Okay, here I go again asking rookie questions. I'm seeing a Model 65, 66, 82 and a few others that are made by a company that begins in T and ends in aurus.

Have they ever gotten into legal trouble by so blatantly copying S&W? And if you've shot any of these I'd love to hear your feedback.

Taurus revolvers are junk.

Taurus lacks the fit, finish and tune of a S&W, but there's nothing wrong with Taurus revolvers, especially if you know how to tune a revolver.

In 2005 I bought a Taurus model 455 , 5 shot , 45 acp , fixed sights ,
2 " snub nosed revolver . It takes full moon clips and can be fired without the clips if desired . Think all stainless steel J frame that chambers 5 - 45 acp rounds .
The little rascal is compact , shots a 45 cal. slug and strangely ...extremely accurate ... I can easily shoot 5 shots into 1 ragged hole at 50 feet ... that's on par with my Colt Gold Cup match pistol .
Every time I shoot the 455 it's accuracy just amazes me .
Bottom line ... it's a keeper and will always be with me .

I don't know about the legalities of the Taurus line ... but I do give my 455 a 5 star rating ,
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Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

I own both, actually I own most all makes of revolvers, and I do like S&W better, even though you're likely to get a crooked barrel with them.
What's wrong with Taurus revolvers?

I have to disagree. I had a model 82 that was very accurate and reliable. Currently have a model 85, since 1990something. No problems.

They have been copying Smith for so many decades, if there were legal problems, they would have been long gone by now. I don't especially care for them, but they are a usable firearm. They don't have the quality or durability of S&W, but the average person doesn't shoot enough ammo to find their limits.

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protocalldesign.com

I’ve had 12 Taurus Revolvers. Only one was sent back for repair, Taurus’s fault. Another broke because I failed to maintain it properly, my fault. Both repaired for free, no problems. All had good actions some had excellent action that you would bet had work done to them. I’ve also had more Smith Revolvers than I can remember the number. I sent one back for repair before I ever loaded it. The cylinder would not rotate. Another that broke a friend fixed. Taurus may not have the fit and finish of a Smith but, they have served me just as well. There was several Rugers, a couple Rossi’s and a Charter also that were all good.

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Two Handguns every day

It's hard to trademark a number

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My sgntr is mor thn 30 chrctrs

This
I shoot the mess out of my Taurus revolvers, mostly because I value my S&Ws more and don't want to wear them out.
I can't judge Taurus against S&W, because I don't shoot the Smiths as much. but I can judge Taurus against Ruger, and the Taurus wins as far as reliability.
I have read horror stories about Taurus customer service though.

Taurus is just hit or miss sometimes in terms of quality. Some of their latest semi autos seem to be doing very well and getting great reviews. I've shot a couple of judges and both functioned perfectly and were reasonably accurate with .45 Colt ammo. It's like most manufacturers these days. Some slip out and need to visit the factory. The key is finding manufacturers who take care of their product nowadays. With Taurus you role the dice some times like a lot of used gun purchases. Like others have said just don't expect the same fit and finish.

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

I have had a couple of Taurii (pl. of Taurus), and they have been trouble free serviceable firearms. Maybe mine were just anomalies based upon all the internet chatter.

However, when I was a teenager, a man I worked for had a Taurus copy of a S&W Model 66. I swear that the trigger on that was nicer than anything I have handled since. Maybe he had an anomaly as well.

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Only a cold warrior

I have a few Taurus revolvers and of the one's I've shot only one had to go back for repair. They returned it only slightly better. Maybe they'd have got it right on a second trip back but unlike S&W and Ruger Taurus makes customers pay the shipping back to them to repair their mistakes. That's roughly $45 a trip to repair a $200 gun. I got rid of it instead. That's the risk you take. My others have been good so far. While Taurus 5 shot .45 ACPs were on the market there were no others. To get something that unusual it can be worth the risk. However, if I want a low priced service size .38 or .357 I buy a used S&W or Ruger. Only a few years ago my shooter condition Ruger Service Six .357 was $225 out the door. At the time I bought it Bud's had surplus Model 10s for $200 shipped. All manufacturers turn out lemons but the risk is lower with Ruger and S&W.

S & W and Taurus had a working relationship in the past, so many of the latter's revolver offerings have more than a passing resemblance to the former's products.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

I've owned many Tauri and they are good guns. Right now I have a 605 that I will put up against any current J-frame. S&W won't sue them because there's nothing to sue them for. The patents of the design have long ago expired, even though they LOOK like S&W's they are NOT identical, and they can call their guns by any name they choose as long as it's not "Smith & Wesson."

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Pisgah

Winchester had a model 65 first (variation of the 92) in 1933, and I wouldn't be shocked to think of another, older gun from another manufacturer using that number.

