Family time with weapons

[CollingsBob]

Based on my personal belief that it takes a skilled shooter to actually hit a target more than 50’ away, backed up by my experience with both a variety of handguns .... and shotguns ranging from a Franchi Spas 12 to a Winchester Defender..I don’t have any handguns ( too hard to paper train in Canada..), so I keep a pump 12ga to scare vermin away..

 

[Knifemaker]

And the winner is......

After shooting about a dozen of the more compact 9mm's, my son picked out ....

The Sig P938 Blackout. The S&W MP was the runner up, the Glocks ran full last.

I personally liked the gun myself. The rubber wrap around grips and extended finger magazine made the gun much more comfortable and controlable to shoot over the rest.

We are going to hit the gun shop on Wednesday to see if they can get him one.

I just got the P238. Same gun but in .380. I bought the Scorpion model for the ambi safety and will put the Houge grips from the 938 on it. Great little weapons.

When I was looking for a small .380, I really wanted the P238. I liked the "rainbow" slide model. But at the time couldn't find one. Then I read Sig was stopping production of the gun to use the existing tooling to produce the P938. Wasn't sure when they'd go back to building the .380. I ended up with the Ruger LCP.

The Sig just seemed like a good transition from coming off the Kimber .45 1911 clone.

 

[Bounce]

My Kimber in .45 ACP is still my carry choice.

Meanwhile, having all the pistols I'm interested in right now, I went another way. Options. Been waiting a while for this to use on my Springfield XD9 (If I mess up the Springfield, I won't be as upset because it's only a swivel trigger in 9).

Rugged Obsidian

The loud reports are from people in other lanes.

Video

Friend had a Trump sticker on truck, someone keyed it.

 

[Hudson]

This is worth reading if you own or are considering buying a Taurus. https://apple.news/Ai9EwGdYrQoGhImozHXzRwA

I dont own a Taurus nor have I been tempted to buy one but after reading this article, theres no way I would consider it.

 

[Knifemaker]

The local gun shop we go to (that actually is one of the largest independent shops in the St.Louis area) won't even sell Taurus guns anymore. He said the very early models from the early 80's are "OK" but said the quality of the guns has gone downhill from there.

He said there was a time that it seemed every Taurus gun they sold came back for repairs. He warned of not betting ones life on any of their guns.

 

[Bustanut joker]

Interesting for sure but, most any gun I ever owned would go off if dropped i'd bet.
I have witnessed 2 shotguns and 30-30 discharging when they hit the ground.

Three separate occasions mind you, and only a pickup topper holed, but still no gun is designed to be dropped.

Oh I do have a Taurus "wheel gun" that I inherited last fall but I didn't see anything about that model.

 

[Bounce]

This is worth reading if you own or are considering buying a Taurus. https://apple.news/Ai9EwGdYrQoGhImozHXzRwA
I dont own a Taurus nor have I been tempted to buy one but after reading this article, theres no way I would consider it.

It's Bloomberg. A hatchet piece is to be expected. I've had a Taurus clone of a S&W Model J-Frame for decades without an issue. There was a time when Taurus' build quality was sub part (and put it on a tier with the likes of Raven's .25 ACP). Later they bought S&W tooling and engineering plans and their quality improved dramatically (late 70s maybe?). My brother had a clone of the Barretta 92F which, while not to the same finish standards of the Barretta, was serviceable at a significant discount over the B.

The smacks of Bloomberg trying to re-animate the corpse of the long-dead "Saturday Night Special" trope.

I would corroborate that story from other sources before taking it as gospel.

And we are now at a turning point. We can close this previously unique thread for staying away from politics, or we can choose to stay on track and take the recent turn elsewhere. Facebook is a great place to talk about gun politics. They never close accounts.

 

[Knifemaker]

Not sure about politics here, are you saying the article is "fake news"

If a company has a bad reputation in its community there is likely a reason for it. I don't think the bad rep Taurus seems to have is do to some guy spreading rumors online. If you google "problems with Taurus firearms", you'll find many threads from gun forums talking about this, along with personal reports on problems they encountered. You will see of course some "I own one and it's never given me any trouble". The underlying reason seems to be the percentages.

