I’m rather late posting about my second trip to the range with my Taurus Millennium Pro PT111 9mm. I went the Friday before last. My parents were in town and I went with my dad, who wanted to shoot and zero his six-shot, single action, .22 revolver (that thing has almost no recoil, very easy to shoot, but also big enough and with a long enough barrel to still look imposing). Readers may recall I’ve been having some FTE problems with my pistol. I think I have that problem figured out.
I started out with 12 rounds of the good stuff, Hornady TAP FPD. The gun fired them flawlessly.
Next, I shot three mags (36 rounds) of WWB. Again, the gun fired them flawlessly, with the sole exception being an FTE on the second-to-last round on the last mag.
So, that’s only one FTE out of four mags (48 rounds), and that being on the 47th shot.
Possible reasons why the gun is performing better now: 1) Better ammo; 2) it’s getting broken in; 3) I’m managing the recoil better, thus bleeding off less of the energy in the cycling of the action; 4) I’m getting better at cleaning it.
I had more FTEs after that though.
I fired the remaining 13 rounds of Hornady next. No FTEs, but this time the slide failed to lock back when the mag ran empty; I’m thinking it is because the gun is getting pretty dirty by this point. 61 rounds so far, only 1 FTE.
All told I fired 25 rounds of Hornady, 124 rounds of WWB, the last 27 rounds of Speer Lawman, and the last 26 rounds of that crappy Russian-made Monarch, for a total of 202 rounds, through the gun. I didn’t keep count of the number of FTEs. The dirtier the gun got, the more I had.
I got a tip on the FTE problem from the owner of the range. He told me that Taurus semi-auto pistols, and I think he also mentioned Ruger, have rough (or tight?) action that causes that when they get dirty. (This may not apply to the new Taurus 24/7 OSS.) He advised me just to rack the slide and put a few drops of gun oil in key places then work the action a few times. That ought to help. I’ll try it next time.
So…my revised evaluation of the gun: It’s nice and compact, with good firepower, and is good for practice (including clearing and cleaning on the range), and it is still good for personal and home defense too. Why, despite the FTE problems, is it still good for personal and home defense? Because so long as it is clean, properly lubed, and loaded with decent ammo, I won’t have any problems performance-wise for the first 3-5 mags. Odds are I won’t need that many in personal and home defense situations. One can only carry so many mags on one’s person during everyday concealed carry. And I only own two at the moment in any case. Bottom line: I’m confident I can fire at least 3 mags through it without any problems. Particularly when the low price is factored in ($350 w/tax), I consider this gun a good buy (especially as a first handgun). Later, when I can afford it, (and my wife gets more used to the idea of my owning, shooting, and carrying on a daily basis, handguns), I’ll purchase a higher quality (and probably more expensive) handgun. My next gun purchase, though, will probably be a 20 gauge Mossberg 500 field/deer combo shotgun (26″ barrel with three different chokes, 24″ fully-rifled barrel for slugs), plus a turkey choke and an 18.5″ security barrel.
P.S. If anyone thinks I just shouldn’t accept the FTEs, that even a Taurus pistol shouldn’t be having so many, and I should send it to Taurus to get it fixed, feel free to let me know.
Political Science PhD
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Geoffery:
I don’t think that any gun which is not 100% reliable all of the time should be used for self defense. Take the PT-111 to the range and shoot at least 200-300 rounds using WWB and pay close attention to what you are doing. Clean the gun before you go but not at the range. If, at the end of your “tests” it still gives you problems, send it back to Taurus.
Best wishes,
Clyde
Thanks for the advice. WWB is not going to be my personal/home defense ammo, but I’ve settled on it as my practice ammo.
I just blogged a new post briefly describing my 3rd range visit. I didn’t fire as many rounds as you suggested, but I did fire 144 – with no problems whatsoever.
I’ve probably put about 400 rounds through it all together by now. Aside from my no longer using cheap and crappy ammunition, perhaps it is just finally getting broken in.
I would not accept that level of reliability. I’ve been thinking about buying a PT111 for a long time, but this seems to be a consistent issue among owners and I can’t justify spending that kind of money on a gun that is going to FTE on me. I’d definitely send it back to Taurus and see what they can do. If they can manage to get it down to about 1 FTE per 150 rounds, I’d consider it acceptable. Don’t run cheap ammo through it and try different mags, and if the problems don’t clear up, I’d trade it in.
Thanks Mart.
I stopped using that cheap Russian ammo and only use WWB for practice and top-brand hollow points for personal defense. I haven’t had any problems in a while, so whether it was (a) cheap ammo, (b) not cleaning it well enough, (c) limp wristing, (d) the gun just needed to be broken in, or (e) some combination of the above, the gun seems to be working far better now. I don’t think it was a serious design or production flaw that needed repairing by Taurus.
In any event, I’m not sure if or how long I’ll be keeping this gun. I want to get an HK P2000 SK because it is one of the few truly ambidextrous pistols on the market.
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