actual experience with Taurus

actual experience with taurus

  • Never owned one, but would if the right deal came along

    Votes: 42 11.8%

  • never owned one and never will

    Votes: 22 6.2%

  • owed/still own taurus handguns with no issues

    Votes: 198 55.5%

  • owned/still own taurus hanguns with problems

    Votes: 95 26.6%
  • Total voters
    357
  • Poll closed .
I've owned one Taurus. It was a .357 revolver and I liked it.. until it jammed. I'm not up on revolver terminology, but the piece you push to eject spent shells became loose while I was shooting. The cylinder was caught half way between shots and I couldn't get it open or rotate it to the next shell to fire it. The specific details on how I finally got it out I can't remember (this was back in 2006, 2007), but it took about 45 minutes.

It really ruined me on Taurus and revolvers of all types. I'd rather have to deal with a semi-auto pistol's jam anyday of the week. The only reason I bought it was because supposedly revolvers don't jam and are more reliable than semis. :rolleyes: I sold it as soon as possible.
 
NDking, I am not trying to sell Tarurus by any means. However, this past weekend I had to open a S/W 686 for a person at the range. I did this because there were unfired rounds in the weapon and I did not like the way this person was attempting to free the cylinder. :eek: Note: There were some recalls on some of these models some years back.
 
I occasionally shoot a 709. It was having feed issues. We called Taurus, they said "send it in". We suggested it was a magazine issue. They said OK and mailed out a new mag.

No issues since then.

The spring on the new mag is a little longer than the original.

Got no problems with them. Based on my experience their customer service was very good.

"your mileage may vary"

Cheers!
 
I have only one, a Tracker in .44 mag. When I bought it I had no ill feelings toward Taurus firearms as I had never owned one. This particular revolver has worked well so far, but I've only put about 250 rounds through it.
 
Had a PT99. Locking block shattered. This wouldn't have been a catastrophic failure, except the design of the gun doesn't lend itself to getting it apart when this happens. When my locking block broke, it acted like it was just "jammed". So, in the process of trying to get the slide back the schards of steel wedged their way between the slide and the soft aluminum rails. Getting the gun apart gouged up the soft aluminum rails pretty badly, but still serviceable. I had to have a gunsmith get it apart and fit a new locking block to it. The replacement locking blocks from Taurus looked like cheap cast parts

Years later, Taurus admitted there was a problem with the locking blocks and stated the "fix" for this is to cut the barrel in sections so as to get the gun apart when this happens. So, my opinion is that its just not a good design.
 
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I've owned several Taurus PT series pistols, and the only reason I don't still have them is because I didn't take Cheapshooter's advice. :o Still, I found them to be wonderfully reliable pieces; no complaints here. Now then, if you want to talk about pistols I've found to be unreliable and would never buy, pull up a chair and let's talk about Sigs.......
 
I had to open a S/W 686
Click to expand...

eldermike,

yeah, I figured Taurus couldn't be the only revolver that suffer from this malfunction. I wasn't aware of any recalls, maybe mine was one that was recalled? Either way, the pistol is long gone. You're story seems to validate my dislike for revolvers all together.

I pulled up Taurus's website and what I had was exactly like their 608, although I don't know if that's the same model I had.. 8 shot, ported, rubber grips, stainless. I also found an older post of mine saying how I liked it based on my experience up to that point, haha.
 
The only thing from Taurus that I've owned was a Rossi 357 snubby. I only put a few hundred rounds through it the entire time I had it but it functioned perfectly and was very accurate for a gun its size.
 
Never owned one...but spent several afternoons here on our farm with friends who tried out their new "Judges". All three had triggers that a gorilla would have trouble pulling, but were good enough to keep the .45 Colts on a piece of copy paper at 21 feet...and that's good enough for across the bedroom shots, so long as you had strong hands to pull that abominable trigger. Accuracy was something else however.....

As I've stated here before, the Federal brand buckshot loads failed to penetrate soft poplar fencing material...at 21 feet...I wonder how they'd perform on a well dressed intruder. The .45's did much better, fully penetrating and leaving those really big holes...the trouble was that they'd managed to key-hole at 21 feet! It was a palm sized group at that distance with me doing the shooting so I can't lay it off to an inexperienced shooter....

I'd not buy a Taurus based on the examples I've seen in person, nor for the lack of customer service reported here and elsewhere on the net.

Finally, one poster here reported that Remington is now owned by the Taurus people....hope to gosh that's not true....

Rod
 
Rodfac, I have to say at 21 feet, or for me more correctly 30 feet because the range I usually shoot at has the closest target stand at 10 yards, my PD Poly keeps Winchester Silvertip 45 Colt rounds in a small coffee cup lid sized group. And makes nice round holes doing it.
 
Every now and then a security guard shows up to qualify with a Taurus. No major Police Dept. I know of allows them on duty. They've seen too many of them on the range. Hard to be specific. Everything from sights falling apart to revolvers worn out of acceptable time in less than 600 rounds.
 
I've owned 4:

1/ PT111 Mil Pro...Never had a problem in 4 years with some 3000 rounds.
2/ Judge Ultra-Lite...No problems in 3 years
3/ PT1911 9mm...Wife's range gun. Only ftf's when I get lazy and don't clean it after 2 or 3 range trips.
4/ PT738 TCP...One of the first runs of this model that were known for ftf problems. Mine has been jambing for about a year. I'm just too lazy to call Taurus and get it fixed. I don't carry it anyway.
 
I like the Taurus "J-frames" ok. But I totally agree with aarondhgraham in post 28. I do trust this one, though (650 CIA, 357 mag):

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I must say that the poll results surprised me.

Of the 126 persons who have responded so far that they have owned a Taurus, 45 of them (36%) have owned a problem Taurus.

Those are not good odds.
 
I've shot many, many magazines and cylinders full of ammo through Taurus copies of S&W and Beretta pistols. Not one of the Taurus guns were anything I'd trust my life with. Particularlly the Beretta 92FS copies. I've shot maybe a dozen of those. Compared to the real Beretta, every one of the T guns were crapola. Rough trigger, rough slide, FTEs with the same ammo that didn't cause FTEs in the Beretta, yada yada.


Sgt Lumpy - n0eq
 
I must say that the poll results surprised me.

Of the 126 persons who have responded so far that they have owned a Taurus, 45 of them (36%) have owned a problem Taurus.

Those are not good odds

John-- I bet you could post this for any other brand and be very close to the same response level.

Go to google and type in problems with ???? any other brand. You will find thousands and thousands of hits on all brands.

Case in point--HI Point-- I would put one up against anything you could find. After the dust has settled,The only thing you could walk away and say is---Well his is uglier than mine.:D
 
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This is pretty disheartening
I was looking at the 709 slim to carry. It's the perfect size and has the features I want. And the price can't be beat. I've always thought along the lines of, for every unhappy customers there's a 100 happy ones you never hear from. But this is mainly 3 pages of bad.
 
My dad has a Taurus semi-auto full size pistol (can't remember the model number PT-80 or something?). It is a piece of junk.
He put maybe 50 rounds through it and asked me to shoot it.
The problem is that if you don't keep your hand underneath the magazine, the magazine will actually fall out when you're shooting. It does this every time.
Also, it jams a lot too. Not worth the money.
 
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