You can do the same for other gun makers and find problems reported about their guns. I've read some on failures to feed from both Sig and Ruger owners. But what seems the difference is the amount of these reports compared to other makers. Taurus just seems to lead the pack. Part of these seem to be customer service problems, which might be partly due to dealing with a company that's in another country. See the complaints at the BBB, many are customer complaints about service and parts.

My dealer said that was a nightmare in itself. I'm sure he has many reasons he no longer wants to carry Taurus guns, having angry customers waiting months for their gun to be fixed doesn't help HIS reputation.

I'm sure there are thousands of trouble free Taurus pistols out there. But then there seems to be those that vehemently hate the guns.

The bottom line, at least for me, given the "bad press", would I trust one of their guns to protect my life when TSHTF?

And I'll just point out here, that what I am seeing is they are basically saying that - "The cheap gun doesn't work as well as the expensive one" .....I call that a "duh"

 

[FJRay]

I've heard the stories both ways about Taurus and have owned a few and have never had an issue. A few years ago I traded into a PT92 that needed fixed. I called the folks in Fla. and told them and within days I had the parts in hand no charge. Conversely I bought a series 80 Colt 1911 brand new and experienced nothing but problems with failure to feed and failure to eject problems.

I worked on it myself and had gunsmiths work on it along with Colt. It never was a dependable weapon. I ended up trading it for a Ruger mini 30.

I have both Springfield and Kimber 1911's and they run perfectly.

The Taurus 9 mm has swallowed probably 2k rounds with out a hiccup so I think the answer is like many things mass produced sometimes **** happens. If you're happy with the performance then run with it.

I just bought a P238 Sig and have a couple hundred rounds through it and so far so good.

 

[fjrob1300]

So... I joined the club.

The Ruger Blackhawk 357mag.



The Ruger Redhawk 44 Mag.

 

[FJRay]

Good job Rob. I've had Blackhawk's in the past and still have a Redhawk. The only single action I have now is a Ruger Blackhawk that is a custom by Hamilton Bowen in .44 special.

 

[Bounce]

I've heard the stories both ways about Taurus and have owned a few and have never had an issue. A few years ago I traded into a PT92 that needed fixed. I called the folks in Fla. and told them and within days I had the parts in hand no charge. Conversely I bought a series 80 Colt 1911 brand new and experienced nothing but problems with failure to feed and failure to eject problems.

I worked on it myself and had gunsmiths work on it along with Colt. It never was a dependable weapon. I ended up trading it for a Ruger mini 30.I have both Springfield and Kimber 1911's and they run perfectly.

The Taurus 9 mm has swallowed probably 2k rounds with out a hiccup so I think the answer is like many things mass produced sometimes **** happens. If you're happy with the performance then run with it.

I just bought a P238 Sig and have a couple hundred rounds through it and so far so good.

First, it was as much a public warning to myself as anyone. I think my point is that rumors validated or not, the tone of the piece didn't set right with me; beginning with the title. It's purpose wasn't to expose a lethargic manufacturer, it was to paint a picture of unmanaged mayhem.

Context: I have no dog in this hunt as my Taurus 86 is the only T I have and it's decades old (yet still like new, accurate, and reliable). My concern is what appeared to me as an additional motive. There was a law passed (2005) in the US to protect mfgrs from a concerted effort to sue all gun makers out of business by the groups that couldn't get it done legislatively. There had been suits by victims of crimes to sue the mfgrs for the unlawful use of their products by criminals. It became public that distraught relatives were encourage by members of, or their associates, to file these suits.

That's an explanation of why I reacted to their article like I did.

Example: Look what needed to be done to get Honda to recall their newly-minted GL1800 for the frame cracking and breaking? No industry is known for hopping to as their first options. There's a long list of all kinds of products that took the long way round to resolution. The first step is to see if it's an aberration in mfgr/assembly or a design flaw. But we all know that.

