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Yes, hard as I try not to be a gun snob, I've always been one when it comes to Taurus. I never could get past the terrible tales of poor customer service, guns that didn't run or even be made to run, shoddy construction, ad infitum, ad nauseum.
I had heard, however, that their full sized 5" government model 1911, the PT1911 in .45 ACP, was a decent basic gun. Many people have said they like them because of their very heavy duty construction including a forged carbon steel slide, forged carbon steel frame, and cold hammer forged barrel, albeit they're perhaps not as well refined or machined as other reasonably priced 1911s. They also contain a considerable number of metal injection molded (MIM) parts, but that's true of most guns these days including all but a few top end 1911s. Anyway, I still had told myself I probably wouldn't ever buy one. Until three days ago.
So, I had been looking for one but not very actively. Then I thought I'd found one a week ago at a local pawn shop whose name shall remain unknown, at least until I get a reply back from the owner to my letter I wrote him detailing why I wouldn't ever do business with him again. That aside, the PT1911 in the pawn shop had a fairly worn finish that made it look to have been heavily carried, but on first glance it didn't look shot out.
The price was where I wanted it, so I had the sales guy take it out of the case. I started checking it out. I locked it open, swiped the feed ramp with my finger, and came away with a ton of oil and carbon. Not a deal killer, but whoever owned it hadn't even thought enough of it to clean it before selling or pawning it. So I ran a quick visual check on it for anything obviously rusted, broken, or botched by some home-based gunsmith wanna-be. For those who aren't experienced gun buyers, please be aware that doing this is very, very, very important on 1911s, since people buy them and immediately think that every 1911 must, without fail, be improved by adding high grade and expensive parts, even if they haven't even shot the pistol yet. I've seen Rock Island Armory 1911s with enough Wilson Combat, Les Baer, and Cylinder and Slide parts that the owners may have well just built one from scratch. I also checked the slide to frame fit, obvious broken or loose parts, magazine fit/release/drop, slide locking back racking it with the magazine in, etc. So far, so good.
So I dropped the mag and then fairly gently dropped the slide (not with the slide stop). Then I pointed it down at the floor and dry-fired the gun to test the trigger, then re-racked the slide with the trigger still held down to test the reset and trigger consistency. I looked at it and, just as that 'Yeah, why not?' thought crossed my mind, the sales dude reaches across the counter with no warning, snatches the 1911 out of my hand, puts it back in the case, and says 'I know people say it doesn't hurt them, but I can't just let guys come in here and play with the guns, so no more dry firing.'
Now, I'll admit, normally I ask before I do that, but I was pretty much in that 'gonna buy this' mode which led me to sort of automatically moved to the function check thing. After the sales guy's little stunt, though, my attitude instantly turned into 'I'm not gonna buy this thing no matter what price you're willing to go down to.' I kept my cool, although I did quite clearly mention that I'd bought thousands of dollars of guns at his establishment before I walked in there that day, that there would be no more money out of my pocket headed their way, and that I wouldn't be coming back. Then I went home, found out the pawn shop owner's name and home address from the shop's business license, wrote a very professional letter outlining what happened and why I wouldn't be visiting them any more, and dropped it in the mailbox.
Which leads us to the actual subject of this post. The first part was just to point out that sometimes not getting what you want gets you something better. I looked on line here at northwestfirearms.com a few days later and, voila, learned that one of our members, Warsteiner, had a PT1911 on sale for a very decent price. So I contacted him and learned that not only did it come at a decent price, but that it was in excellent shape with about 500 rounds through it and came with the original single Taurus magazine along with three Wilson Combat 47D magazines, in my experience the best magazines I've ever used in my previous and current 1911s (A blued Colt 3" Defender and a stainless Colt 4.25" Commander). They run about $35 apiece, so that was another $100 discount on the gun as far as I was concerned. I immediately contacted him, said I wanted it, and set up a meeting with him at Tropics Pawn in Orchards. They're great people and only charge $21 for the transfer.
I was blown away when he opened the case. He was the first owner so all of the factory literature/manual/etc was in there and looked as if it hadn't even been taken out. With the exception of one small scratch on the slide, it was in pristine condition. And, as an added bonus, this is one of the new PT1911s where Taurus has abandoned the giant ugly "PT!911" roll mark that takes up the entire slide along with the almost as big Taurus branding and logo on the other side. Instead, it has a discreet small round Taurus logo on the rear of the left side of the slide just next to the hammer and an equally discreet but elegant "1911 .45 ACP" on the forward end of the right side of the slide. The improvement in appearance over the old ones is amazing. Another happy discovery is that the PT1911 now has a genuine Novak two dot rear sight, something I noticed due to the brand on the top of the sight and confirmed by going to the Novak page. These are clearly the real thing, not an imposter, so that's something unexpected. Not sure about the front sight, but it's dovetailed in and seems to be of equal quality.
So, I bought the gun, paid him a price that he seemed happy with but for which I'm still feeling a bit guilty, and went home. Warsteiner posted great feedback for me and I did the same for him. A really nice guy to do business with.
Well, I finally managed to get my butt out the door today and up to Wolverton Mountain Gun Club (just a great outdoor range with great members) so I could shoot the thing. After 250 rounds of mixed everything (HPR 230gr FMJ, Fiocchi 230gr FMJ, Federal Hydro Shok 230gr JHP, and some other random stuff I had with me, without a single failure of any kind no matter what magazine I was using, all I can say is that this is really a great pistol. Attractive (finally), very well machined with no real visible tool marks, a trigger that breaks like glass with literally no creep or overtravel, a short reset, and far more accurate than I am. Get a good sight picture, press the trigger right, and a hole appears in the paper right where it's supposed to go. It was probably most accurate with the Federal Hydro Shok, but I would have expected that.
