Monday, April 9, 2012

Taurus Product Review Pt I

This is the first in a three part series on Taurus firearms and their customer service from CCRA/GSL* (whose website is in the process of being redone).
Product Review | Taurus Model 82s
TAURUS police trade-in imports are junk
by John Boch

(Guns Save Life) - I saw an ad for used Taurus Model 82 .38
Special pistols for just shy of $200 each, out the door, in a
recent GunNews and thought I might pick up a couple for loaner
guns for training courses. As these were Taurus’ copy of the 4”
K-frame Smith & Wesson revolvers, I thought they would be a
perfect complement for the existing Smith and Wesson K-frame guns
we already have.

I pawed over about a half-dozen specimens at Liberty Guns and
frankly, these guns were rough. The finish was poor, the grips
horrid and cosmetically, these were very ugly guns.
I selected a pair that seemed significantly better than the
others.

We used them in our February class and we pulled them off the line
almost immediately as they were spitting lead.One of my fellow
instructors noted Taurus’ lifetime warranty and
urged me to contact
them.
In short, the guns I selected turned out to be barely functional.
Our students deserve far better than these beat-up clunkers.Given
how marginal these two guns turned out tobe, I can only
imagine
how poor the other specimens were.


Dean Rothermel of Liberty Guns later told me he shipped three of
the four others back to Century Arms as “unsafe”. The fourth he
decided to keep as a project gun, he said.

If you were considering purchase of one of these Taurus police
trade-in revolvers from a dealer, don’t.I’ve bought my share of
used firearms over the years. I have to
say, these two Taurus 82s
are the first junk I’ve gotten stuck
with when buying used guns.

Don’t repeat my mistake with these Taurus 82s!
PtII tomorrow w/ the results of having them sent back to the manufacturer for repair.

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*Reprinted w/ permission

4 comments:

James Nelson said...

I bought 2 recently from SOG. Outsides were rough, but function and accuracy at 7 yards were just fine. I ended up with $350 in total, including shipping and transfer. I'm not dissatisfied with either. Luck of the draw, I guess.
I don't believe that these will fall under Taurus's lifetime warranty.

Robert Fowler said...

I bought a 82 years ago. It was accurate and worked like it was supposed to. These3 must have really been abused.

Mark said...

I have an original 82 I purchased new in 1991, it's had 1000's of rounds through it, no issue. I with some family members just recently purchased 5 of these trade in 82's, they are very rough, however they are functionally pretty good. I haven't had time to shoot them yet, the rains down here have our other piece of property inaccessible at the moment, and that's where I shoot.

Guns said...

I don't why people have so many issues with Taurus.