BluesBear
member
No contest!
At the monthly Forum Shoot at Sam's Range on Airport Road in South Everett one of our members, MillCreek, brought several nice handguns including his Taurus PT-111.
It was my first experience firing a PT-111 and I was pleased. Mostly.
His Taurus PT-111 was a sweet shooter. The trigger pull was one of the best DAO I have ever encountered. The sights have three nice BIG white dots and are small enough not to snag but large enough for quick pick-up. Those big dots made it very easy to aquire a good sight picture.
The grip was comfortable. I have large palms but short fingers.
My pinky comfortably curled uner the non-extended magazine.
The trigger reach was not excessive and I could maintain good sight alignment during the pull. Speaking of pull, the trigger pull was consistant with just a hint of stacking right before firing.
Trigger release was positive but not so strong as to interfere with follow through.
Due to the follower shape loading the first round was a little difficult. But the 12 round magazines were well made, locked positively in the gun and fed perfectly. The slide locked open each and every time after the last round was fired.
The PT-111 handled very well.
It shot very close to point of aim.
Hitting the target was no problem.
Firing at the target was.
Mill Creek hads loaded both magazines and placed them next to the gun on the lane tray for me to try. The first three rounds fired were uneventful. Three holes in the target, spaced evenly around the point of aim.
It was one of only two times I would fire three in a row.
The fourth round was a complete dud. I pulled the triger twice more bit nothing happened. I pulled the slide rearward and the round slipped from under the extractor and placed itself on top of the magazine.
I turned the gun sideways so the round would fall clear. I then laid the gun down and picked up the cartridge.
The cartridge looked new. The only thing that made it appear any different from any other loaded round was that big dent in the primer. The primer indentation was deeper that the headstamp. The headstamp that read A-MERC.
Well that explained a lot right there.
Right then and there I should have quit while I was behind. Instead I reloaded the round into the magazine and proceeded to get further behind.
The round in the chamber went BANG and the replaced round fed fine.
Three more pulls of the trigger and I once again ejected the round by hand. This time I elevated the muzzle and the round ejected albeit somewhat weakly. If the indentation had been any deeped the firing pin would have struck the bullet. A total dud.
In hindsight I guess I should have kept the round and pulled the bullet to see if there was a powder charge or not. But instead it was just dumped into the
range dud bin.
This would turn out to be the only dud in the box but there were three other cases of failure-to-fire on the first strike. Luckily for anyone unfortunate to have some of this horrible ammo the Taurus has a second strike capability.
I also experienced three "triple stacks". That's where the cartridge extracts and the next cartridge starts to feed but the first one lays directly on top shoved against the barrel hood. What you see is the one on top, one trying to enter the chamber and one in the top of the magazine. A "triple stack".
The last one was memorable because the not quite ejected case had flipped 180º and was facing backwards.
There were about a dozen failures to EXTRACT! This I have never seen in a recoil operated weapon.
It seems that the PT-111 unlocks very abruptly. The slide and barrel move slightly to the rear and then the barrel drops away abruptly. The out of spec rims of the A-MERC ammo allowed cartridge to slip out the extractor as the barrel dropped. In five of the times the time the slide cycled enough to attempt to strip the next cartridge.
Most of the time the slide simply returned to battery on the fired case. A simple tap-rack-bang did nothing since the cartridge would consistently refuse to eject. Since the case had expanded enough to resist removal by a fingernail under the rim (I am glad there is a file on my Leatherman), a cleaning from from my range box was employed to remove the case. The five times the slide actually had enough momentum to fully cycle the slide, I ended up with a loaded round lodged against the chambered case.
In the midst of all this frivolity the two stovepipes seemed rather anti-climactic.
With the American Ammunition, only twice did I manage to fire three rounds in a row without a fu.., er.., um.., ...malfunction.
Two and a half magazine of A-MERC was all of the enjoyment I could stand.
Perhaps they should changer their headstamps to read A-WREC. At least it would serve as a warning.
Changing over to WWB eliminated the malfunctions and reliability returned to 100%. Accuracy also improved.
Comparing fired A-MERC cases with fired W-W cases clearly showed that the A-MERC rims were smaller in diameter than the Winchester rims.
Hopefully Mill Creek will bring it to another shoot and we can accuracy test it with better ammo.
Once again Taurus has a winner and yet again American Ammunition is a big LOOOOSER.
Your Methods May Vary. But..,
That's my story and I'm standing by it.
