Hats off to Taurus, a 30ish year look back down memory lane

V

veprdude

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Just picked up a used PT908. Aside from reliability concerns, Taurus really had a neat lineup 20-30 years ago. Hammer fired pistols in 9, 40, 45 with decockers. 9mm and .40 in single and double stack configurations, while being thinner than S&W's 39 series.

They did something that Beretta should have done. Took Beretta's design, put the decocker on the frame and went wild with single and double stack configurations and calibers.

Hats off to old Taurus. All their new striker fired stuff is hot garbage though.
 
Back in the '80s Lassen College chief gunsmithing instructor Bob Dunlaps took a Beretta frame and Taurus slide and mated them. Worked fine. Vice versa with Taurus frme and Beretta slide. They were the earlier guns.

I do like Taurus' frame mounted safety better and like you said, I don't really care for the newer ones.
 
The newer Taurus TH series (hammer fired) pistols are good. I have a PT99 that I bought new in the early 90’s. That gun has had a lot of rounds through it and 100’s of hot handloads that were really pushing the envelope for 9mm. Never had a FTF or FTE. The frame mounted safety is very familiar to this 1911 boy.
Other than my S&W Shield and Canik TP9SFx, I don’t like striker fired pistols.
 
My PT99 is a real keeper. My best shooting 9mm semi auto is my CZ 75B SA, and I wanted to add a regular 75B as a SA/DA companion. But I saw one of these for sale locally and it was priced pretty cheap so I grabbed it. Needless to say I still have it and never did add another CZ, it scratched that itch just fine.
 
I bought a PT 92 back in the 80’s. It was a clone of the military version, but with the safety mounted on the frame. It was a reliable pistol and reasonably accurate.

The only thing I didn’t like was the grip frame was too thick for my smallish hands. I couldn’t find any thinner grips and traded it in on another pistol.
 
IIRC, the original Beretta 92 actually did have a frame-mounted "1911 style" thumb safety (though I don't think it had a decock feature), it was with the introduction of the 92S that the slide-mounted "Walther Style" safety/decocker was introduced. As such, it seem to me that Taurus chose to stay more faithful to the original design.
 
Well, that made some great designs. I really liked the PT99 and PT100 guns, but their execution was so often just not good. My PT101 had too many feed failures. It had a front sight dot off center.

I finally sold in disgust…but I liked the gun design a lot.

I totally gave up on Taurus despite all the positive articles published and many folks on the good side of the Taurus argument.

I finally bought a TX22 after hours worrying I was throwing $300 in the trash. Well, it is a solid gun. I will have a hard time bad mouthing Taurus after that!
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=618852
 
I'm more interested in Taurus revolvers than their autos, but it does seem Taurus is focusing on a "less is more" approach because it wasn't more than a decade ago that they were whipping out some wild and really useless designs like the Curve and the View. Now, I'll give them credit for being innovative on the revolver side of the things, but their autos (92 aside) to me have always come across as budget guns.

I'm fine with that as long as they're good and the G series seem to be well liked by many and I figured on trying the GX4 because it's copying the popular pistol these days with the slim doublestack and I bought it largely because it was the cheapest as I was just wanting to try it. I think single stacks being slimmer are better due to being thinner, but to each their own.

The TH line is a very bare bones DA/SA offering, but in a world where strikers are so common I'm just glad to see Taurus is supporting a segment of the market that still sees DA/SA pistols as viable and wants to buy one. I do wish they could offer an enhanced version tho for more money, something with a better trigger and polished ramps and guide rods.

If I'm going to give Taurus any congratulatory compliments it's that their quality has gotten better and, from what I hear, their customer service too. Hopefully they don't rest on their laurels and go back to what they were doing, but it seems they got the right people in the right places, more so than they had 10 or 20 years ago.
 
"IIRC, the original Beretta 92 actually did have a frame-mounted "1911 style" thumb safety (though I don't think it had a decock feature), it was with the introduction of the 92S that the slide-mounted "Walther Style" safety/decocker was introduced. As such, it seem to me that Taurus chose to stay more faithful to the original design."

I for one was never a fan of the Walther ty
pe safety. I have a Taurus PT99 and while it is a sturdy and very reliable weapon, the grips ar too large for my small hands and the trigger pull in both double and single action are way too heavy. I'll probably get around to making a skinnier set one of these days. It is an older gun abd has the 1911 style safety which I like. If, as someone has said they've switched over to the Walther syle, then I have to ask, what were they thinking????
Paul B.
 
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