Well, despite all my preaching against it, my girlfriend just HAD to have a Taurus .22 4" in bright stainless (she hates Smith and Wesson), so for Christmas I got her one. I just took it to the range today to sight it in and below are my observations.
First Impressions
FINISH - the shiny stainless is beautiful, being mirror-like and perfectly polished. I love a shiny, nickel-looking finish, although my friend calls it "pimpy".
FIT - seems every bit as good as any Smith/Ruger. I say Lockup seems appropriately tight. I was impressed.
TRIGGER - SA is PERFECTION, flat-out better than any gun I've ever owned, including the tuned ones. A guestimated 2 - 2.5 pds., extremely crisp. DA is absolutely wretched, being so heavy I didn't even try to shoot it this way for my first session. Besides being heavy, it has an unpredictable quality to it, possibly because the pull is just very inconsistent. Basically, it feels like dragging a hoe over rocks, but I really didn't expect much. Might be usable with shotshells on snakes.
GRIPS - some kind of black rubber finger groove type. We both dislke them but the grooves are pretty shallow and inoffensive, so we've put up with them for now.
SIGHTS - Let me begin by saying that I LOATHE ramp front sights. I understand why they're necessary, but I still hate them because they always manage to "wash out" no matter what lighting conditions I'm shooting in. That aside, they were small and cramped but usable. Taurus did a nice job with the red insert and white outline.
As for being adjustable, well they are not CLICK-adjustable, and the elevation screw must be turned in the opposite direction than on Smiths/Rugers. Also, the screw could hardly be turned, being so stiff that you didn't really know whether the sight was resisting you or was just out of room for adjustment. A minor PIA, but it was workable and I got the gun sighted in adequately.
At the Range ....
In the fading evening light, I shot 4 9-shot groups with Thunderbolt ammo. Further testing will be done, but some impressions can be made from this.
GROUPS - I threw the last group out because the lack of light was really causing the sight to wash out. The other 3 were all about the same result though - 7 shots would cluster in about 2 inches, and the other 2 would be about 1.5 - 2 inches higher than these, making a little 2-shot group on their own of about 1.5 - 2 inches. I found this quality to be incredibly frustrating, the gun being so close to satisfyingly accurate.
RELIABILITY - the gun went off every time and ejected the casings perfectly, but had a distressing problem. Once out of ever 9 shots, it would spit, presumably because one the chambers wasn't lining up perfectly with the forcing cone. My girlfriend though has shot the gun a couple of times already and swears that this hasn't happened to her. She also hates Thunderbolts and didn't shoot them in the gun.
Could this be ammo-related? Whatever it was, something hot would fly into the web of my support hand, once every 9 times. I'm assuming it was doing this on the same chamber every time, but I didn't mark the chamber (didn't have a way to). Never having had this happen before, my first reaction is to just pack it up and send the darn thing back to Taurus, but I think I'll try a couple of other types of ammo first, just to be sure.
CONCLUSIONS - I have mixed feelings about this gun. When I ordered it, I was pretty skeptical, figuring that like the other Tauruses I've had it'll end up going right back to the factory for remedial work. When it arrived, I fell in love with it and thought about buying one for myself. Now that I've shot it, I'm thinking my original skepticism was well-deserved. What's annoying is that Taurus comes so close to making a really great gun, but seems too careless to pull it off. I've been thinking about one of their .45 Colt snubbies, but now I think I'll just get a Redhawk or a Bisley.
I'll write an update if things go differently the next time I shoot it.
First Impressions
FINISH - the shiny stainless is beautiful, being mirror-like and perfectly polished. I love a shiny, nickel-looking finish, although my friend calls it "pimpy".
FIT - seems every bit as good as any Smith/Ruger. I say Lockup seems appropriately tight. I was impressed.
TRIGGER - SA is PERFECTION, flat-out better than any gun I've ever owned, including the tuned ones. A guestimated 2 - 2.5 pds., extremely crisp. DA is absolutely wretched, being so heavy I didn't even try to shoot it this way for my first session. Besides being heavy, it has an unpredictable quality to it, possibly because the pull is just very inconsistent. Basically, it feels like dragging a hoe over rocks, but I really didn't expect much. Might be usable with shotshells on snakes.
GRIPS - some kind of black rubber finger groove type. We both dislke them but the grooves are pretty shallow and inoffensive, so we've put up with them for now.
SIGHTS - Let me begin by saying that I LOATHE ramp front sights. I understand why they're necessary, but I still hate them because they always manage to "wash out" no matter what lighting conditions I'm shooting in. That aside, they were small and cramped but usable. Taurus did a nice job with the red insert and white outline.
As for being adjustable, well they are not CLICK-adjustable, and the elevation screw must be turned in the opposite direction than on Smiths/Rugers. Also, the screw could hardly be turned, being so stiff that you didn't really know whether the sight was resisting you or was just out of room for adjustment. A minor PIA, but it was workable and I got the gun sighted in adequately.
At the Range ....
In the fading evening light, I shot 4 9-shot groups with Thunderbolt ammo. Further testing will be done, but some impressions can be made from this.
GROUPS - I threw the last group out because the lack of light was really causing the sight to wash out. The other 3 were all about the same result though - 7 shots would cluster in about 2 inches, and the other 2 would be about 1.5 - 2 inches higher than these, making a little 2-shot group on their own of about 1.5 - 2 inches. I found this quality to be incredibly frustrating, the gun being so close to satisfyingly accurate.
RELIABILITY - the gun went off every time and ejected the casings perfectly, but had a distressing problem. Once out of ever 9 shots, it would spit, presumably because one the chambers wasn't lining up perfectly with the forcing cone. My girlfriend though has shot the gun a couple of times already and swears that this hasn't happened to her. She also hates Thunderbolts and didn't shoot them in the gun.
Could this be ammo-related? Whatever it was, something hot would fly into the web of my support hand, once every 9 times. I'm assuming it was doing this on the same chamber every time, but I didn't mark the chamber (didn't have a way to). Never having had this happen before, my first reaction is to just pack it up and send the darn thing back to Taurus, but I think I'll try a couple of other types of ammo first, just to be sure.
CONCLUSIONS - I have mixed feelings about this gun. When I ordered it, I was pretty skeptical, figuring that like the other Tauruses I've had it'll end up going right back to the factory for remedial work. When it arrived, I fell in love with it and thought about buying one for myself. Now that I've shot it, I'm thinking my original skepticism was well-deserved. What's annoying is that Taurus comes so close to making a really great gun, but seems too careless to pull it off. I've been thinking about one of their .45 Colt snubbies, but now I think I'll just get a Redhawk or a Bisley.
I'll write an update if things go differently the next time I shoot it.