Then there's the model 60 Marlin .22 that's about 60 years old, and the Savage model 29 pump .22 that's over 100 years old, I think.

If nobody could use the same number, we might know the S&W model 29 as the 1955 - wait, that's already been used too.

My first 2 revolvers were Taurus's. A model 66 six inch and a model 941 22 mag. Not horrible guns but like others said lacking the fit and finish of S&W. The 66 I shot loose and traded it off, the 941 I broke the transfer bar and taurus sent my gunsmith a replacement. That was before I was doing any revolver work. The mediocracy of taurus revolvers is what lead me to by my first and only new S&W. A 686-6. That was it I was hooked.

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-Matt

I’ve owned a few Taurus revolvers over the years, never had a problem with them. A guy at my club had several Taurus 4” .38 K frame equivalents that he thought highly of. He had tuned them himself, and they were incredibly nice to shoot. They were also durable, as he put several hundred rounds thru them daily five days a week. Shooting was his life after he lost his wife.

I’ve also known people who detested their Taurus revolvers, and I’ve seen some badly made examples. On balance however they don’t seem too bad a deal for the price. I sold all but one of mine off when I thinned the herd, preferred to focus on S&W.

My local shop just got in a Taurus five screw Model 17 equivalent, the Model 96. Looks like a decent .22 target revolver, and it costs less than half what a Model 17 would. If I didn’t have a bunch of .22 revolvers I’d probably have bought it.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

Is this based on experience, or just what you've read?

I've only had three Taurus revolvers, but found them to be great guns for the money. No, not as refined as a S&W, but decent. One of them, a blued 4" 689, would go head to head, accuracy wise, with anything I own now.

A friend had a small Taurus auto in .22, and he was less than pleased with it. Based on his experience, I would never buy one.

I have only one Taurus revolver, an old Model 96. It is a six-shot, six inch barreled, blued 22LR. It looks very similar to the S&W K-22, but cost a lot less. It also does not have as nice of a trigger pull as a S&W, but it has been reliable. As for model numbers, you can patent a firearm design, you can trademark a name and logo, but you can do neither to the letters of the alphabet nor to numbers.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Excuse me? I have owned several Ruger revolvers, and not once in many thousands of rounds have I had a part break. Sure, anything can break and I know I can find horror stories on the web about Ruger revolvers being problematic, just as I can find many more negative things written about Taurus, but there is no way Taurus makes a better revolver than Ruger.

Taurus, Rossi, and Charter Arms are in the same category. You buy one of them when you don’t want to spend the money on a Smith or Ruger. There’s a reason they’re in a different price class. A third tier firearm made my lower skilled workers in Brazil.

I didn't say Taurus revolvers are better than Ruger, I don't think that. Ruger's "are built like tanks", they never wear out and rarely have to be shimmed to compensate for frame stretch. Their clockwork isn't as reliable as S&W or Taurus (which is nearly identical to S&W) though.

I don't like Charter, and Rossi is made on unique equipment, Taurus bought from Rossi in '97. Taurus revolvers use machinery and design from when S&W and Taurus shared the same parent company. Taurus is also a steel manufacture and use cheap labor -that's a better explanation of the lower price. Taurus's attention to detail is lacking compared to S&W, that's why you're more likely to get a new Taurus with bad timing and other little stuff like that. That doesn't bother me, because the first thing I do with a new revolver is tune it myself.
I agree people buy Taurus for their lower price, but lower price in this case doesn't equal bad product.

Do you own a Taurus revolver, man, or are you going solely by you owning Rugers, the low price of Taurus revolvers and what you've read about Taurus online? I think most of what you read is about their terrible customer service, or about a .22 revolvers with several thousand rounds breaking transfer bars.

Link me to some of the Taurus horror stories, and I'll link you to as many "My Ruger locked up" as you can stand.

I have owned 2 Taurus revolvers, which were functionally adequate, but not accurate. I had a Taurus tracker .357 That I wanted to like but couldn't get to group within 10-12" at 25 yards.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

You did say Taurus is better. You said “but I can judge Taurus against a Ruger, and the Taurus wins as far as reliability”.

Do I own a Taurus revolver. No. I’ve owned a few semi autos from Taurus and I wasn’t impressed. I long ago learned to “buy once, cry once”. For the $200 more for a Smith or Ruger, I’ll spend the money. Over the lifetime of owning the gun, it comes out to pennies.

But I have shot several and a good friend of mine has one that I’ve shot a lot back in the day. It is of a lower quality than a Smith or a Ruger. Which is why they’re cheaper.

