Taurus PT-25 PLY

[argleargle]

Antares;  The left-handed issue only happens when you're crowding the pistol too close to the palm of your hand, the lever catches on your hand during recoil.  IMHO, I shot better with the pistol more centered in the hand and avoided the "RECOIL DISASSEMBLY" method.

   

   HOWEVER, the Taurus PLY *does* have the "fastest field strip in the business" if you shoot it left-handed a certain way.

   

   As far as my frame rails holding up?  Yeah, I was worried about that.  It seems that "recoil disassembly method" plays hell on them.  Normal shooting doesn't seem to do much of anything.  I've got maybe 3k rounds of .22lr and another 1k or so of shorts through it.  Normal wear seems barely noticable, but I have never shot hyper velocity through it.

   

   There is a plastic recoil buffer that is pressed into the slide.  I was worried about it wearing out and read of people ordering a handful of them.  Mine looks about like it did new.

   

   Also, the "extractor" will never wear out as there isn't one (at least on the .22 model, don't know if the .25 has an extractor or not.)

   

   Your mileage may vary, offer void in California where some restrictions may apply.

[heyjoe]

i like the way the photos are. its easy to see the various parts of the gun in detail.

[antares_b]

I fired 50 rounds of Fiocchi FMJ through the gun yesterday. I would have done more, but I wasn't able to find more ammo locally.

   

   There were no malfunctions. The gun is very comfortable in the hand; recoil is super light, and there was no slide bite. Because of the shape of the gun, I couldn't hold it the way I normally hold a semiauto, with thumbs pointing forward. I had to use a revolver grip, with overlapping thumbs (or one hand). The brass ejected in all different directions, but none of it hit me in the face. The sights are easy to acquire and are adjusted well; my groupings were around the bull's-eye at 5 to 7 yards.  

   

   The biggest challenge to accuracy is the trigger. The pull is heavy and long, stacking at the end--and then there's a long reset. The mag spring was extremely stiff, and I could load no more than 7 +1 rounds at a time. I'm sure that will improve, though.

   

   This Taurus is a keeper. My wife hates the trigger pull, but she handled it just fine.

[antares_b]

Quick update here. I put 50 more rounds through with no malfunctions. The only challenge is the long trigger reset. I short-stroked the trigger a couple of times when I tried to fire more rapidly. It's not a big deal, but I think it's worth noting.

[argleargle]

Sounds weird, but if you make a point to press and release evenly at the same speed and rate, you'll find this improves your trigger control. Same

   Speed for press and release.

   

   The trigger lightens up and smooths out a lot in the first 300 rounds. At least mine did.

[antares_b]

Thanks, Argleargle. Good info.

[antares_b]

I have found what may be a serious design flaw on the PT-25 PLY. Tonight, I was having a hard time unloading the magazine to get the gun ready for the range. So I cycled three rounds through by racking the slide and then removing each round from the tip-up barrel. Then I discovered that on all three of those rounds, the primer had a well-defined dent in the shape of the tip of the firing pin. (Pictures below. They're blurry, but that's the best I can do with my camera.)

   

   The ammo was S&B, which is known for having hard primers. Maybe that's what saved me from a slam fire. Or maybe the impact wasn't as hard as it looked from the dent. But it scared me, and I will call Taurus about it on Monday.

   

   

   

[traveller]

Wow - looks like it has a free floating firing pin.  I have seen other guns with that and the claim is that the force of the impact due to mass of the pin and speed of the slide return is not enough to ignite a primer.    But that dent looks a little spooky to me.   I suspect there is supposed to be a resistance spring on the firing pin?

[antares_b]

There is a spring on the firing pin, and I verified that the pin was not stuck forward and the channel was not noticeably dirty.

   

   The Taurus rep that I spoke to said this was the first time he's heard of this problem with this particular model. He was concerned. So I sent the gun off to be fixed under warranty.

[louiethelump]

Just remember; you never really OWN a Taurus.  It pretty much remains at the factory repair facility, but you get to use it in between trips back home..............

[redhawk4]

If it has a spring loaded firing pin there is definitely something drastically wrong. Even my SKS's with those pretty big and relatively heavy unsprung firing pins, do not make that much of a dent in the softer primers (compared to Milspec) of Winchester ammo.

