Taurus PT-22 review

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So, why did I buy an inexpensive .22 LR pistol?

In a word? Pandemic. In a few more words, ammo was really hard to find for my DA pistols and what I could find was expensive. It takes practice to stay good with a DA trigger and that practice was going to cost me a dollar a pull. I really disliked that math. I started thinking about what I was trying to accomplish, and I ended up with four criteria.

1. I wanted a double action. I didn’t really care if it was an autoloader or revolver, as long as it was double action.
2. It had to be a .22 LR so I could use the cheap ammunition I had sitting around.
3. Inexpensive. Paying a lot for a gun to avoid paying a lot for ammunition didn’t make any sense.
4. It had to be available. That was the trickiest of the criteria at the time I bought it.

The only thing I found that fit all those criteria was the Taurus PT-22.

The basics.

The PT-22 is a DAO, hammer-fired, autoloading pistol chambered in .22 LR. It’s polymer framed and has a tip-up barrel. That’s great because the slide is almost impossible to rack. I’m guessing they didn’t put any real effort into making the slide easy to manipulate and chose the tip-up barrel instead. On a pistol of this size, I’m going to call that a good decision. Just load a round into the barrel and there’s no need to rack the slide.

It does have a manual safety. On this gun, with its long trigger pull, I think that’s superfluous. It doesn’t hurt anything, though. If you don’t like it, don’t use it.

It also has a magazine disconnect safety. If there’s no magazine in the gun it won’t fire.

So, a Taurus?

Yes, I know. There are a lot of people who say bad things about Taurus. The thing is, when I drill down, I get something like this: “Ten years ago my girlfriend’s cousin’s best friend’s brother-in-law had a Taurus and it was junk.” I have a Taurus revolver that’s fine, so I took the chance.

How did it go? Well, this is not the most reliable pistol I’ve ever owned. See the picture? This happens once on almost every magazine. The new round comes in at too high an angle and gets jammed into the top of the barrel. That is sub-optimal. The only good news is that it’s really easy to clear. I don’t have to do the tap, rack stuff. I just hit the back of the slide with the heel of my hand and it goes into battery.

It’s always the first or second round to be stripped from the magazine. I’ve considered only loading seven into the magazines to see if that helps, but this little foible really doesn’t bother me on this gun. Having to stop once per mag to smack the gun doesn’t affect my ability to practice double-action trigger work.

I’m also hopeful this won’t continue forever. Some modern guns do still require a break-in period and I only have about 350 rounds through this one. If you consider the break-in to be 500 rounds, I still have some to go.

And then I’m using Aguila 40 gr, copper plated rounds. Mainly because I had several thousand of them that I spent five or six cents a round for a few years ago. Perhaps a premium round would be better? I have some CCI MiniMags around here somewhere I’ll try through it sooner or later. For now I’m content to shoot the cheap stuff and whack the slide when necessary.

As a carry gun.

No. See above. Even if I’m right about the reasons for the failures and that the reliability can be fixed, it’s still a .22 LR. I don’t really find that suitable. I mean, if it’s what I had I’d use it, but I’d rather have something more powerful. Even my NAA revolver is a .22 WMR.

It’s very small, and I can see a use for that. Except this gun is not significantly smaller than my Beretta Pico. Nor is it cheaper. To each their own but I’ll stick with the .380.

Ergonomics and operation.

I think the PT-22 is kind of ugly. Not as bad as a Glock, of course, but still not a beauty queen. It does fit surprisingly well in my hand and certainly points better than the Beretta. The Pico was set up to be as slim as possible, where the PT-22 seems designed primarily to shoot.

There is no slide stop and it will not lock back on an empty magazine. The magazine release is a normal thumb button. It’s easy to use but doesn’t stick out so far that I hit it accidentally.

That little lever above and forward of the magazine release is the barrel release. Push that forward, and the barrel just pops up. Load the first round in there, push it down into place, and you’re good to go.

The trigger is somewhat farther forward than it appears. My trigger finger is extended more on this than it is on my other DA guns. For my purposes, that’s fine.

As I mentioned, it has a manual safety. It’s an easy safety to manipulate and has a positive detent. The click is audible even with hearing protection. If you choose to use it, it’s a good one.

The sights are the weakest part of the gun. They’re metal. Blued. I tried to shoot black targets at first and that didn’t go well at all. The front sight also fills almost the entire gap in the rear so there’s no daylight around it to help with precision. Sooner or later, I’ll paint at least that front sight.

How does it shoot?

It shoots well, as long as you have a white or light gray target. I’ve never really tried it past 10 or 15 yards, but I can hit respectable groups at that range. In the picture below, the groups you see at the small circles at each side of the top were from seven yards. Ignore the other holes; those were from a different gun. I don’t believe in wasting target space.

The trigger is long, but not all that heavy. Seven pounds and change isn’t bad for a double-action trigger. It’s smooth and consistent across its travel.

Conclusion.

It does what I bought it for, and it does it well. I’ve put several hundred rounds through it, so it’s paid for itself. While ammunition for other calibers is coming back down and I’ll probably start shooting them more, I’ll keep the Taurus around for practice. Saving money never gets old.

I really am going to paint that front sight, though.

As I said, I’m unlikely to carry it. I like it for practice or plinking. As I’m writing this, they’re in stock at Guns.com.

Specifications.

• Caliber: .22 LR
• Capacity: 8+1.
• Empty weight: 10 oz
• Loaded weight (95 gr JHP’s): 12.3 oz
• Barrel length: 2.8”
• Length: 5”
• Height: 4.1”
• Height, extended mag: 4.8”
• Width: 1.7”
• Trigger pull: 7 lbs., 3 oz. (average of five pulls)