[Don357]

Hey Hunter,
What rock you been hidin' under?? I've had a Millineum Pro PT140 .40 s&w for almost a year now. They also have a PT145 .45 acp. I like my PT140 O.K., but I don't get to shoot it enough to really be proefficent with it. I can do 10 in 8" @ 20 ft, using Monarch 180 gr tmj or Blaser Brass 180 gr fmj but thats about all without more practice. It's a good compact ccw. I use a Continental IWP holster for that.

[ArkansasHunter]

Don357 Taurus Has a Millineun Pro COMPACT now that does not come in 40 SW yet...The one you have is a larger version that comes in 40SW.
A.H

[nighthawk80]

Actually Arkansashunter, the Taurus Millinium Pro line is the compact line. The full size is the 24/7 line. Now they just brought out the 24/7 compacts, but I believe that they also come in the 40 cal. The MillPro line comes in 45 = pt145 and pt745 (one is a 10 shot the other ia a 6 shot), the 40 cal = pt140, the 9mm = pt111, and the .380 = pt380, and the .32 acp =pt132. They have had the 40 cal (pt140) for a couple of years. You can't always trust what is on Taurus's web site. they do a poor job of updating it.
I have the pt145, and my Dad has the pt745. We both love our pistols. of a rest we both can get a 1" group @ 7yards. Now off hand, well I need to practice, but the gun itself is surprisingly accurate. And from what I have read on other forums (sorry guys, I still prefure this place though), the pt140 is just as good.

I hope this helpd some!!

[ArkansasHunter]

Thanks nighthawk80 Lets look at my 06 catalog. There are 2 Millennium Pro series pistols and one of them is the Compact Millennium. Pro which are the 745B .45 ACP, 745ss.45ACP,609T1 9mm I haven't received the 2007 catalog yet. I do agree that there are some 40SW available but there the others one's. The compact is even smaller but only by 1/8 of an inch in length and the compact versions are 8oz's lighter. They look to be very excellent concealed carry pistols...A.H

[nighthawk80]

Why Taurus does what it does, I don't know.
Like I said, My Dad and I have the pt745 and the pt145 respectivly. We put them side by side. You really don't notice a differance until you hold them. the pt145 is heavier (10 shot) than the pt745 (6 shot). the pt745's grip is slimmer, but IMHO Its not by much. I figured the 4 extra shots are worth it. Now the pt140 is the same size as the pt145. I think that for a 10+1 pistol, you can't get much smaller.
My buddy just bought the 40 cal S&W M&P compact and it its just about the same size. It is really nice, but it is aobut $100-$150 more expensive. I think that it was nice, but I still prefer my Taurus. I'm guessn' you are going to have to hold one to see. I don't know if they are popular in your area (bought mine in a gun show). I went and tried all the compacts (Sprinfield xd, Glock, etc...) and this one felt the most comfortable.

Ok, I'll stop my Taurus lovn' now. Hope this helps.

[ArkansasHunter]

nighthawk80 I enjoyed your rant and I believe you and your Dad have some mighty fine pistols...A.H

[nighthawk80]

Sorry for ranting. Sometimes I feel like I need to stand up for the pistols. Taurus tends to have a tarnished name. Didn't mean to sound like a know-it-all, I'm far from it.
I think you'll enjoy the gun if you get an opperunity to try it (of course who doesn't say that about a gun that he/she likes) If you lived closer I'd let you try mine.

[Shenlung]

It really comes down to personal preference and what you plan to use the gun for. As a recreational-lite shooter, when it came time to decide on the first 9MM, I went with the Taurus PT99FS primarily due to price.
Even 5 years ago, I paid $200 less for my new Taurus than my buddy paid for his used Beretta. I've probably put 1000 rounds through it in 5 years (did I mention I don't get out that often?) and it's functioned flawlessly. I have a friend who's put probably 5k through his Taurus PT92 with no issues.
But make no mistake, they're not Beretta and they never claimed to be.

Personally, I like 'em. If I wasn't up to my ears in diapers and formula, I'd jump on one of the new 24/7 Pro's. Someday

[9mmfan]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Sniper[MI]

Tell me why to buy a Taurus over a Beretta, other than slightly lower cost. Also, what is the difference between the 92B and the 92BNS. Inquiring minds (bored silly tonight and my earlier taurus post got me to looking at their site in detail) want to know.... :target:

Why don't we take a look at what the people at Gun-Tests said about the Taurus PT 92, and the Beretta 92FS:

9mm Showdown:



For years Taurus International has been offering a Beretta knock-off that emulates the Italian firm’s Model 92, a civilian gun cast from the same lineage as the U.S. M9 military 9mm sidearm. Beretta, of Brescia, Italy, began offering the series 92 in 1975, and in 1981 Taurus began producing its version of this pistol, the PT92, at the plant the company bought from Beretta in Brazil. How similar are they? Very. In fact, the easiest way to tell these two pistols apart is with your eyes closed. Ergonomically, the Beretta pistol slips into the hand a little easier. The Taurus grip frame is just a shade more square.
But looking like Elvis doesn’t mean you sing like him, so we wanted to see how the much less expensive Taurus PT99AFS, $547, fared against a pair of Berettas, the mainstream 92FS ($691) and the Elite upgrade ($732), introduced last year. The upgraded Elite employs Beretta’s Brigadier slide, sculpted for additional beauty and function, along with other niceties. Frankly, what we expected to find was what the Elite name and price suggest: That the high-trim Beretta was a markedly better gun than the others.
Instead, we found that Beretta better be ready for a challenge from below, at least in terms of pricing, because Taurus is delivering a very good 92-style gun for about $200 less than a similar Beretta.
Range Session
Besides the endless plinking that the economy and moderate recoil of the 9mm Luger cartridge tends to encourage, we tested each pistol for accuracy from 25 yards off a sandbag rest. In a tribute to the design of these pistols, we must pass along that nothing remotely resembling a malfunction of any sort occurred during a combined 1,000-plus rounds of fire. If we could say this about every semi-automatic pistol that comes our way, there might not be a need for a consumer-oriented magazine such as ours.
Throughout our accuracy session, fired single action only. Our test shooters took one shot at a time, concerned with calling each shot and constantly pursuing the same point of aim. Inspecting the guns side by side, we traditionally have found it is too easy to predict the best shooter just by judging the quality of the sights. You can’t hit what you can’t see (as well), and the Beretta Elite displayed the best sights, in our opinion. The size of the front sight and the two stanchions that formed the rear blade were, in our eyes, perfect.
In contrast, the comparatively meager rear blade of its sister 92FS was adequate, but the stainless-steel front blade made light bars harder to pick up with additional distraction from the large dot engraved in the center. The Taurus suffered this same malady, but the dot its front sight carried was much smaller. With all this distraction and worry about centering and looking off our shots, perhaps we tried harder with the Beretta 92FS and the Taurus pistol, because we can’t otherwise explain the marked superiority of the two stainless guns over the more expensive Elite, as the accompanying tables show.
Taurus PT99AFS
Our recommendation: Buy it. Copying the Beretta design is a no-brainer—the resulting gun works well. Throw in the Taurus lifetime guarantee plus the option of cocked-and-locked carry, and this $547 pistol is arguably the best value in self-defense 9mm handguns.

The AFS is the top of the line for Taurus’s Beretta 92–based pistols. It is two-tone stainless steel, brushed on the top end and bright on the frame. Ours did not arrive with the Brazilian wood stocks, but it did have a rear sight featuring two white dots and adjustment for windage and elevation. The basic pistol in this series, the PT92B, is a blue-steel pistol with fixed sights, but purchasing the base model only saves you $39. In our view, the PT99AFS is a better buy.
Some of the PT99’s parts are interchangeable with the Beretta pistols, but you shouldn’t interchange them, of course.

