Scoundrel
02-14-2012, 08:43 PM
My Taurus PT-22 arrived yesterday. Today I picked it up from the FFL, brought it home, cleaned out the factory goop, lubed it up, played with the magazine and BabyUpLuLa loader, and headed over to the range.
First, the overall gun. You can get assembled photos of this gun anywhere. So here is a field stripped overview, the gun stuffed into a pocket holster, and some detail on the fit/finish.
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5400&stc=1&d=1329276189
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5401&stc=1&d=1329276195
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5402&stc=1&d=1329276205
I knew it was a small gun, but when I picked it up I was still a bit surprised at how small and light it is.
I picked up a nice De Santis pocket holster. It's pretty standard: woven nylon inside, standard edging, and rubber textured outside to help it stay in your pocket when the gun comes out.
There are some fit/finish issues that make it look like a cheap toy. The nubbin from the casting process was not removed, and there is an obvious line where the two halves of the mold were put together, like you'd expect from a child's dart gun. Still, I can sand these down myself and polish it up if I want to. Hey, what do you expect from a $175 gun?
Moving on, I tried loading the magazine without the loader. After jamming 4 rounds in there with difficulty, I was starting to worry about denting the cases and primers exploding and stuff, because of how hard I was pressing on the rounds to try and get them in there. It was painful! So I whipped out the loader and tried it.
I had a little trouble getting the loader to do its thing. I was disfiguring the bullets and the scratch/denting the casings with the loader, and thought to myself that this just COULDN'T be right.
After struggling with it for a bit, I used the little magazine spring buttons to drag the follower down manually, and noticed that the spring seemed to be bending in ways that did not look right, and binding up. So I disassembled the magazine and examined it. I am pretty sure that the spring was in backwards (I thought that was a Kahr trick only). I lubed it and reassembled it with the spring in the way I thought it should go based on the angles of the follower and the baseplate, and it became much easier to load. Still, I intend to modify the LuLa loader a bit.
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5403&stc=1&d=1329276224
I think I need to polish the metal tongue, and remove a bit of material from the arch, so the bullet has more clearance to slide through. The bullets get hung up there and I just have to push a little harder.
Having cleaned, lubed, and inspected everything, I headed off to the range next. I brought six types of .22LR ammo with me for testing, as follows:
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5404&stc=1&d=1329276231
1. CCI Sub-Sonic Lead Hollow Point 40 Grain 1050 fps (waxed)
2. Federal Copper Plated Hollow Point 36 Grain 1260 fps (no wax)
3. CCI Blazer Lead Round Nose 40 Grain 1235 fps (waxed)
4. Aguila Sniper Subsonic 60 Grain RN 950 fps (waxed)
5. Aquila Interceptor Copper Plated 40 Grain 1470 fps (no wax)
6. CCI Mini-Mag Gilded Lead Round Nose 40 Grain 1235 fps (no wax)
I started out with ammo #1, and experienced lots of failures. Sometimes it wouldn't eject. Other times the spent casing would eject, but the slide would close on an empty chamber. Sometimes the slide would move the round forward and it would get stuck on the feed ramp. Sometimes it would almost work, but fail to return fully to battery.
I moved on to another ammo type, but came back to these later in the range session, to see if it was simply a break-in issue. But after many other rounds functioning well, I had the same results with these.
I suspect that these failures can be attributed to these things:
1. There is not as much force to operate the slide because they are sub-sonic.
2. The bullet is waxed. This makes it slightly fatter and stickier.
3. The large hole in the hollow point makes it a very square-nosed bullet.
I had great results with ammo #2. This are the Wal-Mart bulk pack stuff. They do not have any wax on them, so they're not sticky. Their noses are pretty round despite the hollow point so they feed well, and they have enough kick to operate the slide properly. Their accuracy leaves something to be desired, but in a snubby pistol, accuracy isn't all that important. I could score 9 hits on a human torso at 15 feet, with 6 of them being within a couple inches of where I wanted to hit, and that's good enough.
