I know it's a Smith board but...

sipowicz

sipowicz

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I would like an honest opinion if anyone has one on the Taurus M66...I steered by auto loving friend towards his first revolver and I suggested a 6" 686. We looked at it today but there was also a 6" Taurus M66....I have to say, the Taurus is a nice looking gun...and he liked the slightly lighter weight over the 686...but the big difference was the price.....484.00 vs 799.00. The salesman told him Taurs has a lifetime warranty and that if there was a problem with it, he could bring it back to the store and they ship it out...sounds good. I suggested my friend do a little internet research and see if there are any complaints about the gun and he agreed. I know a used 686 for around 5 bills would be a good deal, but they are hard to find around here and most gun stores charge a big premium for buying off the net....so with that....discuss....
 
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I've never had a Taurus, but I know guys who have shipped out Taurus to have work done and it took months to get back. I know one guy who had a Taurus 85 that needed work and it was nearly 6 months before the gun showed back up. To me that is way and above work. I also know Taurus customer service as far as getting in touch is spotty at best. One of our local gun shops no longer sells Taurus guns because so many came back and took forever to get back to the owners. Not sure what the models were though.
 
I have a brother-in-law that had one. It's action was rough as a cob. He lubed it up and dry-fired it over a weekend, any time he was watching TV and it smoothed considerably. It was much better when I tried it again on Monday but ... still not as good as the Smith & Wesson Model 19 for which it ultimately was traded.

He recently tried Taurus again. Purchased a Taurus titanium .44 Special 5-shot with ported barrel. Action would freeze mid cycle. It did this on 3 cylinders-full of ammo fired out of 4.

He disassembled it, found burrs and edges enough to cause the problem, and took care of them. Called today to say that it does work now. I'm glad since the revolver's concept is excellent.

Have another friend who has a 6-inch Taurus Model 66. He keeps this one for his wife to use for home defense when he's gone. One day he noticed that the single action feature no longer worked. He had never noticed that it didn't work before. I went into the revolver to find that the single action sear was gone. Sheared off, missing. Now its a DA only.

Sure it has the warranty but he decided it was a lot of trouble to bother with shipping the revolver back for Taurus warranty work so has left it alone.

I've just never seen any Taurus that made me want to own one.
 
Dry fire the Taurus and then dry fire the SW. Then get back to us.:) Be patient and wait for a used SW.
The Taurus if bought new, has no resale value.

I think some of the Taurus semi autos are better than their revolvers or their revolvers are worse than their semi autos.

The lifetime warranty means nothing only that you may get it back in your lifetime.

One of our local dealers stopped carrying the Taurus line of guns as too many complaints.

Years ago I had a PT Millennium 9 mm. gun worked fine, not real accurate but for a SD gun it was OK.
 
I had a 3" blue 65 I think the model # was. Blue half lug barrel. Nice looking gun, without TS. I sold it last year to a BIG farmer from down state. I had no trouble with it, and I hope he doesn't either. I don't want him bangin on my door. He filled half the seat of his F350, and banged his head on the door frame when he got in it. $484 is crazy.
 
Ruger makes the GP-100. It's a poor man's Smith. The Taurus is a good gun for someone who isn't going to shoot it. I had a Taurus M85. I simple reliable snub nosed revolver, right? Wrong. It jammed. Locked up. I sent it back and six months later it was returned. 15 rounds later, the cylinder pin got stuck. I cleaned the pin and unstuck it, 30 rounds later it happened again. I cleaned it again and sold it. I bought a Smith and Wesson model 36. It has never failed and the cylinder is tight with no play. The Taurus was loose right out of the box.
Some people like their Taurus pistols. They sell a bunch of them. The "Judge" has been one of the biggest selling handguns of all time.
 
My 2 cents

got a tor-rust that rides around in the feed cart with me, after feeding i stop off and run a few cyls. of rounds thru it just to make sure my eyes still work.

wife was with me not long ago and i asked her to give it a go. she shot 2 cyls. full then said i can't do this any more. i asked her why, she said her finger hurt so much she could not pull the trigger any more. so i left her with the dog and went to the safe and got a pre k-38 mastr. pce. and asked her to try this. she said "now this is much better" i asked her if she knew the difference between a tor-rust and a S&W, she said NO. I told her it's about 200.00.
 
A few years back one of my brothers bought one brand new, We took it out shot a box of 357s thru it. When took it home to clean it, he discovered the rifling was gone!!! The one box of ammo had shot it out..........He took it back to the store where he bought it, traded it off for a NIB 629, had to give some boot of course
 
OCD1 said:
I think some of the Taurus semi autos are better than their revolvers
Click to expand...
Here's one that's probably not...

374425139.jpg
 
I've heard similar problems with Taurus revolvers. The owner of a LGS told me that he's had a bunch of Judge revolvers come back, over the last few years with some serious function issues. I've never had the guts to take a chance on one, myself... I have heard that the older ones are better quality than the newer ones, which seem to have hit, or miss, quality.

Another option for your "friend," if $$ is an issue, is to check out Rossi revolvers. I had a good friend of mine who had one, and really liked it. This one is probably 15 years old, and has a very nice action. Not sure how the newer ones are, in terms of quality.

If it was me, I'd wait for a nice quality, used S&W came up, for the right price. Patience is the key here. I've seen some very mice m14, and m15s, at similar prices as this Taurus you mention. Of course used Rugers can also be priced right, and you get very good quality.
 
Hey Sip, check out the 6" blued Ruger Security Six that is for sale in the classified. It's offered at $350, and looks like it's in great shape. Not a S&W action, but a good gun, at a good price.
 
Years ago one of my uncles wanted a $150 revolver. I got him a used Taurus and he has been happy with it. He has probably shot it 3 times in 15 years and it has served his purpose.
 
My PT-92, 445, and 605 have never given me a second of trouble. The brand new 94 came with a non firing cylinder and will be my first Taurus lifetime guarantee support issue. But I would snap at any Security Six over any Taurus any day of the week. And I love that 605, but that 445 is a blued steel pit bull of a snub nose.

Edit: The PT-92 has well in excess of 10,000 9mm WWB, the 605 has feen fed very little .357 due to being a recoil monster but massive amounts again of WWB .38 Specials, and the 445 didn't start getting well fed until I recently started reloading since .44 Special isn't the easiest thing to find or very cheap when you do find it.
 
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The S&W copies that are being sold are cheap imitations of a quality (though not perfect) product. They look like a Smith, balance like a smith, and sorta shoot like a smith.

They aren't quality products, though. Though my sampling is small, I have yet to see one of the clones (tarus, rossi, etc) that wasn't already having carry-up and timing problems before reaching 500 rounds.

When these copies are sold used, they aren't worth much. Last nice 6" Tarus 357 I saw change hands went for $200. It was near new looking, and the owner had been trying to sell it for 6 months, he was tickled to death to get 2 bills for it.

Suggest your friend find a nice used Smith. Haunt the LGSs and gunshows, suggest he take you along (and pay your way) and make a game out of it.

Friends don't let friends buy junk.
 
I won't link to another forum but if you were to search taurus and armed you might come up with one of the better ones.

As far as the lifetime warranty, that's true, but after the gun's a year old you have to pay for the shipping.

I've got a couple of their newer semi-autos and they've been pretty much trouble free and good guns so far.

Don't know anything about their wheel guns.
 
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