Posted: 3/21/2008 4:07:24 PM EDT
| Anybody had any experience with these handguns? Looking for the pros/cons. The wife has fallen in love with the "Pink" version exclusive to Gander Mountain, but I have no experience with Taurus in any way shape or forum. So your feedback on this particular handgun would greatly be appreciated. Thanks in advance. |
| I've run a few hundred rounds through mine, no problems at all. It's not the most accurate (small sight radius and the fact that I just don't know much about pistol shooting), but good enough for carry purposes. I just wish it had a decocker. Really, I wish we could make some progress on fixing all the off-limits places in Georgia--I hardly ever get to carry because of them. |
Why would you want a decocker on a striker fired pistol? With the thumb safety its safer than a glock.... I have a PT140 that I REALLY like, good ergonomics, very good accuracy considering the short barrel, I like the thumbsafety's position (1911 user), BUT it has started to give me light primer strikes/FTF. Probably will have to send it off to Taurus, although I may just mill myself a new firing pin block, as that seems to be the problem. My buddy has a brand new pt111 that he got from sportsmans warehouse. He also really likes his pistol, but after about 200 rds the plastic cover on the recoil spring assembly broke off. He's sending it off to Taurus. FWIW I really want to like these pistols, but it will be awhile before I trust mine for CCW. |
I'd just like having the option of a DA trigger on the first shot, in addition to the thumb safety. It's not stopping me from carrying or making me uncomfortable... just another item for the "I'd like to have" list. |
|
I love my PT111 Pro, shot about 800 rounds and cannot complain much. Only thing I can complain about is the Mags. The mags could have been a little better designed but they get the job done. The 12th round is a pain to put in. The website says its 12 + 1 in the chamber, but my advice is dont do it. If you do, the mag will most likely not lock in and will fall out. Other than that accuracy is decent with it. At 25yrds I can get all the shots to fall within the 8 ring on a police siloutte target. Has slightly a higher recoil than my XD45ACP, but thats because the gun is very light I guess. Very reliable in my opinion. Just depends on the ammo you use. For me since its a cheap gun I run WOLF Steel Case through it. On the other hand I use only Brass case in my XD45 since thats more expensive. They are on the cheap side, easy to shoot, and lots of fun. I shoot it more than my other handguns. I really like the double action trigger on it. Total: 1-worst 10= best Weight: 8 Accuracy: 6 Design: 7 Comfort: 4 (because I have big hands) Ease of Use: 9 Sights: 4 (could be a lot better) Trigger Pull: 7 (smooth not much play) Ease of Cleaning: 7 Magazines: 1 (only can use factory mags, all after market failed to function for me) |
Awesome review varack. I really appreciate your feedback, that was exactly what I was looking for. The wife is not going to ever carry it simply because she will never spend the money to go through the course. She just really wanted her "own" gun to take to the range. Again, thanks for the reply, it has boasted my confidence in the pistol more. |
)
| I have a PT145 with about 500 rounds thru it, in that time I had 1 stove pipe and after looking at the brass, it had a dent in the case, don't know if it was dented before or after firing. I carry this gun every day, I like it, I liked the price and the size is small. |
| I have a PT111 Millenium (Not Millenium Pro) That I got in a trade a few years ago. I love the small size, But where the hell do you get more magazines for it? I talked to a Taurus Rep a couple weeks ago and asked him, and he said "Good Luck" finding magazines... Eeek |
Yah mine is DAO. Never saw a DA. I wish my Ruger SR9 had the safety of my PT111. Shoots low right for rveryone, but has not failed to go bang. Nice thing from other striker fires. No bang, hard primer. Pull triger again. Others you have to perform sports on when no bang. Bad things can happen in that time lost. The PT111 just srtikes the primer again. |
30 seconds or less 10 rounders Tho. www.cheaperthandirt.com/Gun-Gear-Mags-Clips-Taurus-PT-111-Pro-Mag-9mm-10-Rounds-Blued_QQ13171_QQ1057 www.midwayusa.com/esearch.exe/search?search_keywords=PT111&category_selector=all_products
However just send 32 to Taurus. Enter part in form and mail check. PT-111PRO PT111MPRO-12 5-11101 PRO-12 12 Rounds 9mm $32 www.taurususa.com/products/PAorderform.cfm |
| Hehehe, I pulled up those adds right after I posted the above a couple days ago, I haven't looked for mags for about a year. I managed to find a few good deals for $29. 10rds is max capacity of these little critters. MECGAR is the origional manufacturer of the mags for Taurus. I've been told to stay away from the ProMags, but I may say the heck with it and try one. I Did not know Taurus still had them ? (I have the "Millenium" model, and as I understand, the mags for the "Millenium Pro" are not interchangable) |