At the monthly Forum Shoot at Sam's Range on Airport Road in South Everett one of our members, MillCreek, brought several nice handguns including his Taurus PT-111.
It was my first experience firing a PT-111 and I was pleased. Mostly.
His Taurus PT-111 was a sweet shooter. The trigger pull was one of the best DAO I have ever encountered. The sights have three nice BIG white dots and are small enough not to snag but large enough for quick pick-up. Those big dots made it very easy to aquire a good sight picture.
The grip was comfortable. I have large palms but short fingers.
My pinky comfortably curled uner the non-extended magazine.
The trigger reach was not excessive and I could maintain good sight alignment during the pull. Speaking of pull, the trigger pull was consistant with just a hint of stacking right before firing.
Trigger release was positive but not so strong as to interfere with follow through.
Due to the follower shape loading the first round was a little difficult. But the 12 round magazines were well made, locked positively in the gun and fed perfectly. The slide locked open each and every time after the last round was fired.
The PT-111 handled very well.
It shot very close to point of aim.
Hitting the target was no problem.
Firing at the target was.
Mill Creek hads loaded both magazines and placed them next to the gun on the lane tray for me to try. The first three rounds fired were uneventful. Three holes in the target, spaced evenly around the point of aim.
It was one of only two times I would fire three in a row.
The fourth round was a complete dud. I pulled the triger twice more bit nothing happened. I pulled the slide rearward and the round slipped from under the extractor and placed itself on top of the magazine.
I turned the gun sideways so the round would fall clear. I then laid the gun down and picked up the cartridge.
The cartridge looked new. The only thing that made it appear any different from any other loaded round was that big dent in the primer. The primer indentation was deeper that the headstamp. The headstamp that read A-MERC.
Well that explained a lot right there.
Right then and there I should have quit while I was behind. Instead I reloaded the round into the magazine and proceeded to get further behind.
The round in the chamber went BANG and the replaced round fed fine.
Three more pulls of the trigger and I once again ejected the round by hand. This time I elevated the muzzle and the round ejected albeit somewhat weakly. If the indentation had been any deeped the firing pin would have struck the bullet. A total dud.
In hindsight I guess I should have kept the round and pulled the bullet to see if there was a powder charge or not. But instead it was just dumped into the
range dud bin.
This would turn out to be the only dud in the box but there were three other cases of failure-to-fire on the first strike. Luckily for anyone unfortunate to have some of this horrible ammo the Taurus has a second strike capability.
I also experienced three "triple stacks". That's where the cartridge extracts and the next cartridge starts to feed but the first one lays directly on top shoved against the barrel hood. What you see is the one on top, one trying to enter the chamber and one in the top of the magazine. A "triple stack".
The last one was memorable because the not quite ejected case had flipped 180º and was facing backwards.
There were about a dozen failures to EXTRACT! This I have never seen in a recoil operated weapon.
It seems that the PT-111 unlocks very abruptly. The slide and barrel move slightly to the rear and then the barrel drops away abruptly. The out of spec rims of the A-MERC ammo allowed cartridge to slip out the extractor as the barrel dropped. In five of the times the time the slide cycled enough to attempt to strip the next cartridge.
Most of the time the slide simply returned to battery on the fired case. A simple tap-rack-bang did nothing since the cartridge would consistently refuse to eject. Since the case had expanded enough to resist removal by a fingernail under the rim (I am glad there is a file on my Leatherman), a cleaning from from my range box was employed to remove the case. The five times the slide actually had enough momentum to fully cycle the slide, I ended up with a loaded round lodged against the chambered case.
In the midst of all this frivolity the two stovepipes seemed rather anti-climactic.
With the American Ammunition, only twice did I manage to fire three rounds in a row without a fu.., er.., um.., ...malfunction.
Two and a half magazine of A-MERC was all of the enjoyment I could stand.
Perhaps they should changer their headstamps to read A-WREC. At least it would serve as a warning.
Changing over to WWB eliminated the malfunctions and reliability returned to 100%. Accuracy also improved.
Comparing fired A-MERC cases with fired W-W cases clearly showed that the A-MERC rims were smaller in diameter than the Winchester rims.
Hopefully Mill Creek will bring it to another shoot and we can accuracy test it with better ammo.
Once again Taurus has a winner and yet again American Ammunition is a big LOOOOSER.
Your Methods May Vary. But..,
That's my story and I'm standing by it.