Next. I can personally vouch for the poor quality of Colt 1911. I bought one and spent that same purchase money on gun smithing work and it still wouldn't run right. Sold it at a big loss, got a Kimber, then another Kimber and neither have ever had problems. Lots of people get Friday/Monday itis at mfgr plants and customers can suffer from it. How the company deals with servicing customer complaints is important.

Then there's the issue of if they have a recall that the owner never had done, then is that the company or the owner's issue? I know I've seen several people who blew off recalls here on this forum.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Sorry. On the surface, that story REEKS as fabricated. Their claim is the guns are not drop-proof, and until a few years ago, many weren't. Problem is, the dad makes the claim that the gun was in his son's holster. That's two very different scenarios.

The dad claims his son knew all about gun safety, yet he felt the need to go outside and warn him to not shoot next to the house, as he had done just for fun, before. The, "He's a cop, so knows a ton about gun safety" is totally false. I know plenty of cops that are total clowns with guns. Think about it like this: People drive every day, and lots of them drive like ****. Cops carry their guns every day, and many of them shoot and handle their guns like ****.

I guess it could all be true, but something smells like fish. I'm not a Glock fan, because I've seen them blow up at the range. Any time with enough of any manufacturers guns will yield failures, some catastrophic. Of course, that's why there's no $200 guns in my safe!

 

[Bounce]

So, now that we've cleared the air about cautious skepticism, let's get back on track about family fun time.

 

[FJRay]

One of my customers brought in a Raven arms .25 and wanted it fixed. He didn't see the humor when I tossed it in the trash.

As far as getting back to the fun, I'm getting bored with shooting at 30 feet. It's to cold and snowy to get to the range so shooting inside it what I get.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Ray, do you have any indoor ranges within reasonable distance? If so, call them up and look for an IDPA club. I've heard good and bad about IDPA, but many times, they shoot indoors, and it's more fun to compete with some stress than it is to just punch holes in paper. At least it won't be freezing. Some ranges just have local competition nights. Steel matches etc... Of course, if you can stand the cold, and you want to have fun, find a USPSA club. You can be as fast or as slow as you want, but you should have fun.

Lots of people are moving to Pistol Caliber Carbines. Just Right Carbine makes some fun little rifles that shoot 9mm, .40 and .45ACP for around $400. Most use 30round Glock mags. JP and others make more expensive versions.

There's tons of fun to be had with different styles of guns. Just gotta find something that floats your boat. Hell, get a .22 upper for your 1911s. That's a fun way go waste a LOT of little bullets!!

 

[FJRay]

I've got the .22 upper for the 1911 and just found out they make a .22 upper for the little Sig .380 I just got.

There are no indoor ranges in central Oregon that I know of.

 

[Bounce]

One of my customers brought in a Raven arms .25 and wanted it fixed. He didn't see the humor when I tossed it in the trash.

I had one post-military (I was a poor collage student). They went out of business in 1991. You didn't say when you did the trash bin bit so its anyone's guess how old it was at the time.

I later upgraded to a Bersa (83?) that is how I earned a slide bite across the top of a knuckle on my thumb that I carry to this day; along with the lesson that you don't hold a pistol like you do a revolver.

Even new Raven's weren't even 2nd tier quality. But building to a price point for those who can't afford better is a business plan and it worked for them for 21 years. They kept costs down by making their items from injection molded Zamak (a zinc alloy). Bbl/receivers were steel to SAAMI specs. I hope you made your joke clear to the poor fella and explained why you made your point via skit.

 

[FJRay]

The trash can incident was last week and the .25 looked like it had been living in the bilge of a boat.

 

[PapaUtah]

The latest video from BrassBully! A 17 year old SS1000 rider and an inventor in the field of firearms. The boy turned his patent into an internship already this coming summer as a freshman...I think he is on the way...