   

   That's a bugger, given Taurus' long turn around time on repairs It also appears from your photo's the pin hits well off center too.

[antares_b]

Good one, Louie!

   

   I agree, Red--there are some serious defects at play here, and given my previous experiences with Taurus's warranty service, my expectations are low that they will be able to fix it.

   

   My wife said I should have bought another Black Widow instead, and I think she was right.

[redhawk4]

We should listen to our wives, especially if they are telling us to buy guns

   

   My one and only Taurus is a J frame sized revolver, that went totally out of time, fortunately so far that the firing pin wasn't hitting the primer or it would have caused an ugly blow up. It took a long time for them to fix it, but certainly was infinitely better after the repair than it ever was before, so don't despair yet that it will not get fixed. I couldn't help feel with mine that the huge amount of time they had it before they looked at it, you could track it online, was due to the sheer volume of repair work they have. My Taurus has really become a safe queen other than trying it out after repair, because in it's long absence, it got replaced by a J frame and it just never made sense to go back to it.

   

   Congratulations on staying so calm about the whole thing.

[antares_b]

Well, I would have been a lot less calm if I'd had an AD in my house just from racking the slide, because of the faulty firing mechanism...

   

   I got the gun back from Taurus today, exactly one week after I shipped it. They replaced the firing pin (which was bent) and the plastic slide insert (which was mangled). I don't know how that damage happened, but I'm glad that Taurus fixed it so promptly.

   

   By the way, here are pictures of the slide insert before and after the repair (from the underside):

   

   

   

[louiethelump]

Keep the shipping box.  That is a buffer and you probably exceeded the lifetime expectancy of shooting of that gun, and buffers have to be replaced periodically.  (I did a quick scan above,  and it looks like you shot 100 rounds through it.  That is about the life of the gun use for most people)

   

   If you keep the box you will have easy packaging to return it for the next buffer.

   

   Is there a flat fee for returning the gun to Taurus like that?  (they used to charge a flat fee, I think it was like 29 dollars)  Who paid the shipping?

   

   A friend just bought a new Taurus 22lr/22 mag revolver in spite of my advice against it, and I am wondering what it is going to cost him for sending his back when it needs it.

   

   Thanks, so I can pass it on to him.

   

   Louie

[redhawk4]

That buffer looked pretty thrashed, perhaps the recoil spring is too weak, so the slide is hitting too hard against the frame.

   

   A bent firing pin would certainly cause the issue you were getting as the hammer had the power to knock the pin forward but the spring could not retract it fully. I'm not sure how you bend a firing pin unless it was too soft and just bowed under the pressure of being driven against the primers - perhaps the hard primers of the S&B ammo were to much for it.

   

   Any way I'm pleased to hear the Taurus service turn around has improved dramatically, lets hope you won't need it again.

[antares_b]

Funny thing is that I took the picture of the thrashed buffer on the day that I brought the gun home from the dealer--before I fired it. (I did put 100 rounds through after that.) So I guess the life expectancy of this gun is zero rounds...or someone at a distributor had some fun with my "new" gun.

   

   Taurus paid the shipping in both directions. I called the number on the website, described the problem and gave the serial number, and they e-mailed me a FedEx shipping label. All I had to do was box up the gun and drop it off at my local FedEx office. (I think you can schedule a pickup as an alternative.) FedEx returned the gun to my doorstep a week later, in the morning. I had to sign for it.

   

   Maybe they paid the shipping costs because the gun was only a couple of months old. I'm not sure what their policy is on that.

   

   Red, you may have a point about the S&B primers. Or maybe someone somewhere along the line dry fired the gun when the barrel wasn't snapped into the frame.

   

   If I need Taurus customer service for this gun again, it will be the last time, because two trips back to the manufacturer is my limit. By contrast, the old Model 85 that I bought used has been flawless.

[ed69]

This just confirms my feeling about Taurus.I've owned and dumped two of there revolvers because ther was so much metal shavings in the action it locked them up tight.This is not cool,not when I'm betting my life/family on a tool.This comany needs to step up or step off!