|
I have owned the PT111 Millenium for about 5years now. Have put over 1k rounds through it and the only problem I have ever had was using hollow points. The winchester white box hollowpoints seem to not want to feed reliably. Otherwise any other ammo I have used (winchester, wolf, blazer, SB, relooads) have all worked fine. I have bought some of the Mec Gear mags for it and they seem to let the ammo rattle within the handle when inserted in the gun. |
|
My roommate CCWs one, I like it a lot. No failures that I know of, and it was actually very accurate once I got used to the sights. If you don't like the weight, they make a titanium version that is really light, but I haven't fired that one yet. I'll probably buy one when they come out with the "slim" version. |
|
Ive had mine about 2 years now. Use it for ccw and have over 1500 rounds through it. I did change the sights because I hated the Heine sights that come stock. Weight: 9 Accuracy: 6 Design: 8 Comfort: 7 Ease of Use: 9 (ambi safety would be nice) Sights: stock: 2 wilson combat sights: 7 Trigger Pull: 8 Ease of Cleaning: 8 Magazines: 9 |
| Bought a Millenium PRO PT111 (what a long name) last Sunday and took it to the range that afternoon. Took the grungiest ammo I could get and shot a hundred rounds. Fired more for function than for accuracy and it just worked. It seemed to be hitting low but it might have been me. All in all I think I'm going to carry it a lot. |
A few years ago CDNN was selling off the last of the Taurus PT111 Millenium Meg-Gar magazines for about $13 each. I picked up a couple of them, but the ammo rattles around if I load all ten rounds, so I just load 9 rounds. Other than that they work OK. |
|
I picked up a PT111 yesterday as a potential CHL gun. I'll have a range report ready tomorrow, but for now here are my first impressions. **The trigger** I like the trigger, but I'm prone to liking triggers a lot of people hate. I personally dig a lot of "creep" in a pistol, especially a CHL one. The SA trigger pull is really long, and has 3 stops. The first 25% of the pull is very light, the next 50% of the pull is about twice as heavy, then the last 25% is VERY heavy, slamming up against a brick before actually going off. You can grab hold of the gun and just yank the trigger and you'll still be stopped by the last break most of the time. You have to REALLY want the gun to go off before it will. In DA there's about a 20% takeup before the action engages, after which it's a very long and very heavy pull. There is no stop before the pin drops in DA. Is there was one thing I could change about the trigger it would be the addition of about 2-3lbs at the end of the trigger pull in DA. Another interesting note is that the gun is cocked by racking the slide no more than about 1/2". It doesn't even have to run full flight to set the hammer. **The grip** The grip is really nice on the front. All four of my fingers are solidly on the gun, though my pinky is a little squished. The back of the grip is fine at the top, but is completely missing at the bottom. The bottom of the grip runs up along the edge of the muscle in the bottom of my hand, basically straight along a line formed between my ring and pinky fingers. Although I have four fingers on it, I don't feel like I have a full grip on the gun because of this. I'm a little concerned that heavy shooting might be tough on that muscle and/or the floating joint in the shooting hand. The magazines suck. The first eight rounds go in fine, then it becomes a little struggle to seat each one. The lips extend out pretty far too, so you have to run each round down on the actual projectile of the previous round as opposed to the casing. If you're really careful you can just catch a little casing, but it makes reloading really tough. I don't know if this is unique to this gun or if all double stacks are this tough to load. My 24/7 isn't quite as tough, but getting round 16 and 17 in there can be hard sometimes. Nothing like the Milly though. Also, the top round in the magazine hits the bottom of the slide/action when the magazine is inserted into a closed gun. Have you ever slid a mag in most of the way then reached up and slapped the crap out of the bottom of the mag, such as one might do if one were a touch movie cop? If you get a Millennium Pro you will. It's a bitch to get the mag to seat all the way in, and if you don't push until it goes *click* the damn thing will pop out without warning. My thoughts on this are twofold: 1) I'm bothered because I don't like the idea of a round sitting up against the slide with that much pressure. When the gun cycles that means that the top round in the mag gets yanked backwards by the lip of the brass against the slide, and when that round is loaded the one below it is slammed forward as it pops up and catches the forward-moving slide. Every time you drop the mag the round on top is about ready to fall out on its own. 2) I'm not significantly bothered because this does reduce pressure on the lips of the magazine, and also means that the round will be sitting way up high when the slide comes up to grab it. The gun loads fine when the slide is open, so reloads will slip into place without the necessary palm-whack. The only time that really comes into play is when you want the full 13 rounds and drop the mag to backfill the one in the chamber. The mag release is in the standard pistol place, but they did a great job of molding it in to reduce accidental drops. It takes a pretty good punch to get it to give up the mag too, which is perfect for this particular gun. **Sights** The sights suck. Heinies were fun for a while, but I'm ready for 3 dots again. 