of a reloaded 158gr SWC I bought at the range some time ago). With these grips I found it to be very controllable and I think I might have been sold on rubber grips on this kind of gun (the fact that my pinky dangles off the bottom of the grip doesn't effect controllability, while I would imaging with less tacky wood it probably would slip in my hand). It was completely reliable with no light primer strikes. I found accuracy to be wanting but that is probably me (I now think I need a .22lr snub as a trainer), but I was ok at ranges up to about 15-20 feet which is about as far as this type of gun is likely to be used anyway. The DAO trigger was incredibly smooth.
If the 431 I just bought on auction is half as good as this gun I can't wait to get it into my hands. All-in-all I am quite happy and this will probably be my most carried gun when I get to a carry state.
