Kahr CW9 or Taurus PT111? (Kel-Tec pf9 guys are welcome too)

Schlitz said:

I've heard of people worshiping the Taurus for being a good gun manufacturer and that all the crap talk is just talk, so I give them 4 tries to show me they don't suck. They failed to show me they know what they're doing.

I'm sure all of your guns have been perfectly fine, but for everyone you find who is just happy with Taurus it appears there are 2 people who are not. So yes, you can buy an awesome excellent reliable taurus handgun, and you also have a chance of buying a complete piece of crap. It is like rolling a dice when buying a taurus (and you appear to be good at it I guess!)

Keep this in mind when looking to buy a taurus, you will find a few people that love them and you will find a ton of horror stories. You don't get this when you hear about people buying Glocks, Sigs, XDs. Sure, after making and selling thousands and thousands of Glocks,Sigs, and XDs you will find an unhappy customer, but the complaints about these manufacturers are a lot more rare than Taurus - and there is a reason for it.

This is coming from someone who bought from taurus with an open mind, I really wanted it to be a good gun, i really did, i spent almost 2k on taurus guns. All I did was waste time and money.

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So not going to get into a brand-whoring/bashing debate, but from what I've seen/heard with the handful of folks I've known to have any Taurus issues, it's almost always ended up being Operator Headspace/failure to follow simple instructions.
I've got my 845. Thing has fed,fired, extracted,ejected everything I've put into it -from generic FMJ to Gold Dots, without a hitch. No jams/misfeeds/fte/ftfs -notta. Parts havent mysteriously flown off of it just from handling, etc. ...
I've seen folks have issues of one sort or another with Sig, Glock, S&W, just about anything. One isnt more prone to it than another.
Heck, I've got an old Raven .25 that I've had for over 25 yrs,which by most folk's reckoning is supposed to be a peice o junk. That thing has got to have well north of 12k rounds through it by now-the ONLY malfunction or Issue Ive ever had with it is the 1st time I tried firing Gold Dots through it- guess what?
Ended up being Operator Headspace- I'd not seated the last round in the mag fully to the rear of the mag.
Fixed that- chambered it again- BANG. Prob solved, and never a prob since.

1245A Defender said:

guess what??

Hi Point also, is accurate, is reliable, and has literally the best warranty of any manufacturer.
Life time, of the gun, no matter who owns it!

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Yes, they do...and gun snobs everywhere will "diss" them too. :dude:

1245A Defender said:

guess what??

Hi Point also, is accurate, is reliable, and has literally the best warranty of any manufacturer.
Life time, of the gun, no matter who owns it!

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I had a Hi-Point and the only problem with it is was looks. Otherwise no problems with accuracy or operation. I traded it on a rifle but you will not find me downing the Hi-Point. I find that at least 95% of those running Hi-Points down have never fired one and 95% of those that have owned one love them. However they do not make a good CCW gun because of their size and shape.

Well....

That was a little more than I bargained for. I see the Taurus funny bone was hit. I've been eyeing the pt111 for some time. I shot a Kel-Tec P12? at the range a couple weeks ago (double stack 9mm)-That thing was painful. I laughed, it kind of reminded me of my SW 460 but not as smooth. We'll see, price is on my mind, but quality and comfort is top priority. That Kahr is probably the most comfortable I've held. The PF-9's price and track record is really good as well. wasn't as comfortable to grip though.

As for some of the other posts. .380, .32, .45, .40- not interested for this gun. want a 9mm. I think its coming down to a 3way fight, Kel-Tec, Taurus and Kahr. They are going to have to duke it out.

Farther than that, I think its all luck and personal preference. just curious to see what other people thought.

j4l said:

So not going to get into a brand-whoring/bashing debate, but from what I've seen/heard with the handful of folks I've known to have any Taurus issues, it's almost always ended up being Operator Headspace/failure to follow simple instructions.

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I can assure you that none of my problems were operator error. The only error I made was not following the instructions of friends and internet trolls saying NOT TO BUY Taurus.

Broken parts in a gun that is new in box is NOT operator error. Parts inside a NIB gun that look like they were thrown through a jet engine are NOT operator error.