3-dot Trijicons run about $150 for this model. **Maintenance** Takedown is weird. You have to set the slide back, drop the mag, then flip a side pin down and pull it out. Then you unlock the slide and set it to the neutral position. Once there you pull the trigger and hold it down while you pull the slide off the front of the gun. The 24/7 is identical. Strangely enough, despite the time it takes and the number of steps needed takedown is actually pretty intuitive. It's easy as hell to clean in my opinion, but that may be because I'm used to working with a H&K P7. There are no spots in there that are any tougher to hit than on any other standard polymer auto, and the small slide takes no time to de-crud. The polymer base does have a couple of slots with exposed actions and springs which look like they may need a little extra care as the round count goes up. A small bore brush or q-tip will fit in there though. The bad: The action is stiff and the grip is still a little iffy. I wish they'd used rubber on the back of the palm like on the 24/7. I'm not a fan of the mags at all, and the gun can be tough to load when the slide is forward. The sights suck in any light. Takedown requires an advanced degree and a flowchart. The good: The trigger is fantastic, but only if you're open minded about trigger design. The safety is in a great spot and can be flipped off instantly. The front of the trigger guard is contoured for the index finger from the weak hand, making a two-handed position feel incredibly comfortable for this size gun. Taurus really put a lot of thought into how this gun would be used, and designed it accordingly. In the end I think that's why the mags bind up against the action and why the back of the grip is missing. Taurus built this to be small, carry lots of bullets, and give the shooter a great two-handed defensive grip. It's meant to fend off the horde, not carry into combat, and the design reflects that as much in its flaws as anything else. Range report coming soon. |
|
I got my new PT111 to the range today and put it through a little bit of hell. I took 100 rounds of Winchester White box, 100 of Fiocchi, 100 Remington UMC, 100 CCI Blazer, and 20 rounds of Speer Gold Dot. First and foremost, there were no failures, no problems, and other than my recurring case of left-itis the gun was fairly accurate at 25 yards. It did shoot a little bit low for me, which I've heard is something of a recurring theme with the Millennium line, but I think it has more to do with the idiotic Heinie sights than anything else. When you're trained to shoot through three horizontal dots, replacing them with two vertical ones is not at all natural. I did find a few points of concern when I pulled it apart this evening for cleaning. When I pulled the slide off I clearly felt some grinding, and when I looked inside the slide there were quite a few metal shavings in the gun, some of which were too close to the open action for my taste. One of the corners of my slide has already started shearing off, and there are a few other places which look like they're getting more friction than the metal can handle. http://www.strapped.org/web/slivers.jpg If you read my post yesterday you'll remember that I had problems getting a full magazine into the gun. I found out today that only one of my magazines has that problem. My grandpa also picked up a 24/7 a few months ago that had serious magazine problems which required the gun to be sent to Taurus, so I'm wondering if they suffer from consistence issues in their builds. I'm considering sending mine in as well, since I don't expect my slide to come off in little slivers, and I generally demand my magazines to function on par with one another. I also have a problem with my action spring being more oblong than round at the end, making the whole assembly only fit into the gun in one very specific manner. If you're looking for advice as to whether you should buy a Taurus Millennium Pro PT111, my suggestion would be in the negative. There are just too many little things that don't seem to fit together just right, and I don't think it's a gun that will hold up in the long run. Although it seems pretty reliable and shoots well it's riddled with minor problems, not the least of which are the absolutely boneheaded sights. I've also never been in a situation where I had to seriously consider sending my brand new firearm in for repair, so my advice can be considered potentially slanted by that fact. |