Ammo #3 did reasonably well, but despite being very close to what the Taurus manual calls for (the manual specifies 40 grain 1280 fps), I had a few feed failures with these. I suspect the wax, and the big fat nose on these. Seriously, look at the honker on these things!
Ammo #4 fed well, to my surprise. I did not run much of it through, but I got the feeling it was going to continue to cycle just fine. However, they key-holed terribly, which I DID expect. I ran these through just for fun, really, and did not expect good results. They exceeded my expectations, even though they are waxed. I expect that the extra energy transferred to the slide because these things are 60 grains did the trick - or, I just got lucky with eight of them, and I would have seen feed issues if I had run more of them.
Ammo #5 did fairly well, but had some feed issues as well. There's no wax on these, but they do have a squared-off nose. I did not fire these because they are a higher velocity than Taurus recommends. The few I did fire did not inspire me to push my luck.
...and this brings us to Ammo #6. The CCI Mini-Mag is, in my opinion, THE ammo of choice for this gun. Even though the fps rating on them is further from the Taurus spec, I think the weight and the round nose makes up for this. Also, there is no wax, but the bullets seem to be seated in there pretty well. Whatever the reason, these bullets cycled the gun more reliably, made a more satisfying bang, and hit the target closer to POA better than any of the others I tried.
I will admit to being mildly disappointed about which ammo works well in it, because until tonight, ammo #1 (the CCI sub-sonic) has been my favorite choice for every .22 I owned (well, for every .22 that I intended up put a lot of ammo through, anyway - I like the Stingers best for the NAA mini-revolver). Speaking of the Stingers, I did NOT fire any of those through the PT-22. The manual specifically forbids hyper-velocity ammo, and they went as far as putting an extra sticker on the inside of the case about this, to hit the people who don't read the manual. I like my shooting hand the way it is, thanks.
I forgot to bring one specific ammo type with me. It's very similar to the Federal bulk packs from Wal-Mart, except that it's the "Champion" version, which means it has a wax coating on it. I'm hoping it feeds just as well as the non-waxed version, because I already have about 3300 rounds of it.
I did find it somewhat disconcerting that the slide does not lock back on an empty magazine. The manual does not mention this, but there is no slide lock so I don't see how it could lock back.
Also, there is no extractor. There is an ejector, but it relies on the casing traveling backward with the slide in order to impact against the ejector and get expelled out of the way. I had a few failures caused by empty casings remaining fully seated in the chamber (they may have come partway out and then gotten slammed back in my the slide). Again, this was caused by ammunition choice, and the good stuff did not do this.
One needs to be aware of the PT-22's limitations and work within them. For example, I suspect that if I had only run CCI Mini-Mags and Federal rounds through it, the PT-22 would have functioned flawlessly.
It was a hoot to shoot! It was light, small, comfortable in my hand, and didn't do any unpleasant things that other small .22 guns I have fired were prone to do - like for example, .22 revolvers have a tendency for the cylinder to jam up, and to spray burning debris and lead shavings everywhere. The PT-22 does not.
Also, this gun was cleaner than any other .22 I have fired to this day after about 300 rounds through it. Kinda takes away from the joy of lovingly caressing your weapon with CLP and a snot-rag after a day at the range.
Overall, my opinion on the Taurus PT-22 can be summed up in the immortal words of Jeff Quinn: It's a good little gun. I recommend it.
WARNING: I am having some difficulty chasing down extra magazines for it. There appear to be two variants: The Taurus originals, and a ProMag version. Nobody seems to have either one in stock.
Taurus was closed when I called. I will hit them up again tomorrow.
The ProMag website lists the PT-22 magazine as "Discontinued item limited stock". Nobody answered the phone when I called them to find out if they have any at all, but it WAS close to quitting time. I placed an order for two of them from their website, and half-expect to receive an e-mail in a day or so saying, "Sorry, but we're scum sucking bottom feeders who list items on our website for sale even though we have none in stock because we think it makes us look good to have this many items on our site, and/or we're too lazy to remove the item just in case we might one day decide to grace the world with more of them."