And IF a Ruger ever needs fixing. Ruger fixes it fast and free. They no longer support the Six line, but my friend sent in his dad’s Security Six when his dad died. 30 year old gun with many thousands of .357 through it. It was a tad loose. Ruger fixes it to like new, even re-blued it, for free. Didn’t even pay shipping.

Ruger makes a far better product then Taurus, and the price reflects that.

I think Rugers are heavier, better built revolvers, but with mechanisms that aren't as reliable as Taurus.

Taurus semi autos are not the same as Taurus revolvers. Taurus revolvers share the same design as S&W, because they had the same parent company at one time, and shared design.

I said Taurus revolvers are good. I wouldn't say Taurus semi autos are good, and I wouldn't buy one, well, maybe if it was almost free.

I agree about Ruger Customer Service, and I've had to use it too on almost every Ruger I've owned -Ruger has excellent customer service.

My only experience with Taurus customer service is I lost a yoke screw spring, and they were terrible to deal with. So bad, that I swore I'd never buy another Taurus. Whether I change my mind about that or not, it won't change the fact that Taurus revolvers are a great value for a good product.
Maybe the bad customer service is how Taurus can make a revolver more reliable than Ruger, but at a lower cost. I bet they save a bunch of money with their bad customer service. ??
Then it's safe to say that you like your Ruger revolvers, don't really know much about Taurus revolvers from personal experience, but have a strong opinion about their reliability?










.

I don’t own one because I’d rather spend a bit more money to get something better. I have shot them. A lot. My buddy’s Taurus .357 got shot nearly every weekend over two years. It was ok. Felt like what it was. A cheaper Smith imitation.

Guess you’ve had a run of bad luck with Ruger. I’ve owned all the Six series, several GP’s and two SP’s. Only left with my Service Skx and a GP. Never had one problem from any of them. And I wouldn’t trade any one of them for two Taurus revolvers.

We have one Taurus here.



Actually a fairly nice .45 Colt snub. Shoots to point of aim and no issues, but yes Taurus does lack the smooth and fit and finish of a fine Smith.

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KM
S&WCA 3110 S&WHF 625

I have a Taurus hand me down that is loose and shaves lead since new, is absolute garbage, and not worth the $50 to send back to Miami to fix.
But I also have a Rossi Model 19 clone thats every bit as fine and accurate as the original . Maybe made on the same machines during the Bangor Punta era. Being a Rossi though, and a spur of the moment buy, is still relegated to the back of the safe

Which Taurus? I think I could get really good deal on it. $50?

Sounds like a timing issue, making the cylinders not line correctly to the barrel. My last 2 new Rugers, and last new Taurus had the same problem and it's easy to fix.

I wouldn't trade a Ruger revolver for 2 Taurus revolvers either. Rugers are better revolvers and hold their value better. They just aren't as reliable.

Don’t know how much more reliable I can expect from guns that have shot tens of thousands of rounds without one incident. I shot my GP last weekend. Ammo shortage doesn’t touch me. I reload my own. Another 200 reliable pulls of the trigger and a bang. Maybe next time? Enjoy your Taurus. At least take some comfort that people who see you with it probably think it’s a Smith so no need for you to be embarrassed.

I will always prefer a Smith over a Taurus but this Model 85 I have is a keeper.

I have 3 Taurus revolvers and have never had any issues with them... The last 3 Ruger revolvers I bought all had to go back to the factory.

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Chief

Nah. I was joking. But Taurus does rely on making their product look like a Smith to attract buyers. I’ve heard people in shops say “why is this one so much cheaper if it’s the same?” While pointing at a Taurus.

I bought the Six Rugers because they’re the same size as a K frame .357 but stronger. The first GP I got was for an insane price. Some nuclear power plant was upgrading to semi autos and I got a 4” GP in the box for $299. I currently have a 6” GP for longer ranges. Also have a Smith 681 that is probably my all time favorite and accurate revolver. Never a Taurus in the bunch. Just shot them a lot. Nothing special and did not have the same quality as a Smith or a Ruger. So I never wasted my money buying one. More for you to buy, I suppose.

Yeah, that's what I do, buy up all the Taurus revolvers.. lol
I'd love to find a nice 681 with 4" barrel.

It’s a laser beam in my hands. Can’t explain it. 15 yard head shots without even trying much. I had a 686 once that I shouldn’t have sold, but either I’m a better shot now or the 681 is more accurate because I shoot the 681 far better than I shot the 686.

Anyway, enjoy your Guns. All of them. I’ll do the same. Different strokes for different folks.

S&W has been making revolvers for a very long time. Most of the key patents have long since expired.

In the 70's S&W and Taurus were owned by the same group so information was shared. I have several Taurus revolvers in .44 Sp. While not quite the feel of a Smith. they do everything I could ask. With no complaints and really like them.

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balin
NRA Life Member