I'm done with Taurus

[Jim]

If you remember, about a month or so back, I had to send back a brand new Taurus .22 revolver. I just got it back. I took it out to my range today and ran five different brands through it. the gun was fired from a very steady rest position at 25 feet. Below is the results. The black squares are one inch square bullet pasters. That will give you an idea of the group sizes.

Now the cylinder wants to hang on a couple of particular chambers. When it gets to that spot, I can't put enough pressure on the hammer to get it to cock.

I'm going to send it back again and when it comes back this time, I'm going to sell it as fast as I can.

I gave this gun and Taurus every opportunity to do the right thing. I'm done now.

http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/p1010001-e1320364540461.jpg

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

My teaching partner ordered 5 taurus revolvers for our CCW classes and had to send 2 back. Same issues with the cylinder wanting to hang up. Found the cylinders were out of wack because with some chambers there was a cylinder gap and at others there was none...it was hitting the barrel. I have heard a lot of guys say good things about Taurus, but I have also heard a lot of bad things. I have yet to own a Taurus.

[Finster101]

Lucky for me I never started with them. Just never had a feel I cared for.

[David LaPell]

A friend of mine bought a .44 Raging Bull and the rear sight broke after 6 shots. The whole rear sight needs to be replaced. Another guy I new bought a new 1911 and after only about 50 yards the safety broke in off on the slide, literally sheared in half. That and the finish came off only after a couple of months. After hearing all the stories I really have no desire to own a Taurus and never will.

[Guesser]

I have never owned a new Taurus, bought several used. Best value for my dollar of any used gun I have ever purchased. My 441 is the best of them all, stainless 44 Special; just wish my S&W 624 was as good.
Sorry the 22 didn't work out for you, it will for someone, due to the life time warranty.

[pmer]

My PT1911 had off center chamber and I put a Wilson in it. Then I started having issues with the series 80 firing pin block saftey - it's a series 70 now.

[MT Gianni]

I bought a High Standard 9 shot revolver 2 weeks ago on Gunbroker. Cost was $199.95 and my bid was $200. If someone wanted it worse than I did it was theirs. Shipping was $25 and my FFL transfer @ the pawn shop is $10. I filed the front sight square where it had been dropped and looked like a T, and touched up the bluing on the cylinder. I need to get some pics of the gun and groups but I am OK with this soon to be 50 year old pistol.This gun was carried and stored a lot but shot little. The rifling is crisp and the crown is excellent.

[gandydancer]

How do you spell that? TOREAXX would not own one. never have. never will.

[white eagle]

said it before in yer other post Jim
Sorry bout your troubles
my wife owns a 9 shot Taurus and we have had zero problems with hers
my be lucky but would rather be lucky than not

[Bullwolf]

I have an old High Standard 22 LR 9 shot Sentinel. It shoots just fine, and it probably has more years on it than I have been shooting for.

My buddy wanted a 22 revolver to teach his little girl to shoot with, and we just recently picked up a brand new Taurus 94 revolver, with a blued 4inch barrel in 22LR only.

I did stare pretty hard at a convertible 22LR & 22Magnum Taurus revolver before getting the 94 in 22LR though.

I have read so many horror stories about the Taurus 22 revolvers lately (sadly AFTER I had already made the purchase) that I was quite a bit worried this one would turn out to be a real lemon. Still you often get what you pay for, and this is a $300-350 dollar gun new.

I guess we got lucky. It's an good shooter, accurate, (double action trigger pull is a bit stiff though) and it doesn't seem to hang up the cylinder (yet?) like so many other folks have been reporting. If anything, the more it gets shot, the nicer it starts to feel. Let's hope that many 1000's of rounds later, it's still chugging along as well as my old High Standard.

I have read enough bad things about Taurus firearms in general to feel that this gun was the lucky rare exception to the rule.

I seriously doubt that I would chance buying another one. I have not owned many other Taurus firearms, other than a Beretta 92 knock off in stainless that shot better than my old 92FS does.

The Taurus name doesn't exactly inspire the same confidence as say Ruger, or Smith and Wesson.

Sooner or later you will get a bad firearm from any manufacturer, but the Taurus name does seems to keep popping up again and again with people who are having problems.


- Bullwolf

[Jim]

Here's my latest post on my site. (http://jgcphotos.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/dont-buy-taurus-firearms/)

[tek4260]

Jim, if you aren't careful, you are going to dethrone me as the resident Taurus hater.

I wish I could say I am sorry for your troubles, but it isn't like we weren't warned about em.

