The Taurus Paperweight

I've had a couple of inquiries about the Taurus that I bought, and then shortly later traded in last year. BAG day 2009 I bought a 605 2" barreled, blue, snubby .357 revolver. It sat for a few weeks before I had a chance to take it to the range. I actually loaded it up and put it in the console of my pickup for a while, even before I tried it out on the range.

I was later reminded of a scene from the film The Ghost and the Darkness:

You went into battle with an untested weapon?

Thankfully, I didn't.

On that first trip to the range I brought both .38 Special and .357 Magnum loads. Factory loads. I haven't handloaded .357 in a while, and I pretty much never load .38. The first cylinder of .38's went fine. On the second, the lockwork locked. Solid. On the second shot.

I had a revolver with three live rounds in it, and I couldn't fire them, and I couldn't get it to open up.

The three fired rounds looked fine. The projectiles hadn't backed out of the cases or anything, the mechanism was just LOCKED. I suspected the "safety" lock, but I had the key, and THAT wasn't it, or at least I wasn't able to use the key to clear the problem. I ended up taking the gun home and DISASSEMBLING it. I blew it out with carb cleaner, in case something was loose inside the lockwork, I lubed everything lightly, reassembled, and it worked fine - empty.

Another trip was made to the range. Again .38's were loaded. On the second round, it locked up again. By playing with the cylinder and hammer I was able to fiddle with it and get it unlocked. I loaded up some .357's. ONE round, and it was locked up. I was able to get it open, but I was DONE with it. A five-shot revolver that only goes "BANG" at most TWICE is useless.

It sat on my desk in paperweight mode for quite a bit while I debated either returning it for warranty repair, or trading it in. I finally decided on trading it in. Hey, it was hardly used!

Once the trade was agreed to, I told the dealer about the problem. "You can't trade in a defective gun!" he said. "Why not? You sold it to ME that way!" I replied. We agreed to knock $50 off the trade-in value for them to handle the warranty return, and I came home with a (perfectly functional) Kel-Tec PF9.

I don't think I'll be buying another Taurus.