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MonsterMash
05-18-2008, 03:04 PM
(This is a cut and paste of a range report I did awhile back. Thought ya'll would find it interesting)



Taurus 1911: Range Report

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When Taurus came out with a 1911 I thought to myself "WTF!?!" Altho I am a fan of their Series 85 snubby revolvers, I will admit I did a double take when I first saw the advertisements for their newest product. I grew up learning to shoot on a tuned Colt Python, so I will admit I am a bit biased towards the DA pistol as well. I have always felt that I have shot more consistantly and better with a DA/DAO type weapon. However, I have also heard for years that if I ever found a 1911 that I liked, I would shoot it better than anything else. So once I bought a Charles Daly 1911 and it was a POS. Then I bought a high dollar Les Baer 1911.........but never shot it. Why? I would have cried if I would have so much as scratched that gun since it had a price tag higher than a lot of used cars. So the 1911 idea was scratched........

Until now.




The PT 1911 showed up at my gun dealers when it first came out for the small sum of $399. Of course I had to ohhhhhhhh and ahhhhhh and rub on it, but couldn't quite commit. It has a good fit/finish and all the features you'd expect from a high dollar pistolmaker, but with a budget pricetag. I kept seeing it and kept seeing it cause everyone wanted to hold it, but no one would buy until it had been "tested." Well, I finally picked it up. I figured for the money, why not?

So I loaded it up and took it to the range. I had a good bit of 230gr ball Winchester and also found some Hydra-Shok before the day was over. The gun came with 2 factory mags, but I also acquired for it some magazines from Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick (Shooting Star). One Wilson mag would not cleanly insert into the gun (haven't figured out why yet) and would hang up, but all the other mags worked well. All the magazines were 8 round. The slide has deep front and rear serrations to aid in chambering and press checking. The trigger was crisp and clean, breaking at an estimated 3.5-4lbs. It has good checkering on and around the grip, plus a generous beavertail grip safety. It also has the extended thumb safeties and the gun is topped off with Heinie Straight 8 sights. But you don't want to know all that so lets get to the shooting part.

I put roughly 100 rounds through the Taurus and I can break it down to one word: impressive. A slow fire offhand and very informal accuracy check at 10 yards revealed that if I did my part, the pistol would literally drop rounds on top of each other. The 1st 3 rounds on my second target were in one ragged hole. (Till I started getting excited anyway) All the rounds were in a group of 3 inches.

I also fired a 30 round combat course (timed) that was 25 yards and in with the Taurus. I scored a 296 out of a possible 300. The gun was very shootable, even with the big 230gr ball ammo. Quite simply I'm amazed at this pistol.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give the Taurus a 9.9. The only two improvements I'd recommend (and this is personal preference) is it needs night sights, and it needs a light rail. Other than that, so far it has proven itself to be well put together and I think serious competition for any of the high end 1911 makers out there.

RobertRogers
05-18-2008, 04:19 PM
Yet another I feel I need now. Thanks. I think.

hoosierarcher
05-19-2008, 05:47 AM
I did a websearch and it now has a MSRP of $719.00 you can probably find it somewhere for around $600. I wish I would have bought one when they were $399.