I have heard of glocks, sigs, and other reputable guns having problems... they're almost 1 in a million. There is a reason glock, xd, and sig have fanboys- they're really good products. The people who hate on them just simply, 'don't like them.' The people who hate on Taurus hate them because they've bought multiple guns coming NIB broken O_O aka me

Thanks for the further clarification.

I was really unclear how you really felt about Taurus until your last post. :monkey

j4l said:

So not going to get into a brand-whoring/bashing debate, but from what I've seen/heard with the handful of folks I've known to have any Taurus issues, it's almost always ended up being Operator Headspace/failure to follow simple instructions.
I've got my 845. Thing has fed,fired, extracted,ejected everything I've put into it -from generic FMJ to Gold Dots, without a hitch. No jams/misfeeds/fte/ftfs -notta. Parts havent mysteriously flown off of it just from handling, etc. ...
I've seen folks have issues of one sort or another with Sig, Glock, S&W, just about anything. One isnt more prone to it than another.
Heck, I've got an old Raven .25 that I've had for over 25 yrs,which by most folk's reckoning is supposed to be a peice o junk. That thing has got to have well north of 12k rounds through it by now-the ONLY malfunction or Issue Ive ever had with it is the 1st time I tried firing Gold Dots through it- guess what?
Ended up being Operator Headspace- I'd not seated the last round in the mag fully to the rear of the mag.
Fixed that- chambered it again- BANG. Prob solved, and never a prob since.

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I have been shooting for 30 years and have owned and shot competitively with dozens of different handguns from most, if not all, of the manufacturers out there. I have field stripped and maintained every one. I have never, ever, had a gun literally fall apart while shooting until I bought a Taurus PT1911, a poorly executed series 80 firing pin system was the offending party. The M44 fell apart while cleaning, the cylinder just fell off. If running a bore brush through the cylinder is too much stress for it, is deserves to sit on the rack while my Smith 629's go out to play. Funny how, if your theory is correct, the incompetence you attribute only resulted in those 2 pistols giving me problems in all these years before and since.

The truth is, Taurus has spotty quality control and it will be hit and miss until they institute the appropriate methodology. I can say that with confidence as I have worked as a Engineering Lab Technician for decades performing the testing for R&D and Quality Control that Taurus and others fail to do, or do poorly. In manufacturing, if you fail to refine your processes to eliminate out of spec parts, you will get returns. If you fail check your parts vs spec, or open the spec too much in misguided attempt to reduce scrap rates, you will get returns. If you fail to perform reliability testing and test random units often, you will get returns. If you fail to hold your suppliers to account to provide in spec parts on a consistent basis you WILL get returns. The only way to stay in business for them is to hand out free repairs and guns when they inevitably get a bad batch.

So let me get this right-including the vast engineering knowledge claimed- you handled a revolver that had a cylinder loose enough on it's frame/mounts to fall off just by running a bore brush through it, yet NOT loose enough -when just merely handling it-to feel something might be amiss?
I really, really am finding that difficult to grasp..from ANY maker.

Think on it a second. Running a bore brush through it doesnt involve any significant stresses/forces, by itself.
So, something SHOULD have felt missing, or very loose from the time it was picked up,no?

carry for myself said:

Taurus any day!

CW line of kahrs are junk. the other ones are great but......CW is crap lol

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I think very few Kahr owners would agree with that. I pocket-carry a CM9, and I really like it - it's a solid, reliable, no-frills gun. But for IWB or OWB, I prefer the higher capacity of my M&P9c.

j4l said:

So let me get this right-including the vast engineering knowledge claimed- you handled a revolver that had a cylinder loose enough on it's frame/mounts to fall off just by running a bore brush through it, yet NOT loose enough -when just merely handling it-to feel something might be amiss?
I really, really am finding that difficult to grasp..from ANY maker.

Think on it a second. Running a bore brush through it doesnt involve any significant stresses/forces, by itself.
So, something SHOULD have felt missing, or very loose from the time it was picked up,no?

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I can fax you my work history if you like.

No, the brush wasn't the culprit, gravity was. When opened and pointed up, gravity caused the cylinder to fall off aided by inserting the bore brush, as the part which held it on had failed. When loading, its pointed muzzle down and gravity did the job of keeping it in place. When closed it operated as it should.

oak1971 said:

I can fax you my work history if you like.