In terms of feel, the Taurus front strap is flatter than the Berettas, lacking the flare at the bottom. Also, the grip doesn’t have a channel from the beavertail undercut to the mag release. We are accustomed to rolling a pistol in the hand to connect with the mag release, but the front edge of the grip tends to block such a maneuver. Furthermore, the distance between the apex of the beavertail and the center of the mag release button is 1.9 inches, 0.3 inches more to reach than on its Italian first cousin once removed. While the lines cut into the grip frame fore and aft are mild, they proved to be effective in anchoring the gun in our hands. Weight distribution seems to be toward the shooter, and there is just enough heft to kill recoil, but not overload the hand. The primary difference from the Beretta pistols is the Taurus’s ambidextrous slide safety, which locks the slide and prevents the trigger from operating in both the single and double action mode. The Taurus’s safety lever was available to the strong-hand thumb without a change of grip, even for those with medium-sized hands. We feel this is key to combat readiness.
The Taurus PT99AFS (“A” for adjustable sights) was the overall accuracy winner.
From the rest, all three pistols handled about the same, are more than accurate for defensive applications, and were 100 percent reliable. This sounds perfect, doesn’t it? But our additional tests for practical accuracy go further in determining what we feel is the true combat readiness of a pistol. In terms of a Bullseye match or static target session. it can be said that the target is known, the target is located and waiting. All that is needed is to mount the gun with the trigger mode of least resistance, hold steady and fire.
In defensive-gun tests like this one, we try a more Practical approach, requiring our testers to shoot the guns more reflexively under draw-and-fire conditions. For this test, we chose Speer’s 147-grain Gold Dot hollow-point (GDHP) ammo. Our choice of holster was the three-slot pancake design by Old World from Michaels of Oregon. The three slots allow for strong side as well as weak side (cross-draw) carry. A thumb-break snap is included, making it an appropriate universal Beretta/Beretta-clone holster. Drawing and firing from any position made it painfully obvious there was no way either Beretta could defeat the Taurus. Why? Because the Taurus PT99 series pistols may be holstered safely with the hammer back, requiring only a short, single-action trigger press. The Berettas, on the other hand, offer a long double-action pull on the first shot or the challenge of thumbing back the hammer during the draw. While all three guns may be carried with a loaded chamber and hammer down by activating the decocker, only the Taurus PT99 offers a third carry option of hammer back, safety on.
The Old World holster accommodates this mode with a strap that crosses under the hammer. Would we consider carrying either Beretta with hammer back and rely upon the strap to guard the exposed firing pin. No. Did we consider holstering the Berettas with hammer back to even the odds in the timed draw and fire test? Thought of it, yes, acted on it, no. The whole reasoning behind the decocker and the double action first shot found on so many semi-autos today is to avoid undue liability for an errant or inaccurate first shot. Unless a pistol incorporates a 1911 design, like the Heckler & Koch USP series, or like the PT99 have a thumb-operated safety, we do not feel safe relying upon a device separate from the gun to secure a cocked hammer. However, all three guns fit snugly enough into the Old World holster to preclude the use of the retention strap when additional protection from an accidental hammer fall is not necessary.
Once each of the pistols was in single-action mode, all three guns shot with about the same feel. The Taurus trigger was noticeably lighter, and the shooter was more aware of the full valance of the trigger. Our Brownells Chatillion gauge registered each Beretta trigger at 6.5 pounds single action, but the take-up and engagement of the 92FS trigger felt more willing than the press offered by the Elite, in our estimation. In a game of draw and fire, shooting five shots at 10 yards over three strings, the best 15-shot group (measuring 4 inches) was delivered by the Beretta Elite, and it only put one shot outside the black. The Beretta 92 showed four shots outside the black for a group of 4.7 inches. The Taurus only showed one shot outside the black, but the group was the largest at 5.5 inches. But there is more. Both the Berettas printed low left. This is a result of a trigger-control problem in which too much finger is left on the trigger after transitioning from double to single action.
While the Taurus PT99’s group was largest, it had the bulk of its hits not only in the black but in the X ring. Moreover, each string fired from the Berettas was 0.75 to 1 second slower than any of the strings shot with the Taurus. The loss of time was evident on the draw while carefully lining up the sights during the double action pull and between the first and second shots that transition from DA to SA.

Beretta 92FS
Our recommendation: Conditional Buy. It’s hard to fault the original, and obviously it carries the tacit recommendation of the armed forces. But in our view, the $691 gun is limited by hammer-down carry.

Choosing a gun for the way it feels in the hand is important. Based on this criterion alone, perhaps everyone should own a Beretta 92 series pistol. They just feel great. Also, it is hard to argue with its classic styling, which on our FS was heightened by a low-key two-tone stainless-steel treatment wherein the slide is darker than the frame. The slide stop and breakdown levers match the slide, which is further accented with a bold red dot that is hidden when the ambidextrous decocker/safety lever is placed in the safety-on position. This safety disconnects the trigger when the pistol is in the hammer-down position. Activating this lever with the hammer back drops the hammer safely onto a loaded chamber. This gun is unsafe if it is carried with the hammer back in single action, in our opinion.
From the driver’s seat we saw a generous rear sight notch that offers plenty of search room for the front sight. The rear sight is windage adjustable only, but it is the front sight that disappoints. The front is the same color as the slide and reflects too much light. On the 0.0112-inch-wide front blade, the engraved and red-painted dot is distracting, but we found neither the front red dot nor the two red dots in the rear sight particularly easy or fast to pick up. We feel a dark, striated front sight with perhaps a white dot that didn’t overtake the edges of the front sight would be a better choice.

In terms of maintenance, the 92 series is easy to break down It’s really no wonder this pistol was chosen for battlefield duty. No tools are needed to break it down. Once apart, there are no small pieces that can be easily lost. Its design offers reliability without having to machine-in loose tolerances that can sabotage accuracy.
But as a civilian weapon, where confrontation is bound to be a surprise more often than on the battlefield, we feel omitting the option of cocked-and-locked carry is a minus.
Beretta Elite
Our recommendation: Conditional Buy. For some extra money ($40), we think some the Elite’s upgrades make owning this pistol more enjoyable than its stablemate.

