Well i was a big fan of the Taurus revolvers for years, and sold very very many of the 85s over a span of 6 years working in gun stores and never had one come back or have any problems. I have several on my wish list right now (445, 617 and 650), but I am a little spooked of their QC.
In the past year I bought a new style 85 (with the crane lock) and two friends bought 617s, one CH and one with a regular hammer. Different stores, different times. All of them, out of the box, were un-shootable for more than a couple of cylinders full. The cylinder gaps were set far too tight (I did not have a feeler gauge small enough to fit the original gap on my 85, and i did not check the 617s). After a few rounds were fired the cylinder would drag and bind.
The triggers on all three guns where VERY good. The 85 was probably the most accurate j-frame sized gun that i have ever played with. It just would not make it 2 cylinders full of any ammo i tried without binding up (USA FMJ, Speer 125 jhp, nyclads, Fed Hydrashok +P+). Also, its cylinder did not sit perfectly vertical in the frame window, so the binding problem was very pronounced on three chambers, and not so bad on two. After multiple trips to the gunsmith (never back to Taurus though, i should have done that first thing) it started light striking on two, sometimes 3 of the chambers. Again, this could have been fixed, but I just got annoyed with it and lost faith in it and finally ended up trading it back in at the gunshop where i bought it on a used Single Six.
The two 617s were fixed easily by opening the gap up a touch and now work great.
All the good luck that everyone on here is having with them lately is getting me closer and closer to buying another one of them. I am even starting to get curious about one of these little .32 mags that everyone seems to love so much! I would love to see any sort of expansion tests on the JHP loads for these .32 mags.