[Guesser]

Just can't understand why this kind of thing has happened to so many people. I have never talked FTF with anyone that has experienced a Taurus failure. My own experience has been good with all the used ones I bought. The dealers in this area sell a lot of them, I ask and am told that they are reliable accurate and priced right. Maybe it is just something in the water in some areas!!!!!!!!

[Jim]

Below are some photos of some more problems I found while carefully examining the gun this morning.

Here you can see that the barrel is not torqued in to 12 o'clock. You can see the marks from the old barrel that they removed.
Also, you can see the there's more chamber showing on the left side of the frame than the right. The cylinder does not lock up in proper time in single or double action.
http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/p10100012-e1320413170994.jpg

Here you can see the drag marks on the barrel from the cylinder rubbing against it.
http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/p1010007-e1320413259516.jpg

Here you can see the drag marks on the face of the cylinder where it rubbed against the barrel.
http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/p1010008-e1320413313387.jpg

[FN in MT]

I wish I could post.. "You get what You pay for". But...after taking the sideplate off of a new S&W M-60 3" PRO model the other day...that old caveat doesn't hold true. Smith has cheapened them up as far as possible as well.

Over on the S&W forum it's not out of the ordinary to hear about current Smith revolvers being shipped back as theres a quality control issue.

CORPORATE PROFITS are job #1 now. With S&W apparently the Bean Counters are running the company because the engineers who build these guns surely are not.

FN in MT

[scrapcan]

Jim,

I had high hopes you would have better luck with your 94 than I have. There are now three of us haters in the bunch, worry you have to be one of us. I have other experiences that also pushed me there but he 94 and the customer service/repair/parts at TaurusUSA pushed me over the edge.

Your reports are enough I do not need to add any more.

[Love Life]

I wish I could post.. "You get what You pay for". But...after taking the sideplate off of a new S&W M-60 3" PRO model the other day...that old caveat doesn't hold true. Smith has cheapened them up as far as possible as well.

Over on the S&W forum it's not out of the ordinary to hear about current Smith revolvers being shipped back as theres a quality control issue.

CORPORATE PROFITS are job #1 now. With S&W apparently the Bean Counters are running the company because the engineers who build these guns surely are not.

FN in MT

My Brand new S&W 327 Performance Center had to go back twice, and the third time it broke I asked for and got my money refunded. All companies produce lemons.

[Jim]

Copied & pasted from another forum -

Gent, I recently couldn't decide on a .357 myself. Ended up buying the Taurus 608 in Dec '07. On my 4th shot fired on the new gun. the barrel exploded off the frame and ended up 20 yards down range. Pretty startling and dangerous, but I guess stuff happens. Stupidly, I took bad advice and dealt directly with Taurus. Over a month later they haven't even looked at the gun yet and told me it will be several weeks before they will. This is a brand new gun! Unfortunately, this will be my last Taurus. When they send me my replacement, I'll sell it and buy from S&W or Ruger. Live and Learn! Good luck with your decision.
http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/18872_100_0881_1.jpg

[Maximumbob54]

I have still had to send back more of my S&W’s than anything else I own. I just had a cracked frame replaced on my 637. I came really close to putting a brand new 686+ on layaway until I noticed the barrel was canted, the cylinder gap was huge even to the eye, not a single time did the cylinder come close to locking up with each chamber I tested, and while the latest rubber grip they are putting on them does nothing for me it was just such a lump in the hand. All that with the not liked by me ILS and new EDM rifling made me put her back. I won’t pay around $800 for something just to already know I need to ship it back. As for barrels flying off, Colt, Ruger, and S&W all have cases where that has happened. We are talking mass produced assembly line products here. And not one of my Taurus guns have ever needed to be sent back. I had what I thought was a bad chamber in my 94 but it turned out to be bad ammo since I can rattle out nine shots of CCI every time I try it. I guess I just don’t get brand hate. But then I also use Lee reloading gear and the only things I have ever broke were my own fault. I don’t need a “No BS” warranty to save me from being ham handed. And the .44 magnum Raging Bull I got to shoot a few weeks ago was a pretty darn nice gun. It locked up nice on each chamber, the double action was pretty good but not perfect right out of the box, the single action was pretty light and made for some very accurate shooting of a rest. I was so impressed that I was even a little envious. My PT-92 has a decade plus of reliable shooting under it, my 605 has about six years now of reliability under it but I admit to really only shooting .38’s with it, my 445 is about as old but was bought used and is the older gen but still nice and tight, and I have a few more that are still working great. It sucks bad to be stuck with a lemon but I would be stubborn and keep forcing them to make it right. But I’m hard headed like that.

[Guesser]

As I said earlier; that 22 will make someone a nice gun due to the lifetime warranty.

I'm told that Cylinder & Slide now advertises that they will accept Taurus for shop work.
The times, they are a changin'!!!!!!!

