The Taurus 66

[fistful]

I have been looking for a CCW revolver, and I saw a Taurus Model 66 the other day. It was sitting right next to a S & W 19-3, and they looked almost identical. Would the Taurus have the same problems with handling a steady diet of magnums?

 

[MCgunner]

Mine is very tight, bought it used, but of course I don't know what sort of diet it had in a previous life. I wouldn't worry about either gun unless all you plan to shoot is hot stuff. I mostly shoot .38 in mine.

The M66 is a big, heavy revolver for CCW, though. I don't carry mine except outdoors exposed in a belt rig. I've got a M85UL for concealment, along with other stuff.

 

[ktd]

If you are referring to flame cutting, it should be about the same, being a very similar frame size.

The firing pin setup is different. I ran several thousand rounds through mine, The firing pin return spring broke, and sometimes the firing pin would stick in the primer indent and keep the cylinder from turning. Tilting the gun would allow the cylinder to spin. Taurus fixed it right quick. That technically is something that would not happen on older smiths, though many new smiths use the floating firing pin now.

The Taurus guns do not seem to wear as nice as Smiths though, if you are gonna run thousands and thousands of maggies, the Smith would be easier to fix locally, and has an edge in durability. People who ran Taurus in competition seemed to wear out things like hands and pawls more frequently. If you are gonna shoot something on the order of a couple of thousand rounds in its lifetime, and would have to ship back to the factory anyway if something broke, the Taurus would be okay.

 

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

I miss my 6" Nickle Taurus 66

It was the most accurate pawn shop pistol I ever owned. The trigger is really simple to refine too. Taurus's customer service was second to none when I fed mine some 'way too hot' loads. I broke the frame lock. But that would have been expected with the Smitty too. Other than that, I fed mine with magnum loads the whole time I owned it. Thousands of rounds. Now a good buddy is doing the same with that pistol. He likes it so much, he won't sell it back to me! My gun safe has Colt's and Rugers in it. But that Taurus would be welcome any day.

-Steve

 

[MCgunner]

The firing pin setup is different. I ran several thousand rounds through mine, The firing pin return spring broke, and sometimes the firing pin would stick in the primer indent and keep the cylinder from turning. Tilting the gun would allow the cylinder to spin. Taurus fixed it right quick. That technically is something that would not happen on older smiths, though many new smiths use the floating firing pin now.

Flip side to that is I saw the hammer mounted firing pin on a S&W break off once on a guy's gun at the range. If that hammer mounted firing pin breaks, you're out of action. You can tilt it all you want and it ain't gonna work. But, that don't happen all that often, though it happened to me on a Rossi. Since those two incidents, I've sorta preferred the floating firing pin as in Taurus/Ruger. However, I'd still carry a Smith, of course. Ain't like it happens every day and I always have a back up with me.

 

[Doogle]

I believe the Taurus M66 is equivalent to a S&W K-frame...>

...and my understanding is that the K-frames were not intended to handle a consistent diet of full-power .357 rounds. It's a medium frame that was based on the .38spl guns. The beefier L-frame guns were designed with the .357mag in mind.

That said, the M66 may well handle constant .357mag loads. I have a Taurus M689, and split the use between .38sp/.357mag about 70/30.

​

 

[medmo]

One of the Taurus revolvers I own is a 66 with a 6"bbl. I traded in to it many years ago. I have used it for handgun hunting, pistol matches, plinking and self defense. I don't know how many rounds were run through it before I bought it and couldn't count the rounds that I have fired in this gun. I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to "wear out" this gun.