First, the overall gun. You can get assembled photos of this gun anywhere. So here is a field stripped overview, the gun stuffed into a pocket holster, and some detail on the fit/finish.
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5400&stc=1&d=1329276189
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5401&stc=1&d=1329276195
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5402&stc=1&d=1329276205
I knew it was a small gun, but when I picked it up I was still a bit surprised at how small and light it is.
I picked up a nice De Santis pocket holster. It's pretty standard: woven nylon inside, standard edging, and rubber textured outside to help it stay in your pocket when the gun comes out.
There are some fit/finish issues that make it look like a cheap toy. The nubbin from the casting process was not removed, and there is an obvious line where the two halves of the mold were put together, like you'd expect from a child's dart gun. Still, I can sand these down myself and polish it up if I want to. Hey, what do you expect from a $175 gun?
Moving on, I tried loading the magazine without the loader. After jamming 4 rounds in there with difficulty, I was starting to worry about denting the cases and primers exploding and stuff, because of how hard I was pressing on the rounds to try and get them in there. It was painful! So I whipped out the loader and tried it.
I had a little trouble getting the loader to do its thing. I was disfiguring the bullets and the scratch/denting the casings with the loader, and thought to myself that this just COULDN'T be right.
After struggling with it for a bit, I used the little magazine spring buttons to drag the follower down manually, and noticed that the spring seemed to be bending in ways that did not look right, and binding up. So I disassembled the magazine and examined it. I am pretty sure that the spring was in backwards (I thought that was a Kahr trick only). I lubed it and reassembled it with the spring in the way I thought it should go based on the angles of the follower and the baseplate, and it became much easier to load. Still, I intend to modify the LuLa loader a bit.
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5403&stc=1&d=1329276224
I think I need to polish the metal tongue, and remove a bit of material from the arch, so the bullet has more clearance to slide through. The bullets get hung up there and I just have to push a little harder.
Having cleaned, lubed, and inspected everything, I headed off to the range next. I brought six types of .22LR ammo with me for testing, as follows:
http://kahrtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5404&stc=1&d=1329276231
1. CCI Sub-Sonic Lead Hollow Point 40 Grain 1050 fps (waxed)
2. Federal Copper Plated Hollow Point 36 Grain 1260 fps (no wax)
3. CCI Blazer Lead Round Nose 40 Grain 1235 fps (waxed)
4. Aguila Sniper Subsonic 60 Grain RN 950 fps (waxed)
5. Aquila Interceptor Copper Plated 40 Grain 1470 fps (no wax)
6. CCI Mini-Mag Gilded Lead Round Nose 40 Grain 1235 fps (no wax)
I started out with ammo #1, and experienced lots of failures. Sometimes it wouldn't eject. Other times the spent casing would eject, but the slide would close on an empty chamber. Sometimes the slide would move the round forward and it would get stuck on the feed ramp. Sometimes it would almost work, but fail to return fully to battery.
I moved on to another ammo type, but came back to these later in the range session, to see if it was simply a break-in issue. But after many other rounds functioning well, I had the same results with these.
I suspect that these failures can be attributed to these things:
1. There is not as much force to operate the slide because they are sub-sonic.
2. The bullet is waxed. This makes it slightly fatter and stickier.
3. The large hole in the hollow point makes it a very square-nosed bullet.
I had great results with ammo #2. This are the Wal-Mart bulk pack stuff. They do not have any wax on them, so they're not sticky. Their noses are pretty round despite the hollow point so they feed well, and they have enough kick to operate the slide properly. Their accuracy leaves something to be desired, but in a snubby pistol, accuracy isn't all that important. I could score 9 hits on a human torso at 15 feet, with 6 of them being within a couple inches of where I wanted to hit, and that's good enough.
