I finally got to do a good run in of my new tiny bull gun. I had a chance to function test, and bounce a few cans around a few weeks ago, but this time I had proper targets, and a bench.
First impressions, likes:
Loads of fun to shoot.
Very natural to point.
Surprising accurate for a tiny gun with a firm and long SAO trigger pull, short sight radius, and sights that my 65 year old eyes didn't care much for.
100% reliable
with the right ammunition. More on that later.
I like the tip up barrel concept. Just kind of cool loading the first round that way.
Sorry I forgot my camera for pics. I'll get some on my next range trip.
I could easily get a magazine full of center mass hits on a standard B27 target @ 10 yards. Not really using the sights, but point and shoot instinct style shooting. for me a good way to practice my SD shooting at close range.
From a bench rest I could tighten the group up to about 3" and sometimes less. As I said, the thin front sight with the little groove down it isn't a good match for my old eyes.
Dislikes:
As mentioned the sights are a little hard to use for accurate aiming. Maybe a little sight paint here, and there might help.
The magazine is a little harder to load than my other rimfire autoloaders. There is a small rivet like protrusion on each side of the magazine attached to the follower that helps in compressing the spring. It's not as pronounces as that on my Walther P22, and Browning Buckmark making it more difficult pulling the follower down to load the magazine. also there is a very small "sweet spot" in the magazine lips to slide the rim into. the other two mentioned guns seem to be a lot easier to put the rounds into the magazine.
Now my biggest complaint. The slide doesn't stay open after the last round id fired. This makes an accurate round count when you are shooring very important in order to avoid dry firing the pistol after the last round has been fired. Not a good thing for a rimfire because of possible peening of the chamber mouth by the firing pin.
I did have a few dry fire incidences due to some very bad ammunition, but I don't notice any ill effects on the chamber mouth.
Over all my impression is that the Taurus PT22 Poly is a winner, and I'm very happy with my purchase. Another one that's gonna eat up a lot of range time, and low cost ammo because it's just so much fun to shoot.
Lastly a side note on the ammunition:
CCI MiniMags were 100% reliable, and accurate as expected.
Winchester Wildcat was just about as accurate as the CCI, and also 100% reliable
Winchester bulk "333" An equal to the Wildcats.
Remington Golden Bullets bulk ammo was accurate, and functioned well
as long as it went bang!!! Probably 6 out of 100 were duds. They had a decent firing pin strike, but did not fire.
Federal Champion. Totally useless ammunition!!!
Duds, failure to eject, stove pipes, failure to feed. If it could go wrong, it did with Federal Champion!
I thought maybe the Taurus just didn't like the Federal loads. They felt noticeably weaker than all the others, and even sounded weaker with a dull report. I then tried them in my P22, and Buckmark with the same results. Accuracy was OK I guess. Kind of hard to tell when you had to hand feed every other round!
Now the surprise of surprises. I also tried some Federal 325 bulk ammo. It had a differant appearance, and was a completely differant animal than the Champion. It was 100% reliable, and as accurate as any of the others...Go figure!