So I'm keeping this one. If all the new ones they produce are this well made, something good's going on at Taurus. Pictures below.
I had heard, however, that their full sized 5" government model 1911, the PT1911 in .45 ACP, was a decent basic gun. Many people have said they like them because of their very heavy duty construction including a forged carbon steel slide, forged carbon steel frame, and cold hammer forged barrel, albeit they're perhaps not as well refined or machined as other reasonably priced 1911s. They also contain a considerable number of metal injection molded (MIM) parts, but that's true of most guns these days including all but a few top end 1911s. Anyway, I still had told myself I probably wouldn't ever buy one. Until three days ago.
So, I had been looking for one but not very actively. Then I thought I'd found one a week ago at a local pawn shop whose name shall remain unknown, at least until I get a reply back from the owner to my letter I wrote him detailing why I wouldn't ever do business with him again. That aside, the PT1911 in the pawn shop had a fairly worn finish that made it look to have been heavily carried, but on first glance it didn't look shot out.
The price was where I wanted it, so I had the sales guy take it out of the case. I started checking it out. I locked it open, swiped the feed ramp with my finger, and came away with a ton of oil and carbon. Not a deal killer, but whoever owned it hadn't even thought enough of it to clean it before selling or pawning it. So I ran a quick visual check on it for anything obviously rusted, broken, or botched by some home-based gunsmith wanna-be. For those who aren't experienced gun buyers, please be aware that doing this is very, very, very important on 1911s, since people buy them and immediately think that every 1911 must, without fail, be improved by adding high grade and expensive parts, even if they haven't even shot the pistol yet. I've seen Rock Island Armory 1911s with enough Wilson Combat, Les Baer, and Cylinder and Slide parts that the owners may have well just built one from scratch. I also checked the slide to frame fit, obvious broken or loose parts, magazine fit/release/drop, slide locking back racking it with the magazine in, etc. So far, so good.
So I dropped the mag and then fairly gently dropped the slide (not with the slide stop). Then I pointed it down at the floor and dry-fired the gun to test the trigger, then re-racked the slide with the trigger still held down to test the reset and trigger consistency. I looked at it and, just as that 'Yeah, why not?' thought crossed my mind, the sales dude reaches across the counter with no warning, snatches the 1911 out of my hand, puts it back in the case, and says 'I know people say it doesn't hurt them, but I can't just let guys come in here and play with the guns, so no more dry firing.'
Now, I'll admit, normally I ask before I do that, but I was pretty much in that 'gonna buy this' mode which led me to sort of automatically moved to the function check thing. After the sales guy's little stunt, though, my attitude instantly turned into 'I'm not gonna buy this thing no matter what price you're willing to go down to.' I kept my cool, although I did quite clearly mention that I'd bought thousands of dollars of guns at his establishment before I walked in there that day, that there would be no more money out of my pocket headed their way, and that I wouldn't be coming back. Then I went home, found out the pawn shop owner's name and home address from the shop's business license, wrote a very professional letter outlining what happened and why I wouldn't be visiting them any more, and dropped it in the mailbox.
Which leads us to the actual subject of this post. The first part was just to point out that sometimes not getting what you want gets you something better. I looked on line here at northwestfirearms.com a few days later and, voila, learned that one of our members, Warsteiner, had a PT1911 on sale for a very decent price. So I contacted him and learned that not only did it come at a decent price, but that it was in excellent shape with about 500 rounds through it and came with the original single Taurus magazine along with three Wilson Combat 47D magazines, in my experience the best magazines I've ever used in my previous and current 1911s (A blued Colt 3" Defender and a stainless Colt 4.25" Commander). They run about $35 apiece, so that was another $100 discount on the gun as far as I was concerned. I immediately contacted him, said I wanted it, and set up a meeting with him at Tropics Pawn in Orchards. They're great people and only charge $21 for the transfer.
I was blown away when he opened the case. He was the first owner so all of the factory literature/manual/etc was in there and looked as if it hadn't even been taken out. With the exception of one small scratch on the slide, it was in pristine condition. And, as an added bonus, this is one of the new PT1911s where Taurus has abandoned the giant ugly "PT!911" roll mark that takes up the entire slide along with the almost as big Taurus branding and logo on the other side. Instead, it has a discreet small round Taurus logo on the rear of the left side of the slide just next to the hammer and an equally discreet but elegant "1911 .45 ACP" on the forward end of the right side of the slide. The improvement in appearance over the old ones is amazing. Another happy discovery is that the PT1911 now has a genuine Novak two dot rear sight, something I noticed due to the brand on the top of the sight and confirmed by going to the Novak page. These are clearly the real thing, not an imposter, so that's something unexpected. Not sure about the front sight, but it's dovetailed in and seems to be of equal quality.
So, I bought the gun, paid him a price that he seemed happy with but for which I'm still feeling a bit guilty, and went home. Warsteiner posted great feedback for me and I did the same for him. A really nice guy to do business with.
Well, I finally managed to get my butt out the door today and up to Wolverton Mountain Gun Club (just a great outdoor range with great members) so I could shoot the thing. After 250 rounds of mixed everything (HPR 230gr FMJ, Fiocchi 230gr FMJ, Federal Hydro Shok 230gr JHP, and some other random stuff I had with me, without a single failure of any kind no matter what magazine I was using, all I can say is that this is really a great pistol. Attractive (finally), very well machined with no real visible tool marks, a trigger that breaks like glass with literally no creep or overtravel, a short reset, and far more accurate than I am. Get a good sight picture, press the trigger right, and a hole appears in the paper right where it's supposed to go. It was probably most accurate with the Federal Hydro Shok, but I would have expected that.
So I'm keeping this one. If all the new ones they produce are this well made, something good's going on at Taurus. Pictures below.
.
