[stantheman86]

Freinds don't let freinds buy Taurus!

J/K....... but be aware the QC of the newer Taurus wheelguns is spotty. The prices also seem to be going up on them for some reason.....I have one Taurus and it's an older early 80's .38 4", and it's OK but it sure ain't no S&W, and I have nearly a dozen Smiths vs. the one Taurus. I also have 13 Ruger .357 and .38 revolvers, I went Ruger for my revolver choice and never looked back. There was a time when I was looking at the Taurus 65, since it was a "K-frame" size .357 but came into quite a few police trade in Service Sixes for $250 or so and thus, any thoughts of buying Taurus are a distant memory.......

Gander Mt. has the 85 .38 snubs flying out of there, mostly from people just looking for an economical CCW piece and most likely they just carry them and hardly fire them.

People I know who bought a Taurus either love them or absolutely despise them and got rid of them for whatever they could get. My local dealer won't take anything with "Taurus" on it in trade, for any price. A guy had a little Taurus .380 he was trying to sell, and he politely said he won't accept a Taurus for a trade because he won't be able to make anything on it and still give a seller a decent price. I told him I was looking for the newer Taurus 9mm snub just because I wanted a wheelgun in 9mm and he talked me out of it. I buy plenty of guns there so he wasn't trying to "move stock" he just said he stopped being a Taurus dealer because so many of the revolvers had timing problems, some right out of the box. He said he opened up a Taurus .357 and it had chamber-forcing cone alignment issues, right new out of the wrap, he sent it back and stopped stocking them alltogether.

My personal recommendation would be to buy or order a new Ruger GP100 6", sets you back $500 or so but it's one you'll own and shoot for life without any worries. I have seen used GP100's for $350-400, on par with new Taurus prices and I will take a used GP100 ANY day over a NIB Taurus .357. My great grandkids will inherit my Rugers in full working order.

 

[stantheman86]

Taurus seems to be focusing on auto pistols these days, and I honestly would pick up a PT-92, probably an older one without the rail if I saw one in good shape for $250 or so. But I don't see myself buying a Taurus revolver, I just have no use for it with several Ruger GP's and Sixes.

IMO it's easier to make an inexpensive but solid autoloading pistol, like the PT92, than it is to make good, inexpensive revolvers. Revolver making is just something a gun maker has to get right, and Taurus just never seemed to get it down enough to not have intermittent problems. The revolvers they made in the Bangor Punta era were probably better when they had the connection with S&W. Taurus has been making the 92 long enough that it's a solid pistol now, although I would rather get one from back when it had more "Beretta DNA". The "S&W DNA" is long gone from Taurus wheelguns.

There are police and security trade in GP's on Gunbroker in the $3-400 range and most of them just look beat up but are not really fired all that much. I got a 4" SS adjustable sight GP for $400 on GB and it's mechanically new, just beat looking. Last time I checked new Taurus 66's were about $350-400 so to me the used GP is far and away the much better deal.

 

[stantheman86]

No such thing as too many GP's or Sixes!

Lots of people who have Tauri are like "3,000 rounds and no problems" but with a Ruger you don't have to keep a round count. I got a good price on a really well used GP100 and the guy I bought it from, when I asked about how many rounds has it seen, he said he handloads lots of .357 and that GP was his test gun for new loads and he "lost count somewhere in the 20,000s"

 

[stantheman86]

If going with Ruger over a Taurus makes me a gun snob, then I guess that's what I am! Some guys with Pythons and Anaconda's look down on my "cheap" GP100 but we'll see which one is still in time after 5,000 more rounds.

I have a lot of examples of Smiths in my collection too, but no longer seek them out. As a revolver shooter Ruger has met all my needs and then some, so I never really looked back. Ruger revolvers and CZ autos have proven themselves enough to me to become my #1 choices for revolvers and autoloaders. If another brand besides my CZ-85 can go for a 2,000 round range session in one afternoon, without so much as a drop of oil and 0 malfunctions, then it may earn my trust. Also I have shot lots of rounds through my Rugers without failure and also have used examples that have seen countless nuclear missile grade handloads at the hands of past owners, and came through just fine, after abuse that would have sent a S&W or Colt to a gunsmith.

I'm just a fan of guns that are durable and have no frills. If someone can provide me a valid reason why a $350 new Taurus 66 is a better deal than a used but well maintained GP-100 for the same price, I would love to hear it.

Most of the Rugers I got used with an unknown and probably fairly high round count actually cost less then people are shelling out for NIB Taurus guns......no need to count the rounds I myself put on it when it's probably already seen 10,000+ and is still tight as the day it left the factory.

When people talked about Ruger revolvers being "tanks" and "the best wheelguns out there" a few years back, I didn't ignore them, I went out and bought my first Ruger to see what all the hype was about and was glad I did. Sometimes it pays to listen to what other people have to say about a certain firearm.

 

[stantheman86]

All I can say is, do what makes you happy man!

We have the freedom to choose to own whatever we want, I know what I like and you know what you like.

