[This post is part of our series, What I’m Carrying Now. If you’d like to submit a photo and description of the gun, holster and gear you’re carrying in the new world in which we live, send it to us at [email protected] with WICN in the subject field.]
Rod writes . . .
I’m carrying the same Taurus model 85 as always. Usually, it rides holstered in a M-Tac sling bag, along with an e-reader, a Bianchi speed strip and a ThruNite Ti4 flashlight. If I feel like having more ammo, a few extra speed strips may come into play.
More often than not, I’ll also carry a Sabre pepper spray and a Sheffield neck knife.
Wallet, cell phone and keys not pictured.
What are you carrying now?
Bag carry is definitely not my preference. Definitely a bidget edc, not meant as an insult.
What is a bidget edc.
Maybe he means bidet edc… with the toilet paper shortages, this might be useful!
Perhaps insuating he’s a douche?
You’re about to learn something new –
A bidet doesn’t function as a douch.
How about fucking off while the adults are talking, kid…
he said not an insult or ida thunk big idjit.
Budget. I was cooking and texting.
Why is the cost germane ? If the revolver runs well and the holster works for the carrier then the system is a go. Fanny packs are a holster I am being forced to consider as my arthritis continues. Please don’t tell me that it will get you shot first unless you have evidence.
LMAO.
The other interpretations were a lot more fun than what you truly intended.
Why’d you spoil it? Had a life of its own.
Pretty damned funny.
I believe ‘bidget’ is a slang term for an African American who is extremely short.
I bag carry my second gun. But I am a strong advocate for on body carry of the primary defensive tool.
Yeah, “bag” carry is way to slow.
If’n ya wanna be fast on the draw, pardner, ya gotta jes git a tite grip on yore shootin arn, and dont let go. Jes walks aroun with it in her hand all th time. Finger on the trigger, extended at arm’s length. Haint nobuddy goin ta get th drop on ole Eagle eyes. Nosiree!
I have a 605 Taurus on layaway as we speak, I don’t know why I’m drawn to revolvers but who cares $250 you can’t beat it
My first carry gun was an older Taurus 85ch. Excellent gun that I wish I hadn’t sold. Revolvers are bad A$$.
I still have my 85 from idk 25 or more years ago . Never had an issue , something I can’t say about most guns .
I have been carrying the Taurus 605 in a Cinch jacket with built in vest pocket holster, or a IWB holster formed for my Glock 19 – until I find a good, lightweight Kydex for the 605. The 605 kicks like a stubborn mule and even my go to Pachmyr rubber grips didnt help much. I carry a .357 mag because I often fish and hike where there are black bear, big cougars, and an occasional wolf pack here in the central cascades. I wanted something that hit harder than the 9mm. I think you’ll like the Taurus.
My carry is also carry a Taurus ultra lite 38 good carry gun
A perfectly fine gun once you throw away the stock grips and put in a spring kit.
Get an 856. Six is more than five.
Just got an 856CH and so far I’m impressed – trigger is surprisingly decent and the 20% increase in capacity is nice.
What am I carrying? It aint a Taurus.
Please describe your experiences with Taurus revolvers. How did they fail you?
He’s read all the stories on the Internet…
I will never buy another Taurus / Rossi product. I was part of the recall for firing when dropped, I lost the use of the gun for about a year as they recommended you stop using it, after sending it back and waiting, they deemed it unrepairable. This is a gun with a lifetime warranty. they offered a Taurus 605, take it or leave it. A few days later I convinced them to provide a 856, unfortunately the 605 had been sent to my dealer. He charged me $35 “log in” fee, and sent it back. Then I found out the 856 was on backorder, for 4 months I waited, calling about every month, as they don’t return emails. Calling customer service would usually result in being on hold for about an hour, or having the system hang up on you. Called 4-2 and found out the 856 had been shipped and delivered 3-4. Nobody notified me. So I went to pick it up today, and asked my dealer if he was interested, and agreed on a price. Taurus took my $350 gun and offered me a $250 gun in exchange, plus I doubt I’d ever get the transfer fee back from them. so I’m out about $185, plus speed loaders and leather. I probably got out cheap, people who sent 4″ / 6″ revolvers got 2″ revolvers. Researching recalls shows they have pulled this kind of thing before, including being sued by the Brazilian Military for providing defective firearms. It’s to bad any gun magazine won’t print anything negative about how folks were treated, but they want the advertizing $ that Taurus spends. Never again will I buy Taurus.
Sounds like your FLL is someone I would have been as mad at as Taurus
This is why it ain’t a Taurus.