Ammo #3 did reasonably well, but despite being very close to what the Taurus manual calls for (the manual specifies 40 grain 1280 fps), I had a few feed failures with these. I suspect the wax, and the big fat nose on these. Seriously, look at the honker on these things!
Ammo #4 fed well, to my surprise. I did not run much of it through, but I got the feeling it was going to continue to cycle just fine. However, they key-holed terribly, which I DID expect. I ran these through just for fun, really, and did not expect good results. They exceeded my expectations, even though they are waxed. I expect that the extra energy transferred to the slide because these things are 60 grains did the trick - or, I just got lucky with eight of them, and I would have seen feed issues if I had run more of them.
Ammo #5 did fairly well, but had some feed issues as well. There's no wax on these, but they do have a squared-off nose. I did not fire these because they are a higher velocity than Taurus recommends. The few I did fire did not inspire me to push my luck.
...and this brings us to Ammo #6. The CCI Mini-Mag is, in my opinion, THE ammo of choice for this gun. Even though the fps rating on them is further from the Taurus spec, I think the weight and the round nose makes up for this. Also, there is no wax, but the bullets seem to be seated in there pretty well. Whatever the reason, these bullets cycled the gun more reliably, made a more satisfying bang, and hit the target closer to POA better than any of the others I tried.
I will admit to being mildly disappointed about which ammo works well in it, because until tonight, ammo #1 (the CCI sub-sonic) has been my favorite choice for every .22 I owned (well, for every .22 that I intended up put a lot of ammo through, anyway - I like the Stingers best for the NAA mini-revolver). Speaking of the Stingers, I did NOT fire any of those through the PT-22. The manual specifically forbids hyper-velocity ammo, and they went as far as putting an extra sticker on the inside of the case about this, to hit the people who don't read the manual. I like my shooting hand the way it is, thanks.
I forgot to bring one specific ammo type with me. It's very similar to the Federal bulk packs from Wal-Mart, except that it's the "Champion" version, which means it has a wax coating on it. I'm hoping it feeds just as well as the non-waxed version, because I already have about 3300 rounds of it.
I did find it somewhat disconcerting that the slide does not lock back on an empty magazine. The manual does not mention this, but there is no slide lock so I don't see how it could lock back.
Also, there is no extractor. There is an ejector, but it relies on the casing traveling backward with the slide in order to impact against the ejector and get expelled out of the way. I had a few failures caused by empty casings remaining fully seated in the chamber (they may have come partway out and then gotten slammed back in my the slide). Again, this was caused by ammunition choice, and the good stuff did not do this.
One needs to be aware of the PT-22's limitations and work within them. For example, I suspect that if I had only run CCI Mini-Mags and Federal rounds through it, the PT-22 would have functioned flawlessly.
It was a hoot to shoot! It was light, small, comfortable in my hand, and didn't do any unpleasant things that other small .22 guns I have fired were prone to do - like for example, .22 revolvers have a tendency for the cylinder to jam up, and to spray burning debris and lead shavings everywhere. The PT-22 does not.
Also, this gun was cleaner than any other .22 I have fired to this day after about 300 rounds through it. Kinda takes away from the joy of lovingly caressing your weapon with CLP and a snot-rag after a day at the range.
Overall, my opinion on the Taurus PT-22 can be summed up in the immortal words of Jeff Quinn: It's a good little gun. I recommend it.
WARNING: I am having some difficulty chasing down extra magazines for it. There appear to be two variants: The Taurus originals, and a ProMag version. Nobody seems to have either one in stock.
Taurus was closed when I called. I will hit them up again tomorrow.
The ProMag website lists the PT-22 magazine as "Discontinued item limited stock". Nobody answered the phone when I called them to find out if they have any at all, but it WAS close to quitting time. I placed an order for two of them from their website, and half-expect to receive an e-mail in a day or so saying, "Sorry, but we're scum sucking bottom feeders who list items on our website for sale even though we have none in stock because we think it makes us look good to have this many items on our site, and/or we're too lazy to remove the item just in case we might one day decide to grace the world with more of them."