Focusing on revolvers, and researching this pretty heavily of late for reasons I'll go into in a moment, I think Taurus CAN build a decent gun, but don't ask them to do anything "edgy".
In other words, in a small frame (J-class) stick with 38Spl and plain blue or stainless - not "ultralight" in aluminum, magnesium or titanium. And not 357.
In the medium frames, 357 works fine. NOT 44Magnum. Don't even think about the 44 until you get into the "Raging" size frame.
Why I've been looking at this...bit of a long story, I'll compress it to the max.
A guy on thehighroad.us bought a 605 (snubby J-class 357, exposed hammer, 2" barrel) brand new, paid about $350. Shot it around 150 times, mixed 38 and 357, it broke on him - wouldn't latch the cylinder closed.
He sent it off to Taurus (paying shipping), gets it back, it breaks again. He got so ****** off he posted to thr.us "first Arizona resident wants this damned thing, come get it, I'm done with Taurus".
So I says "ooooh, cool, free gun!"
Yeah, I got it. Called Taurus, explained everything, they paid shipping both ways this time. But meanwhile, in examining it closely before they picked it up (literally the same morning Fedex was supposed to come) I realize that the trigger was sticking out sideways from the triggerguard slightly - not a lot but at least 2mm - 3mm range. Enough that on re-holstering with a tight kydex holster, you might crank a round off. I quickly call Taurus and add this to the complaint both on the phone and on the paper slip I include with the gun.
They kept it about three months before finally deciding it had to be scrapped. They also explained they were out of 605s.
I did some rapid, heavy googling and browsing of Taurus' site, looking up MSRP on various guns and then reading reports on same.
I asked them to send me either a blue 850 (fully concealed hammer aka "CIA") or 851 (their version of the S&W Bodyguard, shrouded hammer, both 38Spl snubbies rated for +P.
They sent an 850 overnight.
This is a 23oz gun - it's all classic plain steel. Got it yesterday, haven't shot it yet. But I did one very thorough "checkout" and it passes. Barrel gap is around .005 give or take a thou, tiny bit of endshake (barely detectable) that shouldn't be a problem, everything else is quite good including shockingly enough the trigger.
Before telling Taurus to ship me this puppy, I did some serious searches on this forum and others as to what Taurus guns are getting the complaints. The plain blue or stainless 38 snubbies are almost never getting trouble reports.
I have a partial theory as to what's up here.
In most countries in Central and South America, laws put serious limits on the energy levels of bullets owned by citizens and security guards. Mexico seems to have pioneered this with the idea of banning "military ammo". I know Argentina, Brazil and Peru have all done this at various times. I suspect the plain-jane 38s are being sold in the local South American market while the 357s on up and "exotic alloy" stuff is made more or less exclusively for the US market.
The other thing is, obviously, they can get the basics right more often than they can get higher-end or higher-pressure stuff right.
So. I suspect this 850 will make somebody a nice little carry piece. It's not "flashy" but it has enough weight and toughness to make adequate practice practical and will otherwise "git'r'done".
And that's the kind of gun somebody shopping on a budget should be looking for.
I strongly suspect this applies to autos as well...