No, the brush wasn't the culprit, gravity was. When opened and pointed up, gravity caused the cylinder to fall off aided by inserting the bore brush, as the part which held it on had failed. When loading, its pointed muzzle down and gravity did the job of keeping it in place. When closed it operated as it should.

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I'll give you this one, at face-value-for now. Next question- is this something you bought on Ebay, or the 'net? Without physically holding/handling/inspecting 1st? If so, I can see the sense of buying, say, a pair of sneakers, or a hat, online.
NOT a firearm, without having some means of inspecting it 1st..

j4l...I am sorry...just accept it. Taurus sucks. Not because oak1971 and myself say so. no. they suck because their guns literally fall apart when being handled and it happens to multiple people. not like a dud glock or sig that happens every 523423481293423 gun produced. This seems to happen with every other taurus customer. one is happy while the other is disgusted with a gun that literally fell to pieces.

Schlitz said:

j4l...I am sorry...just accept it. Taurus sucks. Not because oak1971 and myself say so. no. they suck because their guns literally fall apart when being handled and it happens to multiple people. not like a dud glock or sig that happens every 523423481293423 gun produced. This seems to happen with every other taurus customer. one is happy while the other is disgusted with a gun that literally fell to pieces.

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And, like I said -99% of the time= Operator Headspace the other 1%, bought sight unseen online, or otherwise, and not 1st handled, checked-out, and inspected beforehand. -in which case, shame on them.
And shame on the seller, for not making sure the product being sold to an unseen customer isnt functional, and intact.
If so, their rep. as a seller should be publicly wrecked, as well.

j4l said:

And, like I said -99% of the time= Operator Headspace the other 1%, bought sight unseen online, or otherwise, and not 1st handled, checked-out, and inspected beforehand. -in which case, shame on them.
And shame on the seller, for not making sure the product being sold to an unseen customer isnt functional, and intact.
If so, their rep. as a seller should be publicly wrecked, as well.

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Shame on them and the seller? Why not shame on the manufacture?

99% of the time it is the operator? What specific problems have you seen with Taurus guns where the operator was the reason for the gun breaking and falling apart? I want specifics.

----WARNING----
First hand experience with Taurus guns - pics below



True quality parts....after they've been thrown through a Pratt & Whitney F119 turbofan jet engine...


You know you have bought a quality handgun when you switch the safety to the off position and the hammer falls (NIB gun too) :uhoh:

BTW these pics are all clearly operator error. I caused the guns to come broken and crappy in box. Operator error here...lolololololol (the only operator error was swiping my card for these pieces of crap)

Schlitz, you'll have to forgive my ignorance, as I have no idea what that revolver is supposed to look like, so I'm not what sure I'm looking for. However, I do know that every hammer needs a mainspring to operate, and I don't see a place for one to attach. Is that the problem?

Schlitz said:

Shame on them and the seller? Why not shame on the manufacture?

99% of the time it is the operator? What specific problems have you seen with Taurus guns where the operator was the reason for the gun breaking and falling apart? I want specifics.

----WARNING----
First hand experience with Taurus guns - pics below

True quality parts....after they've been thrown through a Pratt & Whitney F119 turbofan jet engine...

You know you have bought a quality handgun when you switch the safety to the off position and the hammer falls (NIB gun too) :uhoh:

BTW these pics are all clearly operator error. I caused the guns to come broken and crappy in box. Operator error here...lolololololol (the only operator error was swiping my card for these pieces of crap)

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Ya, cause metal sure does manage to bend the crap out of itself, entirely without any interaction from us, whilst sitting in a box...

And again,why not inspect these things before swiping the card?

SovereignAxe said:

Schlitz, you'll have to forgive my ignorance, as I have no idea what that revolver is supposed to look like, so I'm not what sure I'm looking for. However, I do know that every hammer needs a mainspring to operate, and I don't see a place for one to attach. Is that the problem?

