jimku said:
I recently bought a Taurus 605 357 snubbie. The cylinder would not lock up … checked out fine at my FFL, but when I got home and loaded it with snap caps to give it a good "work out", the problem surfaced. They sent me a pre-paid shipping label, and they have a 12-week turn-around on warranty work. That was three weeks ago.
My father had a similar issue, as well as (dangerously) bad timing, with one of their 3" barrel .38 Special J-frame clones in what, at the time, was their "matte blue".
Once it was in Taurus's hands, they told him it was unsafe and that they absolutely would not return it to him. But that model was out of production, so they couldn't replace it.
He demanded a refund. They refused. Pissing contest was born. ('Unstoppable force vs immovable object'; or 'Karen vs Karen' type of thing.)
Long story short... Without his approval, they shipped one of their 7-shot .357 Mag snubbies, in
bright chrome (M85 I think), to his FFL and closed the workorder.
Not what he bought. Not what he sent to them. No consent from him. Not the same retail value.
But that's what he was stuck with.
Guess what?
It didn't lock up properly, either.
Rather than send it to Taurus, he had a gunsmith fix it.
That lasted about 10 years.
Last time he had it out to shoot it, it was striking the edge of the primers. About 6 rounds of improperly aligned detonations, and it stopped locking up properly, again.
My own Taurus experience...?
I think the "Raging" series is fairly decent, and wouldn't mind several of them.
But.
I no longer own anything Taurus.
Quality control doesn't exist.
Rather than make good guns, they prefer to just make a crap-ton of cheap guns with minimal oversight, and then let the repair center pick up the slack
IF someone complains.
One of my Taurus pistols was so bad, overall, that Taurus had an in-house recall on the model. It was the pre-official recall, pre-Millenium, pre-Pro, pre-B (the recall), PT-138 .380 Auto. If that model makes it back into their hands, they won't let you have it back. They will only offer a current equivalent replacement (if they have one), or let you buy something else at wholesale cost.
Mine was serial number 8. First day. First shift. Everything was wrong with it. But still SN 8. While Taurii are not generally considered collectible, a serial number that low does bring additional value, with the right buyer. I wasn't about to hand it over.
I fixed it myself, got it mostly reliable after a lot of fiddling and load experimentation, and ran it for about 14 years; before finally dumping that crap-tastic attempt at a firearm before it blew up on me. Excellent condition, unnatural reliability, SN 8, original box, a spare magazine, and still surviving in the wild. I doubled my money, and then some.
Best deal on a Taurus, ever.
Seriously, I agree that over the years it's a hit-or-miss thing with Taurus--when they are good--they can be very good, when they are bad, that's when you find out there's not any real kind of domestic factory support and your weapon will be in Brazil-and-back purgatory for quite some time.