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Looking at the Taurus PT745 for Concealed Carry

floorguy24floorguy24 Member Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited June 2011 in Ask the Experts
Any complaints about this gun? Looks to be a great concealed carry gun.

Taurus PT745 .45 ACP

Comments

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    tsr1965tsr1965 Member Posts: 8,682 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    floorguy24,

    If you are going to be using it to protect yourself, then there is a problem. It says Taurus on the side of it. Anyone who is serious about self defense, and knows about guns, would shy away from a Taurus. Their quality is hit and miss, and in a serious situation, you need your weapon to go bang when you want it to.

    Best
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    floorguy24floorguy24 Member Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Well, I thought I had heard this before. That's why I'm asking. I'll look at other comparable guns. I really like the small 45 acp.
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    HawkshawHawkshaw Member Posts: 1,016 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    A pocket full of rocks will beat a Taurus!!!!! HAWKSHAW
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    spas12spas12 Member Posts: 571 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    most reviews from people who actually own them are positive
    I'm sure the pt747 is easily worth what it costs
    don't take seriously any advice comparing a modern gun to rocks
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    tsr1965tsr1965 Member Posts: 8,682 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by spas12
    most reviews from people who actually own them are positive
    I'm sure the pt747 is easily worth what it costs
    don't take seriously any advice comparing a modern gun to rocks


    You should stick to what you know, and have experience with. Which appears to be not much.

    As a previous FFl holding dealer, I have had several experiences with Taurus, and they have gotten progressively worse. Their customer service sucks, thus making their warranty a JOKE too. Thus, I stand by my statement that any real people who have experience in self defense, will avoid a Taurus.

    Best
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    beantownshootahbeantownshootah Member Posts: 12,776 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by tsr1965
    quote:Originally posted by spas12
    most reviews from people who actually own them are positive
    I'm sure the pt747 is easily worth what it costs
    don't take seriously any advice comparing a modern gun to rocks


    You should stick to what you know, and have experience with. Which appears to be not much.

    As a previous FFl holding dealer, I have had several experiences with Taurus, and they have gotten progressively worse. Their customer service sucks, thus making their warranty a JOKE too. Thus, I stand by my statement that any real people who have experience in self defense, will avoid a Taurus.

    Best


    As you know, I'm no fan of Taurus, but I wouldn't make the blanket statement that all of their guns are bad ("like rocks") and/or that you can't rely on them for defense.

    Its a question of design (which model gun are you talking about) and quality control (is the particular gun in your hand built correctly).

    Now in fairness, None of the manufacturers are completely immune to putting out a "dud" gun every so often. Ruger has recalled guns recently; it happened to Glock, Smith, etc.

    The question is how often, and what will they do for you when it happens. Unfortunately with Taurus the answers tend to be "too often" and "not always what you'd like". Not all the Taurus designs are great, so you do have to be careful, and given the number of excellent guns out there, I tend to avoid Taurus.

    Now all that said, in this particular case, this small .45 and its "brother" the 145 do have a following. Some people swear by them and claim they're reliable. I've never shot one, but I've held it, and its probably about as small as light as you get in a .45. Maybe the Kahr is smaller. . .but it sure aint cheaper!

    Personally, I don't even want a small light .45, but if you do, there aren't that many out there to choose from, so I could certainly see considering this one, particularly if you could get a good price on one.

    The biggest thing for me would be to make sure I could run at least a few boxes of ammo through it to make sure it ran 100%. That would be either testing it at the range if buying a used one, or getting some sort of return guarantee if new.

    "If it doesn't run Taurus will fix it" would NOT cut it for me.

    I definitely would not want to deal with the hassle of boxing it up, sending it back to Taurus, and waiting.
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    Wolf.Wolf. Member Posts: 2,223 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Now in fairness, None of the manufacturers are completely immune to putting out a "dud" gun every so often. Ruger has recalled guns recently; it happened to Glock, Smith, etc.

    The question is how often, and what will they do for you when it happens. Unfortunately with Taurus the answers tend to be "too often" and "not always what you'd like". Not all the Taurus designs are great, so you do have to be careful, and given the number of excellent guns out there, I tend to avoid Taurus.Well, the following is my opinion based upon what I have personally seen, experienced, read and have had related to me by others. It is just my personal take on the subject and others may disagree; that's okay. However, for the reasons stated, I do not own a Taurus gun.

    Threfore, I agree with BTS and I avoid Taurus as well. Every single Taurus revolver I have handled (granted, this amounts to only about 10 revolvers) had a cylinder that could be moved out of battery after being locked up by grabbing either side of the cylinder with the fingers of one hand and turning it in one direction or the other. There were other issues I noted with many of those guns upon closer examination....too many issues for me to want to trust Taurus guns. There are plenty of more reliable guns around, including older Colts and S&W revolvers and semi-auto guns and newer guns from other manufacturers. You can probably buy a like-new or close to it quality gun for about the same, or less than you would pay for a new Taurus and if money is a significant factor in the decision, that would be the tact that I would take.

