I have owned several Taurus Revolvers over the past 15 years. Before you disregard these as low quality, you should shoot them; especially their Raging Bull models. However, I too, was skeptical of the quality of their semi-autos... especially after reading all of the negative comments on different websites. I bought the Academy Black Friday Special Taurus PT101-P 40 S&W last year, a 16 shot Beretta clone for $299. A superb performer, I have run at least 500 rounds through it without a singe malfunction. I should have bought two.
I went to Academy this AM and bought two of the Taurus 609B models for $289 each. Their website states that the regular price is $499. There is no way in the world I would pay $499 for this handgun when you can get a SA XDm for about $50 more. But at $289, it may be a bargain. The 609 has a lot of packing grease in the slide. I am going to strip and clean, then re-lube before firing them. The only thing I don't like is the trigger. I have several semi-autos, some single action (Colt 1911), some Double action only (Glock's safe action), and a couple of real double actions (S&W 39, Taurus PT101-P). The double actions have a long travel trigger pull on the first shot, and then go to a single action, light short pull on subsequent shots when the recoil cocks the pistol. This Taurus 609B is different from anything I have. It appears that you can fire first shot from DA, subsequent shots still have a long travel, but with no resistance until you use up almost all travel before it fires the striker. When I cock the external hammers on my S&W 39 and Taurus PT101, the trigger physically moves to the rear, just like a DA revolver. When I rack the slide, i.e., cock the 609B, the trigger does not move at all. I am not saying bad, just different from what I am used to. Please note, the 609 does have an external thumb safety lever, with a red dot to indicate fire position. I will try to post back after we fire these weapons.
