Quality 9mm pistols from $700-900
- Thread starter RedClayCherries
- Start date
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There was a time Taurus was a joke. I shot plenty of them while not owning one. The one I wouldn't trust of those years is a PT940. Those were dangerous.
Post 2016, a Taurus handgun is not the bottom of the barrel. Actually I'll be posting a review of it...I ordered myself a 856 defender in 38spl. Taurus wheel gats for none serious pressures seem to have come a long way and in some cases are a better deal and build than Ruger sp101. I haven't completely turned to the dark side but I have a good feeling about this defender.
The current G series has come a long way and If all I had was 175-250 bucks, I would get one.
Funny enough, I got G2 as part of a trade seven or eight years ago. It performed well until about 5K rounds or so. One of the mags started acting funny feeding 9mm ball…replaced it and all has been well.
I’ve since put in an aftermarket trigger that feels better than OEM and gets rid of the blade, but honestly, the FCG can only be improved so much, which isn’t much at all.
I tried a red dot adapter for a bit. That required some filing to fit in the dovetail, but it worked fine. I actually take this gun when I’m airlining some place because I don’t care if it gets stolen and it’s reliable enough for me to trust it to go bang. I also carry it kayaking and while on the bicycle, too.
There’s something to be said for a reliable and cheap carry gun, that’s for sure.
I would take a G2 or G3 - maybe a G4 (no direct experience with one) but earlier polymer Taurii - hard pass still. Their Beretta clones are generally much better.
I worked with a guy doing security who owned / had issued much better-regarded weapons, he still chose to carry a Taurus PT92 for his duty gun for the security company - despite owning a personal Glock 17 and 22, and being issued a Glock 22 from his FT police department. He made that damn Taurus sing too - outshooting almost everyone at qualifications with it. He also carried a funky-ass 85 grain round that professed to reach 2000 fps - it looked tinned or nickel plated and had a polymer ball tip - but it was *not* a Pow-R-Ball round.
Punched the cleanest holes in paper targets too - like a damned actual hole punch.
Yeah the g2 and g3 are fine. One gun that was a lot of fun was the Taurus PT22 (current model with poly frame). Mixed all kinds of ammo in it and it shot it all. In 2016 I was paid to test guns. Wasn't a fluke. Picked out a second one and it was just as reliable.
They are making better guns and sticking to a good price point.
I ordered a Ruger sp101...Came in with a missing grip screw and a bad canted barrel. Years of handling and hearing others talk about how they have been happy with Taurus 38's, yesterday I ordered one. I like 3 inch revolvers with an exposed hammer if for carry. I just like that set up...So this defender is all stainless, comes with a front night sight, and spring kits are all over if I need to improve it. Speed loaders and strips are all over. I'm very hopeful I will like it...As said, I will be posting a review.
Yeah, something is happening with Ruger - their QC has slipped a lot. Their AR's are no longer well regarded because of reliability issues and weird design choices. Their polymer pistols are just meh at best. I'd put Taurus at least on-par, or a step up from current Ruger pistols. Still like their American rifles - rim and center fire.
I think it was a huge mistake for Ruger, along with Smith & Wesson to drop their hammer fired double action pistols from manufacture. Yeah, the P89 would be a $500 or $600 gun today, not a $250 gun, and Smith & Wesson has claimed they couldn't make the 5900 series guns today for less than a $1500 street price. I think if they both went back and did some tweaks - for Ruger that would be slicking up the trigger a bit, adding cocking serrations and reprofiling the slide a bit, they'd have a winner. They had ambi-magazine releases long before it was popular. Mec-Gar's redesign of the Beretta 92 mags could probably be done with P89 mags and it would be a 17 or 18 round mag now, not 15. Especially if you add a little extended basepad.
For Smith & Wesson - keep the trigger - maybe lighten the springs just a tad but keep the old trigger geometry, bring back the last TSW style frame so it has the tac rail. If they could move the safety decocker to the frame like Beretta did with the 92X they'd have a real winner, and a gun that could command a $1000 or so street price, especially if they ditch the magazine disconnector. They could also do an optic ready version.
Yeah, Ruger has been a love hate relationship for me. I have great things to say about older guns. Even mini's. My MPR was rebuilt with stag parts a short time after I got it. It's gtg now. Tossed the Ruger BCG.
I still have my Redhawk from the late 90's. Great gun. Have an American in 223 that shoots great. Got rid of a first gen American in 300 blackout long ago that had light primer strikes.
I'm not sure I'd trust the current lineup of autos from Ruger. I have heard good things about the 1911's...I had a SR22 that was 100 percent reliable until one random day for no reason it wasn't. Yeah...Ruger is something else these days.
Tuarus 856, not sure which version, had like a 3" barrel, matte finish. Guy came up and said his revolver wasn't working right, and showed me a case (not this one) that looked like the one above.
I messed around with it, lockup seemed ok, single action was fine, DA seemed ok.
I was about to give up on it but decided to pull the trigger on DA fast. The paw would kick the cylinder and the bolt wouldn't pop up to stop the cylinder to properly line up, so the hammer would hit off center, and occasionally it was close enough to fire.
I bought a P89 in 40 from an older guy. He said he couldn't rack the slide. Bought it for $220. The thing was practically new. One day I took it out and found out the issue. The safety is on the slide, and he was right. Unless I had a glove on, the crazy stiff slide was hard on the hands with that safety on there. I sold it a couple years later after it sat in my safe. It was a beauty of a pistol in stainless, but that design blows. I have passed on deals with a couple other pistols with a similar design. I hate that safety on the back of the slide.
.40's must use a way-stiffer recoil spring than the 9's. I've had IIRC 3 of the P89's - a couple stainless, one blued, plus I've had a P95 and a P97 (Ruger's first polymer - or glass filled nylon, really - framed guns) and none were difficult to rack. The 95 and 97 also featured serrations.
Their 2nd attempt at a polymer frame - the P345 - I hated that gun. Don't get me wrong - it had a nice aggressively checkered frame, decent ergonomics - but the trigger pull seemed to be about 18lbs in DA, and 7 or 8 in single action. It retained the ambidextrous safety of the other P-series guns BUT, big BUT, it had FLAT, checkered wings instead of some bump like all the other guns. That made that safety damn near unuseable. It did, as I recall, have very shallow slide serrations.
Hell - IF they re-released the P345 with a trigger that was half as heavy in both modes, and had a useable safety-decocker, it would probably sell real well, because they shot pretty nicely and Ruger's recoil-reduction system may have actually helped - at least it didnt hurt. But an atrocious trigger and unusable safety killed that gun's potential, despite Mas Ayoob shilling for it. He claimed he carried one on duty in his little New Hampshire town cop job. I bet that lasted a day before he went back to the Beretta 92 he is also so fond of.
On the subject of slide mounted safeties/decockers, its a far better mousetrap than having it on the frame. It's out of the way when not needed, and relatively easy to reach the relatively few times you need to actuate it.
Frame mounted decockers can be ridden down and cause failures to fire,
The Beretta style of rotating transfer bar is also one of the strongest decockers out there, it doesn't put stress on the sear like sig, cz, or HK
Frame mounted decockers can be ridden down and cause failures to fire,
The Beretta style of rotating transfer bar is also one of the strongest decockers out there, it doesn't put stress on the sear like sig, cz, or HK
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