Have you ever researched how lousey Taurus / Rossi customer service is? As far as the gun goes I liked it a great deal. Had it not been a hazard safety wise It would have been my house gun forever…..
Had a Taurus TCP .380, 856 revolver and G2.
TCP went in for warranty three times. They never could fix it. Wouldn’t feed, wouldn’t cycle, junk.
Could not hit anything with the 856. Had my Charter Arms, roughly same size and weight, shot well. Had 3 other people at range try to make sure it wasn’t me. No one could get anywhere near center. Sent to Taurus, they sent back. Said no problem.
Back to range with friend, it shot off into the wild. Charter Arms still grouping well.
Could not get G2 to feed reliably. Ever.
You couldn’t give me a Taurus for free
I carry a 605 revolver, but have swore off their pistols after I bought a 24/7 that only fed round ball bullets… no hollowpoints. That was nowhere in their marketing literature. It jammed on just about every round. My PT145 was a great pistol but they stopped making them.
I’m not gonna make fun of the taurus revolver because they work. I would be concerned with the bag carry and neck knife. Are you a lifeguard or something?
Just picked up some on sale holsters, well, just because I could lol. One is a Blackhawk IWB that fits the 5 shot revolvers like this, the SP101 and Smith J Frames. I don’t think it’s as well made as the Cross Breed though but for $10 why not give it a try. These snub nose revolvers are great and I also have a Taurus 85, SP101, Smith 442, Colt DSII, Rossi 357. The Colt and Rossi are 6 shots though.
I carried a 85 lightweight for years with 158 gr wadcutters. Light, conceivable and reliable. At close range it works.
I carry an .357 magnum SP-101 2.25″ or a GP-100 3″. with SpeedBeez reloaders. Revolvers rule.
I’ve never had any issues with any taurus i’ve handled over the years, just been lucky I guess. I could say the same for all the hi-points i’ve shot also, If I were “gun naked” and it’s all my budget would allow I wouldn’t hesitate to buy either.
I would recommend a hi-point as a budget gun over a Taurus in most cases, to be honest. Better brand reliability, just ugly and harder to carry.
A copy of a S&W 60. Taurus always had quality issues at Various Years. Just spend the extra dough on a S&W.
I havent had the need to buy another Smith in recent years, but the action on the Taurus 605 is superb and superior to the J frames. It is the reason I started carrying a revolver again. Maybe Smiths have also improved. IDK
I wish I’d kept my older Taurus 85. Beautiful bluing. Steel too. Ran great. And I’ve also never had a problem with 6 Tauruses…
Not a Taurus fan, but if I own another it will be a 38 revolver.
Once the Coronapocolypse is over, I wonder if the 856 will get down to 160 like the 85 did awhile back,
My experience with Taurus revolvers has been shitty. 3 of them, all duds. Plenty of friends with the autos that work just fine. My mind is firmly placed in the “revolvers are for magnum/big bores”, so I don’t get the 5rds of 38 thing, considering there’s plenty of similarly priced autos with 6-8rd magazines.
To each I suppose, I just feel there’s much better options available, and price is no longer a real reason to settle.
Duds as in failure to fire?
I have several Taurus revolvers, my wife has picked out several for her personal arms, and never had a single negative issue. The first was bought early 80s and still running fine.
Not a neck knife fan though.
I’ve carried a pocket knife for ever. A year ago I upgraded to an automatic, just to be cool. I will never go back. They are just so handy. I started with a Benchmade but I almost always pick up the Boker Kalashnikov. About the same time I started carrying a Streamlight and found it surprisingly handy. And that was it. I train in defensive handgun. I practice weekly. I’m licensed to carry in a constitutional carry state. It’s the safest state in America and just never felt the need to carry a gun. Now I have my P365 on my person from the time I leave the house until I get home. Carry what you like and stay safe out there.
Interesting choice of defensive layers. All choices that require pretty close contact with the opposition. Especially the blade! Remember that a knife won’t provide the shock transfer (aka stopping power) of a bullet. You could stab him in the heart and he might have enough left to kill you before his blood runs down and he expires. But, it’s way better than the spray. Even that’s better than nothing.
My thoughts on Taurus. I’ve owned quite a few over the years. One model 85 and a couple of Judges. Also a Ranch Hand. I think that’s the one. Rifle with a cylinder? I got rid of them all. The most recent example was a Judge that started to SELF SET the built in key lock whenever I even manipulated the CYLINDER. Not good. Moreover the customer service was awful and I was living in Miami, FL at the time. In the same town! I’ll never buy another Taurus.