Otherwise we can sit here all day with the ruler having a big ____ contest but I'm sure we all have better things to do! hahahaha

 

[stantheman86]

As much as I love my Ruger Sixes and GP's, I can guarantee no one has ever complained of a TOO light trigger on a stock DA Ruger revolver=) A few of mine feel like they have 20 lb. DA pulls, which is fine with me because there is no way that primer is not going to pop with all that hammer spring power. The Six and later GP were made with LE sales in mind so raw reliability, the ability to take a beating and being "dummy proof" with a modular assembly were a priority. it might be a bad analogy but I call them the "AK47 of revolvers" they may not have the "spit and polish" of a S&W but they are near impossible to break no matter what you do to them, and they have ended up in use all over the world. I have a used GP, a security trade in that looks like the guard who carried it started each shift by throwing it down 5 flights of concrete steps......the sights were destroyed when I got it but it's as tight as a bank vault. Best $300 I ever spent.

The 4" Stainless GP-100 also has an all business, brute style of it's own and is probably IMO one of the best looking revolvers ever made. If you go with a Ruger I would go stainless, it just seems a natural for these revolvers.

 

[stantheman86]

The definition of "is ____ a good gun" is subjective, I mean, they are all good until they fail!

Not trying to be a wiseass, but it's true. The guy next to me at the range loved his Taurus .357 until the forcing cone and cylinder face binded up from heat expansion, he's like "Oh WTF!" and had to wait 4 or 5 minutes before he could open the cylinder.......so he'll be at the forcing cone with a fine file, I would imagine. He didn't fire it enough to form an opinion but thought "yeah these Taurus's are awesome" then it failed.......rather the failure at the range then in a self defense scenario.

I mean, sure, I can't say I would walk past a used Taurus 82 for $150 at a gun show, could always use another plinker but I am saying I personally would not take a Taurus as a first and only choice. Just my opinion, I'm not an expert just a guy who likes guns like all of us here!

 

[stantheman86]

An advantage Taurus has over S&W is Taurus revolvers use a hammer mainspring. Like S&W does now and Ruger always has, Taurus also uses a frame mounted firing pin which IMO eliminates a few of the problems caused by pin in hammer setups. My one Taurus has too much firing pin protrusion on the hammer and the pin sticks in popped primers, so I have to shorten the pin a little bit. This would not have occurred in a later Taurus with the transfer bar system.

Wolff offers springs for the Taurus, not sure but they may have an "extra power" trigger and hammer spring that will make the trigger pull heavier and add more primer popping force to the hammer. If they don't offer an "Xtra Power" in their lineup I'm sure if you contact them they can make you one.

I myself am the same way, I prefer a heavy, even DA pull and a heavy but crisp SA break. I leave the springs in my Rugers bone stock, I would rather have the firm DA pull through.

I have bought several both S&W and Ruger wheelguns that have been "worked" and the Rugers were far easier to return to factory specs. The S&W's I had to replace the strain screw, mainspring, trigger spring, and they were never "right" again.

 

[stantheman86]

Pics of blown up Taurus revolvers? Do a google search and you'll find plenty of them. Apparently a bad batch of the Model 65's got out and had stress cracks form in the cylinders......

Sure you can blow up ANY gun with overloaded ammo. But if you think any Taurus is stronger or more durable than a Ruger SP101, GP100 or Redhawk, then I wanna try whatever it is you're smokin! And yes, for the record I own several Taurus revolvers, along with pretty much every maker that ever turned out a revolver so I own and have tried em all. I'm a Ruger guy, because I like durability. Even have an Armcor/Rock Island 4" .38 sitting in it's case broken after 100 or so rounds of standard .38 (CRAP-ola!)

 

[stantheman86]

I actually did answer the OP's second question over a month ago, but he has yet to reappear to read it, I guess......

Flame cutting is common to ALL revolvers, it makes a line and then stops after a certain point. .357 Magnum will just make a deeper line than .38. It does no harm whatsover, I have a Ruger GP100 with over 200,000 round of .357 through it, and the flame cutting is no deeper than revolvers with far fewer rounds.

Hot, light bullet .44 mags are known for causing both severe flame cutting and forcing cone erosion. The reason the .357 Maximum is no longer popular is it caused very severe flame cutting to the point where it damaged the top straps, and thus Ruger and other makers like Dan Wesson dropped the .357 Maximum revolvers from production.

 

[stantheman86]

This has been a hot debate over on the Ruger forum for a while now, trying to figure out how to attach some kind of "blast shield" to the inner topstrap to make all those .357 Maximum Blackhawks able to shoot again without seriously cutting the top straps. I believe someone devised a top strap shield that was actually replaceable, with no hack-job looking glue or permanent alteration to the gun. I don't know if they ever got it to work, I think they just used steel and would replace it when that piece got cut.

 

[stantheman86]

No problem, your posts were among the most on-topic of the whole thread. Unfortunately half of the threads I see where the topic is a certain make of firearms always turns into a flame war with most of the info being false or hear-say from people who don't even own the firearms in question.

 

[stantheman86]

No problem at all,everyone has cranky days, I have done the same thing, checking the forums before I had my first coffee of the day and came off a little harsh.

I like to try everything myself before I form an opinion. Even as a Ruger fanatic, I was hesitant to try a Redhawk, until I saw a Super Redhawk for a good price and decided to take the plunge. I feel it will be an excellent .44 Magnum hand cannon.