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SovereignAxe, the revolver has a transfer bar. It is a safety feature you'll see in a lot of new revolvers. When you pull the trigger on a revolver with a transfer bar, the bar goes up behind the firing pin as you pull the trigger. When the hammer falls, it doesn't contact the rear side of the firing pin itself, the hammer strikes up against the transfer bar which hits the firing pin. In the photo of the Taurus M85 NIB you can see that when the trigger is pulled and the transfer bar moves up, it lodges itself against the bottom of the firing pin thus stopping the trigger pull there. Something like this would get you killed.

As for the 1911, the spring is in the main spring housing. The issue I had with this is when I took it apart the inside of the frame looked like it was thrown through a jet engine. You can see chips on the inside of the frame and the hammer strut looks like someone took another piece of metal and just gouged the damn thing. I didn't get pictures of the random machining marks on the bottom of the slide. This 1911 functioned okay after firing a few hundred rounds, but for something that I paid 700 for and an MSRP of $859.00 I expected quality. After all, that's what half the people in this thread are preaching about taurus, QUALITY!!!

j4l said:

Ya, cause metal sure does manage to bend the crap out of itself, entirely without any interaction from us, whilst sitting in a box...

And again,why not inspect these things before swiping the card?

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No, I'm not saying the metal in the gun did this to itself, this is obviously the kind of operation that is being run at Taurus USA.

Why not inspect this before swiping the card? Why do I need to not only field strip, but gun smith strip the crap out of every gun I buy? Why can't I have confidence in a manufacture? I've taken apart my glocks, sigs, and other firearms after buying them and not had to look twice at the quality inside. The fact that with Taurus guns you need to have a gunsmith detail strip it in front of you before you buy it should be enough to scare you away.

"Why not inspect this before swiping the card? Why do I need to not only field strip"

This simple: really, it is: Because I purchase arms for the intent of possibly using them to defend family, home, or self, if needed. Im not purchasing them as toys, or for amusement, or for collectibility.
We're talking about firearms here, not shoes or even a knife.

Personally, I field-strip, and inspect ,in as much detail as possible, any firearm I plan on purchasing -before actually doing so.
Be it new in the box, or used. Regardless of what brand/make/model. I dont assume any level of quality -good or bad- just because the item is made by Brand X or Brand Y.

If I cant do so for whatever reason, I pass on it, and move to the next item/seller, etc. Even if Item A from Brand X, does turn out to have something amiss, I dont entirely dismiss Brand X from consideration- I look at another example, if available, and see if that one is any better.

Further, while I know some folks have bought guns online, via FFL's and the like-without ever getting to handle or inspect them ahead of time, and been just fine- that's not something I'm even remotely comfortable doing, myself.

With an item that may well be the deciding factor in my life or death, I plan on making every effort to be sure the thing is put together right,and full-functional, in as much as is possible to do so, before I'll even consider spending Dime One on it.

You cut out half of my sentence you quoted. Field stripping a gun before buying it is fine. Takes seconds. These problems I found in Taurus guns cannot be seen by field stripping. You have to dissasemble them to see what's really going in inside.

Plus arguing that you should field strip a gun before bringing it home doesn't do anything for the fact that Taurus has quality issues. I DISSASEMBLE all my guns after bringing them home, the only ones that have had quality issues are the Taurus guns. Like I said, the only operator error was not listening to everyone's complaints.

With that said they do take care of their warranty repairs and I've gotten all my guns back from them within a week time period. The only problem is I used a warranty on almost all the guns I've bought from them.

Right now I can't tell you about the warranty service that reputable companies such as Glock and Sig offer. Why? Because I've never had to deal with them. My Glocks, Sigs, rugers - they don't fall into pieces when I dry fire them.

sent from my phone, excuse my grammar/spelling errors

Because I was focusing on the portion that needed attention. The rest of the fluff folks can see and read, for themselves, above.^^^
No sense making people scroll through 2 pages of nonsense to hear the 1 important point.

Not sure what to tell you, beyond if the idea that if the arm you intend to use ,and possibly rely upon ,when the SHTF isnt important enough to spend the whopping 5 minutes-max- to detail-strip it, then that's on you..perhaps you can have your next of kin file a class-action lawsuit of some kind...

You get what you pay for, and from whom you pay it to, (especially if you didnt learn from it the 1st time around) but you only get half of what you die for from failing to inspect things for yourself. Why make Murphy's day any funnier than it's likely to be?