[Walt]

Just can't understand why this kind of thing has happened to so many people. I have never talked FTF with anyone that has experienced a Taurus failure. My own experience has been good with all the used ones I bought. The dealers in this area sell a lot of them, I ask and am told that they are reliable accurate and priced right. Maybe it is just something in the water in some areas!!!!!!!!

I work part time in a friends gunshop. For us, the most returned pistol is Taurus, the most returned revolver.....yup... Taurus. BTW our water is just fine. [smilie=l:

[MtGun44]

Our nearby gun shop gave up on selling Taurus's after too high return rate and very poor
customer service from Taurus. Taurus insisted on the customer sending it back to Brazil
for much $ and much time rather than letting the shop exchange it and have the shop send
it back. In any case, they felt like they didn't want to be selling guns where so many were
defective, which is very bad - but the customer service delay was the decider.

No particular axe to grind - never owned (and unlikely to) a Taurus, but have observed some
serious quality issues.

Bill

[Jim]

Bill,
My dealer friend said the defective guns now go to Miami and that Taurus picks up the tab for all costs involved. Sounds to me like they know they're loosing customers and they're scrambling to save it.

[MtGun44]

Well, that is good to hear. Back when they did this, maybe 5 yrs ago, the customer had
to pay himself to send the gun back and all repairs were in Brazil. Typically took 3 months to
get a gun back. When a customer bought a gun and took it out onto the range 3 minutes later
and it broke in the first session, they were pretty unhappy not to be able to exchange it for
one of the 10 other ones just like it on the shelf so they could have a working gun. The shop
tried to get the Taurus rep to permit this, thinking that this was obvious good customer
relations, but they absolutely wouldn't budge at that time. Sounds like they saw the light
to some extent.

Any company in any business needs to provide good customer service. People are reasonably
understanding about flaws IF they are quickly fixed and do not reoccur, and the fix in paid
for by the company. If those things aren't done, people get unhappy pretty quickly.

Sorry for your bad results on your Taurus, everyone would love for there to be only good
realiable guns out there, and of course, for low prices! I like to dream.

Bill

[NoZombies]

Jim, I've got a lot of respect for you, and you've proven to be a really good guy, but I've had different results with Taurus guns, and their customer service.

I wish you well in your new path, but remember that every manufacturer produces lemons.

In your blog post you mention moving towards charter arms guns. I wish you luck with that, and recommend that you personally examine one before purchase. I've wanted several of the charter offerings, and after looking at them in person, I couldn't bring mysel to buying them. I've ended up with Taurus and Rossi guns instead, in spite of the bad rap both of those makers get. I examined the guns before purchase, and I've been happy with them.

[Guesser]

As a reference point. I found Taurus Corporate information that stated that the Warranty/Service center in Florida was established in 1980. Of course it was done without a parts inventory or anyone that knew what was going on, gained a bad reputation. No warranty guns were shipped to Brazil from that point on, but were held until parts or skilled workmanship could be performed, sometimes months and months. It's usually better than that now but sometimes it still happens if they have to wait for a production run of a particular part. In my own experience I have to fault Ruger for my absolute worst warranty experience; it took 9 months to resolve my warranty workmanship fault on that stainless steel New Model Black Hawk. I still patronize Ruger!!!! The only brand name/corporation that I go out of my way to avoid now is General Motors and I've been that way for almost 20 years.

[dagger dog]

I can't understand why ANY firearms manufactuer wouldn't go as far in QC as to test fire a whole cylinder-magazine full before the gun left the factory !

I'm not even talking about accuracy but SAFETY !

The $$$$ has done away with with the test target that was signed by the QC inspector, who was proud enough of his work and companys product to sign it !

[swheeler]

Copied & pasted from another forum -

Gent, I recently couldn't decide on a .357 myself. Ended up buying the Taurus 608 in Dec '07. On my 4th shot fired on the new gun. the barrel exploded off the frame and ended up 20 yards down range. Pretty startling and dangerous, but I guess stuff happens. Stupidly, I took bad advice and dealt directly with Taurus. Over a month later they haven't even looked at the gun yet and told me it will be several weeks before they will. This is a brand new gun! Unfortunately, this will be my last Taurus. When they send me my replacement, I'll sell it and buy from S&W or Ruger. Live and Learn! Good luck with your decision.
http://jgcphotos.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/18872_100_0881_1.jpg

Wow that's quite a snubby ya got there!

[Thin Man]

Is that their new convertible model? A quick switch barrel model that converts from a target model to a belly gun???

Thin Man

[Dark Helmet]

an older model Single Six or Sp101:bigsmyl2: