In 1986, I turned 21 and purchased my 1st new pistol: a Taurus PT92 (Beretta 92 clone). The quality was good: nice fit & finish, smooth action, nice wood grips, accurate, easy to clean. I shot 200 rounds through it and carried it occasionally for 5 years before selling it to a guy in Dallas. It was a good gun, but I wanted a 1911.

In 1990, I got married and bought my wife a Taurus .38Sp 5-shot snub (Smith & Wesson clone). It had nice walnut grips, smooth action, reliable, and was as accurate as it should have been. Between the two of us, we carried that gun all over the place for 17 years. I prolly put 500 rds total through it. In 2007, I decided I needed to consolidate to two pistol calibers instead of eight, so I traded it away at a gun show.

In 2007 I bought 9mm: two Glocks (17 & 19), three Bersa Thunder 9’s, and two Taurus 24/7 Pro pistols, all from Bud’s Guns. They all turned out to be pretty good guns. We shot and practiced and cleaned and placed them all in service as home or truck or carry guns. All of them ran flawlessly. The Glocks and Tauruses fired the smallest groups – each capable of 3” at 20 yards bench with handloads. The G17 was the most accurate. The Bersas were nice and small and all shot 3” groups at 10 yards which is fine for a short barreled gun.

I only had one problem – one of the Tauruses hit 5” low and 3” right of POA at 15 yards.

The 24/7 guns had Heinie Straight 8 sights which I liked. I called Taurus about my problem. They wanted to tell me that I was using the sights incorrectly until I explained that I owned 2 of their pistols, the other worked fine, I was using the sights correctly, and they needed to fix this pistol. We went back and forth. They were rude. I resented the $40 cost of FedEx’ing the pistol back and told them they should cover it. No dice. I asked for new sights. No dice. Then, after 4 months, I ended up speaking to a repair tech. He said I should try a rear sight from their PT1911. Same dovetail with taller sight, therefore it would move my POI up, and windage adjustment would take care of the rest. Okay! He promised to ship me the rear sight. Okay! A month later I still didn’t have it so I called to follow up, just to learn that the part number he gave me was backordered. Four months later, the part arrived. The fit wasn’t perfect, so I used loctite under the sight and on the included set screw. It worked! POA = POI, and it only took 9 freakin months! I wasn’t all that happy with Taurus, but both guns functioned well, and they fit my hand like a dream, so they just floated around in my life as truck guns and whatever.

Until 2011, when I decided to shoot USPSA. I bought 3.5lb connectors and small springs for my Glocks and polished some of the stock internals and shot 2 matches with my kids. Fun stuff. So I bought iTac holsters and mag pouches and 2 more mags for the 24/7’s and took one to a match. It immediately felt faster to me than the Glocks. I just kept the slack taken up and let the trigger barely reset and let ‘em rip. A guy came up to me halfway through the match and asked me what the hell I was shooting that was that small, would hold 17+1 in factory mags and run like that. When I got the scores a few days later, they were better than my Glock scores. I was quicker with the 24/7.

It wasn’t just gaining experience. I shot the following match with the G17 and slowed back down. I think the 24/7 fits my hand better. I think the rake fits me better. I think I get faster reacquisition with Heinie front blade. I feel like I get less flip from the 24/7 than the Glock (same ammo). I shot the last 2 matches with the 24/7 guns, alternating guns between matches. They shot the same. No reliability problems, even with full mags. I shot well. The guns are stock, no mods. I was shooting limited. I plan to stay in limited and have fun with ordinary guns.

The season was over. In November I took the guns down completely and discovered a broken captive firing pin spring rod in one of them It’s a green plastic part. It provides the “2nd chance” strike capability if you get a click. When the green rod breaks, the gun still runs flawlessly, but you have lost the 2nd strike function. I have no idea how long it had been broken because I’ve never used the 2nd strike feature.

I called Taurus and had a completely different experience with their customer service. A whole different attitude compared to 2007. Much improved. However, they still said they were unable to ship me that part; I would have to ship the gun to them for repair. So I put it back together. During reassembly, the slide felt grabby on closure, like it was hanging on something. That was weird because it ran fine in the last match. I made a note about the grabby feel in the work order. It arrived fine and 14 days later I had my gun back via FedEx overnight straight to my front door. They replaced the broken plastic part and also installed a new barrel! Excellent! The repair order said there was a tolerance error between feed ramp and frame, so they replaced the barrel.

Two weeks ago I was goofing off in the garage. I stripped the other 24/7 and did some stress testing on steel firing pin spring rods I made out of 6 or 8 penny nails vs. the oem plastic rod. During testing, the tip on the plastic rod broke off. That is the failure mode. What the heck…I shipped the gun to Taurus. This was the gun that had originally given me trouble with POI back in 2007. Before shipping it, I removed the PT1911 rear sight from the slide so that I’d be sure to have it when the gun came back. No sense taking any chances. I made a note on the work order that the gun was submitted for rod replacement, and that I had removed the rear sight because I wanted to be sure to have it later, and I mentioned my original 2007 problems with POI and suggested that their records should show what I went through to get it right. 10 days later I get the gun back with a whole new top end. New slide, new barrel, new sights, new everything. Wow!

I was on the web today and found this link: L I N K
Apparently Taurus USA has a new CEO in Florida, and a new attitude to boot.

My early experiences were not catastrophic, but they were unpleasant. My recent experiences were fantastic. If you ship a gun back to them, it really seems like they look for anything that could possibly go wrong with your gun and they take massive preventive action to eliminate the problem.

My son wants to shoot a Taurus this year, so I’ll buy another 24/7 and we’ll have a backup.

I rocked with those guns and they were bone stock. To each his own, but don’t knock ‘em until you beat on ‘em for a while first.

I use CLP on the small parts and a light film of spray motorcycle chain lube on the slide rails.

The price, performance and product support are hard to beat.

Interesting. My first experience with Taurus was as a rookie patrolman. The PT-101, satin nickel slide and bbl, was new (approx 1993?), and who didn't want a variant 1, hi-cap .40 S&W? FTF, FTE, flaking finish on bbl. No charge shipping back to factory, on the first return they swapped the nickel bbl out for a stainless one, cool. Only it still FTE, FTF. After 3 trips it still had problems, I sold it off to someone for a beater.

In 2010 I just couldn't pass up a Taurus PT140 M/P, the trigger was so right. Clearance priced at under $300, it was a deal. Ran every bit as reliable as the G27 I carried as a plainclothes duty gun for years....

I own a pt1911 in 38 super, the thumb safety doesnot work, you can fire the weapon with the safety on, The quality,just kidding, repair department at Taurus doesnt seem to have the skill set required to fix it.Never again will I buy any cheap shit Taurus products,screw their lifetime warranty, maybe they mean they keep it a lifetime until they figure out how to repair it?

I bought a PT99 AF in 1985 and had it for 27yrs. 0-problems ever!

The PT92/99s are actual south american military issue pistols. I used to think they were slightly modified versions of berretas untill I discovered that the original early berreta M92 had the frame mounted safety (wich I PREFERE). The story is that Berreta set up the factory to fill government orders there, then sold it to Taurus. I own 2 PT92s and LOVE them. I'd buy more if I see them cheap. IMO, all the other plastic taurus's are just junk though. There used to be a sight called handgunreview.com (I think it's defunked now) but they had pages of terable reviews on tarus revolvers. Revolvers that would "jam like a cheap saterday night special".
The only other taurus I owned was a "Gaucho" revolver with 4"~ barrel in SS .45 colt. The bastard shot a foot high at like 20'. People on here said "use the 6-o-clock hold", That's bull shit! If it had shot LOW I would have filed down the front sight, but shooting high, my only option would have been filing down the frame! I traded it for a G26 at the very next gun show. Took a $100 loss.

I picked up a used PT 24/7 pro in .40 a little over a year ago. I love that gun. It's the most reliable handgun I own. I'm not going to say I've never had problems with it, but they've been minimal. Every once in a while I'll have a feeding issue or a round that doesn't fire, but that's it. I've put at least 2000 rounds through that gun, and I'd bet my life on it. I did replace the 2 dot Heine sights on mine with a 3 dot night sight, but that was for consistency as all my other handguns all had 3 dot sights.