    BTS (under)stated that Taurus has many well-designed guns, and they do, and they should; many of them are virtual knockoffs of other manufacturer's popular and proven designs, which by and of itself is not a bad thing, by the way. A good example of that is Uberti's cloning of the Colt Model P (the Colt Model 1873 six shooter). It is close enough in fit, finish and function to the original Colt guns to satisfy thousands of cowboy action shooters and has very few quality issues. Cowboys put thousands and thousands of rounds through them and handle them so much they are very often their go-to guns for self defense. Taurus tried to break into that market with their "Gaucho" clone of the Colt Model P and failed fairly quickly due to quality issues. The Gaucho is no longer being made and cowboys that do own them find it hard to get rid of them because no one wants a headache.

    BTS is right. Taurus and its kin seem to have more complaints regarding functional quality control than other manufacturers. I've seen posts by active police types who say they carry Taurus guns as backups or for off-duty CCW, but to me (and I am not a police employee), that's akin to a professional mechanic buying his tools at Harbor Freight. I carry the best I can find and do not consider the $$. Price is not cost.
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    spas12spas12 Member Posts: 571 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've had experience with Taurus and Rossi just not with the pt745, my experience suggests that what while their guns might not be top quality they do work. For a few hundred dollars more you could get something better but it might not be a few hundred dollars better.
    I think the pt745 is worth the price, it really does seem that most people who have the pt745s and the similar models are happy with them.
    As for the customer service I found that most customer service isn't very good evan from companies that people say have good customer service, the only time it gets good is when their product has a serious defect.
    an example of sadly typical customer service i asked browning for a manual for my browning acera and almost a month later i got a winchester 94 manual.
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    floorguy24floorguy24 Member Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've been looking at several other guns, but still am considering this one. Although I already conceal carry a s&w 629, this gun is appealing due to it's size & caliber.

    All input is helpful, so thanks for all of the above comments. [;)]

    Anyone else have anything good or bad to say about this gun or Taurus guns in general?
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    beantownshootahbeantownshootah Member Posts: 12,776 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by floorguy24
    Although I already conceal carry a s&w 629

    Well, then you're in luck, because compared to that massive revolver, ANYTHING else is going to seem light and comfortable for carry!

    quote:Anyone else have anything good or bad to say about this gun or Taurus guns in general?
    All I can say about this particular model, I've already said. In a nutshell, enough people like them, and the general design has been around long enough that I wouldn't entirely dismiss this model as "junk". Never shot this one, but I'd expect a small light .45 to offer quite a bit of recoil.

    On Taurus guns in general, its a pretty long story, but making it quick, the original Taurus autos were Beretta copies supposedly built on left-over Beretta machinery in Brazil. They still make these guns, the model 92 (and variants), and the small tip-up barrel autos in .22, etc.

    Years ago, and for a little while, the same parent company owned both Smith and Wesson and Taurus and transferred tech between the two. So the older design Taurus revolvers (including the model 85 snubnose) are basically clones of Smith revolvers. On paper, there is no reason why these guns shouldn't be fine. . .and many/most of them are.

    Historically, the biggest problem with Taurus wasn't that its DESIGNS were no good (see above), it was that its *quality control* was lousy. In other words there were times when Taurus was letting a significant percentage of badly built guns out of the factory. Depending on what model gun you're looking at, and when it was built, the chance of having a problem may be significant.

    As to the newer design guns, those are variable. Some are OK, some are not. For example, even though lots of them get sold (presumably by the brilliant marketing campaign), there have been a number of problems reported with the Taurus "Judge" .410/.45LC revolvers, including cylinders falling off the gun (ouch!) and jamming during fire from backed-out primers, etc.

    There were some "teething" problems with the 24/7 pistols Taurus put out, I think ultimately traced back to bad magazines, and fixed.

    Again, with Taurus in general, its going to come down to which model you're talking about, the build-quality of the specific gun in your hand, and what you intend to do with it. For example, if my .22 revolver won't set off a round every couple of cylinders, maybe I can live with that, especially if I got it cheap, and consider it a "plinker". On the other hand, for a concealed carry or self-defense gun, reliability is paramount, and I won't tolerate any significant number of malfunctions.

    One way to look at this, is just to ask, what will Taurus give me that the other companies won't?

    Taurus does offer attractive pricing on many of its guns, but on the other hand, they also tend to lose more value on resale compared to the competition. Consequently, for only a small amount more money, a used Smith revolver (or other pistol) often offers better value than a new Taurus.

    Taurus did (and does) offer beautiful Brazillian grips on some of its guns. Its a nice touch, though by itself not enough to make me pick one over something else.

    I don't much care for the Taurus "ribber" grips, nor do I care for the Heinie "straight eight" auto pistol sights.

    Taurus historically has put out runs of double-action revolvers in unusual calibers that other makers haven't. If you're after a "Raging Bee" wheelgun in .218 bee, well, there you go. (I'm not).

    Bottom line for me is that even though I know there are plenty of Taurus guns out there that can run fine, there are also a gazillion *other* guns out there from the better companies (Smith, Ruger, etc) that will not only run well, but will also retain more resale value.

    So unless I'm picking one up really dirt cheap, Taurus has pretty little interest for me.
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