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The Taurus TX-22

Been meaning to do this review for awhile and had originally planned on doing a more extensive review... But this kind of thing gets shelved due to family and work obligations. jimmyp's mention of his interest in the TX-22 on another thread finally got me off my butt.

Not really a Taurus fan (though not a hater either), I have only had one other Taurus... one of their J-Frame sized 22 LR Revolvers (4-inch barrel). Was my wifes, it was accurate but I never really shot it that much except to see how well it shot and to sight it in. Basically when it comes to revolvers I feel that You should save more and Just buy the real thing... a S&W. My wifes Taurus eventually went down the road for the real thing. When it comes to semi-auto's (rimfire & centerfire) there are so many other options and Taurus doesn't rank high with me.

Barrel issues; If you go over to rimfirecentral you will see a number of issues with the barrel rifling. Specifically serious chattering of the rifling. One poster claimed that the chamber on his was cut off center, it is really hard to tell looking at pictures because if the camera is off center just a little bit it can be an illusion. Hopefully they have ironed out the problem by now, BUT I would not buy one sight unseen. I picked mine up at a local dealer and used a bore light to insure that there were no issues. In spite of using a bore light to inspect before buying... my pistol leads when using CCI blazer, not an issue I have with any other pistol.

The gun is light, it weighs approx. 16 ounces (w/o a magazine), the sights are adjustable, has a picatinny rail on the dust cover to which I mounted my weapon light with no issues... living in the woods this makes it handy for dispatching skunks, racoons, etc. The grip fits my hand (between a medium and a large) like it was made for me, there are no panels to adjust the grip size. This is touted as the only striker fired 22 LR pistol, it is striker fired (which others such as the M&P22 are not). It has a manual safety and the trigger is also a safety... the style I like much better than Glocks bladed trigger safety... it is smooth across the face with no projecting blade. The trigger breaks at approx. 4 pounds & 9 ounces, pretty consistently. The re-set on the trigger is very short, shorter than on my Glocks. The slide is aluminum while the frame is polymer. The magazines do hold 16 rounds as advertised. You can get them direct from Taurus, were at my door in about one week. Taurus offers the TX22 with 10 round magaines if you live in a state that has magazine capacity restrictions.

Suppressor use; The barrel is threaded and comes with an adaptor for a suppressor. The barrel is free floating (not solidly mounted to the frame or the slide) and due to a combination of this and my stainless suppressor's 1/2 pound plus weight it does not run well with my suppressor on. I did watch a youtube of 22 plinkster and his ran pretty flawlessly with a suppressor on, if I recall correctly.

Accuracy; I shot mine on paper at 15 yards, I do not shoot it that well, for me it groups in approx. 1 1/2 inches with flyers bringing it out to 2 inches (benched). In my book it is a plinker... I feel the reason I do not shoot it any better is due to the light weight of the pistol. Even so shooting it at my steel spinners (4.5 inch diameter) out to 50 yards I hit them more often than I felt I should considering the poor showing at 15 yards.

Reliability; I ran approx. 350 rounds of CCI 40 grain AR 22 LR (looks to be the same as mini-mags but in a 300 round pack) before experiencing a malfunction. I stopped cleaned the pistol and the mag's and ran 600 rounds through it with four malfunctions... at #370, #440, #470 & #510 (two #440 & #510 were from the same magazine). I removed the loading buttons from the magazines thinking that perhaps they were binding. The gun seems to have the same rate of malfunctions even with the loading buttons removed though. The magazine is semi-staggered, if that makes sense... I am keeping the magazine buttons off as it is actually easier to load without them and more importantly they stagger alternately when pushing rounds down one at a time vs. using the buttons some of the rounds will not stagger (alternate one side to the other); however this has not resulted in less malfunctions.

Should you consider buying this gun? Looking for an accurate squirrel pistol or a beginning bullseye pistol... Absolutely Not! Looking for a fun plinker with high capacity magazines... Yes. Though I am into accurate pistols... I have no buyers remorse regarding this pistol.

Jerry

I wonder if it will fit into a surplus european style military flap holster with extra magazine holder for field use?

I looked at one at the local pawn shop. It had a much nicer trigger than my M&P Compact or my SR-22. I didn't shoot it, so I can't say if it would shoot any better or worse than either of those two. Initial reports on RFC seem to be positive. It sure feels good in the fist. Taurus quality seems mixed, some love them, some hate them. I am decidedly neutral until someone offers to let me shoot their new pistol.

Thank you for your review. Sounds like a fun little pistol.