I have owned a Taurus 605 SS for about a year. I purchased the 605 principally to shoot 38s through it. I have owned snubbies before and the small, light-weight guns are not fun to shoot hot 38 loads. The 605 is engineered to handle a 357 load. This gave me confidence to use it with hot 38 loads and it was a good decision as that little gun performed beautifully. It is a purpose built handgun and it is not meant to be a super accurate match trophy winner. My gun pals are pretty good shots and I typically outshot them at 21 feet while they used their Sigs, Colts and Glock pistols. The fit and finish on the gun was great and I never had a problem with it. I suppose the only issue I ever had was when I got near 100 rounds at the range, the gun would run hot and the shells would not eject as easily.
Just to see how the gun would handle Magnum loads, I put half a box of 357s through it. The gun operated fine however the experience was not great. Each shot felt like a mini baseball that was being smacked into my open hand. After about 10 shots my right hand was vibrating. The gun still shot very accurately but the longer I shot it, the more my hands were shaking. In fact, my hand was vibrating for nearly an hour after I finished shooting. I know there are trade-offs and with a little gun, this is what you deal with for that emergency situation.
I decided that I wanted a gun that was slightly larger and would manage the Magnum loads a little better. My SP101 3 inch Ruger is in DROS now. I don't expect it to manage Magnum loads like a full-size gun but look forward to a more pleasing experience when shooting Magnum loads. I will follow up with this post and give you my first out of the box and range impressions.
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