If you’re going to carry a blade as a weapon you need to know how to use it. If you know how to use it it’s an extremely dangerous weapon within it’s range, particularly for the fact that if you know what you’re doing the other person doesn’t know you have it until it’s too late.
“Shock transfer” has nearly nothing to do with this. The question is what you “hit”. You could shoot someone “in the heart” with a .45 and they can still have enough to come after you for a time, quite a while in fact depending on what “in the heart” actually means. You could stab someone “not in the heart” and drop them very rapidly by getting into other vitals or severing a major artery. It’s not about the power you put into this, just like an arrow, the question is what the internal damage caused is. In fact, properly placed slashes can incapacitate with a quickness while providing nearly no “stopping power” and very little depth of penetration.
Look at the Seymour Expedition in China. Many of the Boxers took multiple rounds of .303 to stop, sometimes up to four at point blank. That’s coming from a rifle. Yet at that range the Boxers could many times inflict serious casualites with a spear, AKA a knife on a pole. What firearms stopped Boxer attacks like this right where they stood? Machine guns.
Incapacitation is more complicated than just causing blunt trauma and has virtually nothing to do with “shock transfer” unless you’re beating someone with an object or hitting them with a vehicle to cause blunt force trauma.
To quote one of the actual masters of knifemen in the 20th Century, William Fairbairn, “In close-quarters fighting there is no more deadly weapon than the knife. In choosing a knife there are two important factors to bear in mind: balance and keenness. The hilt should fit easily in your hand, and the blade should not be so heavy that it tends to drag the hilt from your fingers in a loose grip. It is essential that the blade have a sharp stabbing point and good cutting edges, because an artery torn through (as against a clean cut) tends to contract and stop the bleeding. If a main artery is cleanly severed, the wounded man will quickly lose consciousness and die.”
A cogent well reasoned reply. I stand corrected, sir.
I’ve carried a pocket knife for ever. A year ago I upgraded to an automatic, just to be cool. I will never go back. They are just so handy. I started with a Benchmade but I almost always pick up the Boker Kalashnikov. About the same time I started carrying a Streamlight and found it surprisingly handy. And that was it. I train in defensive handgun. I practice weekly. I’m licensed to carry in a constitutional carry state. It’s the safest state in America and just never felt the need to carry a gun. Now I have my P365 on my person from the time I leave the house until I get home. Carry what you like and stay safe out there.www.self21.com
I have an 85 Ultralite. It failed catastrophically when it was NIB, less than 50 rounds fired. Complete PITA to get that fixed since it jammed the entire mechanism with live rounds in the cylinder.
Taurus took care of that rapidly free of charge and a few thousand rounds later she’s never had another hiccup. Their customer service was top notch.
Seeing numerous people with the same gun, mine was a total outlier in this regard but it seriously shook my confidence in wheel guns. A similar problem a few years later with an NIB Smith with less than 300 rounds through it and I’m just not a wheelgun guy when it comes to carry.
I know it’s not logical, I know those experiences are essentially winning the jackpot on the shit lotto twice in a row and 99.9999999999% chance I never have another problem but those two experiences and I simply don’t trust revolvers. They’re range toys to me and nothing else.
I’m very happy with my Taurus 85. It’s not a Smith or a Ruger, but it does its job and is rated for +P. I currently have mine loaded with Buffalo Bore 110 grain lead-free HP, along with a couple of speedloaders with the same.
It almost makes me forgive Taurus for the Spectrum.
Almost….
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My first EDC on my new CCW (1994) was a Taurus stainless 85ch. I replaced the slick wood grips with Uncle Mike’s boot grips, bought a Ted Blocker IWB holster and practiced… and practiced, etc. 18 months and 1,000+ rounds later I took it to a local gunsmith to have some sharp edges smoothed (trigger, trigger guard, cylinder). He asked if I wanted him to do an action job before he dry fired it. After dry firing, he asked who had done the action. When I said I’d shot 80-100 rounds per month for more than a year, he said it was the best kind of action job. 26 years later I still have that gun. It’s never hiccuped once. Always goes BANG when I press the trigger.
Rod, since this is about your setup and not everyone’s else’s. Nice kit. What type the cartridges are you using?
Hey Mack, thank you!
I use any standard pressure hollow points I can get. I’ve shot somewhere around a thousand rounds through the gun and they all go bang, so I don’t see a reason to be picky. I don’t usually go for +p, though, since I have some trouble with follow up shots with them.
I confess that the neck knife is kind of a novelty for me, though… I’ve been carrying a small multitool for more than ten years, but now I’m trying something different. It’s interesting, but I’m still not sold on it. I’ll give a few more weeks and then I’ll see…
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