As a combat upgrade, Beretta offers the $732 Elite with some features that are positive, but not entirely worked through. For one, the fully relieved hammer is not only stylish but affords less mass, to speed up lock time. The Elite also comes with full base pads that complete the profile of the grip. This is helpful in protecting the mags when they are dropped repeatedly during reloading drills or combat competition, but are still basically a cosmetic upgrade. The Brigadier slide is tastefully contoured and really makes the gun look special. But, it is no lighter than the standard 92 slide, a modification that can speed cycling, nor heavier for greater durability. The barrel is marginally shorter (about 0.25 inch) making it somewhat more concealable and perhaps faster to point. The upgraded sights did pay off, in our opinion, during the rapid-fire test.
We were disappointed to note, however, that the Elite’s slide-to-frame fit is no different than on the standard model, and it was actually the least accurate of the three test guns from a sandbag rest. Also, the Elite trigger is still as heavy as the basic factory issue. These are two areas that are crucial to an “upgrade” truly performing better than a stock gun.
Gun Tests Recommends
Taurus PT99AFS, $547. Buy it. This pistol should be capable of doing anything the higher-priced Berettas can do. Additionally, the availability of cocked-and-locked carry makes it more appealing.
Beretta 92FS, $691. Conditional buy, if you can live without cocked-and-locked carry. But for all its positive traits, this stainless gun needs a better sighting system. Beretta Elite, $732. Conditional buy. The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit has spent a lot of money and talent to make the M9 Beretta 9mm fit for the highest levels of competition. Hints of those technical advancements have filtered down to the Elite model, and if we were choosing between it and the FS, we’d spend the dollars for its features.

[ArkansasHunter]

9mmfan Thank you for posting an excellent read, it will be very handy information for someone interested in either of these pistols...A.H

[9mmfan]

All I can say is that I have a Taurus PT 92 in s.s. and I love it. I can't really talk about their other guns because I haven't shot any other Taurus.

But most people say that "almost" all handguns have to go through a break in period. Mine didn't, when I brought mine I took it home, cleaned all oil out of it and took it to the indoor range. I shot 300 rounds of the cheap Walmart white box ammo and I didn't have one jam or mis-fire or any other problems whats so ever. And the review in Gun-Tests speaks for it's self.

[schu]

My stable includes the following-

Ruger 10/22 in SS

Ruger Single Six, 22lr & 22mag, in SS

Taurus 669 SS, Tame the Bull Comp, .357

Taurus PT1911-1B1, Railed in Black

Taurus PT111, in black

AR15 Olympic Arms

Thompson Center, G2 rifle in .17 HMR

Ruger Vaquero, .357, case hardened finish

I love em all, the PT111 is my CCW, the 669 is by my bedside, the 1911 is a carry gun when dress permits. Taurus Rocks.

[micallen]

I really didn't have anything to add, I just saw the cool smily, and had to use it.

[SCGirl]

I am in love!!! Saw the Taurus 1911 with laser grips!!! I WANT IT!

[rocketmonty]

Quote:       Originally Posted by SCGirl

I am in love!!! Saw the Taurus 1911 with laser grips!!! I WANT IT!

sould get one before next year ,they are goin out like hotcake's

[SCGirl]

Quote:       Originally Posted by rocketmonty

sould get one before next year ,they are goin out like hotcake's

thank you for that info!! I will get it at weeks end! I hope anyway! I will have them hold it for me.

[The Hillbilly]

I only have one pistol and its the Taurus .38 special. I love it. Small and compact. Perfect for self defense. I also use it for my ccw. Heck its in my car right now. (Im at work)

[ghost_raven]

So far, the only gun I own is the Taurus PT1911... and I am loving it. Good accuracy, and no real problems. Last time I took it out shooting, my fiance fired 40 rounds through it, and even she loved it... well, when she stopped being scared of it after going through the second magazine.

[SCGirl]

how is the recoil on it?

[gandog56]

Quote:       Originally Posted by SCGirl

I am in love!!! Saw the Taurus 1911 with laser grips!!! I WANT IT!

I got the Springer and the DW 1911's with CT Laser Grips....I LOVE THEM!

Quote:       Originally Posted by meatloaf

My family owns a pawn shop in florida and ever since i can remember, I was told that Tarus is a junk throw away gun. Now I have been told by people I trust in the gun world that Tarus has made great improvments on their present day fire arms, but it is still a little to hard for me to get over my predjudice torwards the company. I would buy the Berreta over the Taurus. (is it still hard to find replacment parts for Tarus, I know that it used to be Tarus stopped making replacement parts after a few years for each discontinued model?)

If your going to insult them, at least spell them right. It's TAURUS!

Like I said, my now 22 year old Taurus .357 mag is still my most accurate revolver I own. So I don't go with all the old ones are junk argument, either.