All images by the author unless otherwise noted
As a gun writer in my seventh decade, I am asked fairly frequently by my older acquaintances who have problems with arthritis about pistols that are easy to operate. They have trouble racking slides, so many have gone to carrying revolvers. I tell them they have options. One option is one of the several “lite-rack” pistols made by Ruger, S&W, and others. Another option is the Taurus 22TUC .22 pistol.
I guess I could save you, dear reader, a lot of time and conclude this review by adding one sentence: “The 22TUC’s barrel flips up so you can load the chamber without racking the slide”. There it is, in a nutshell. But there’s more to the gun than just the barrel. Let’s look at it.
Flip-Up Barrel?
The idea of a pistol with a flip-up barrel is nothing new. Beretta makes them. There are 11 models in the .32ACP Tomcat series and eight models in the .22LR Bobcat series. I won’t argue about the effectiveness of carrying either of these calibers – that’s another article. I’ll just quote the old chestnut saying, better to have a (.22, .32) with you than the 9mm or .45 on your bedside table.
The newest, latest/greatest flip-up barrel pistol to come along is the Girsan MC-14T .380. This larger, 13+1-capacity gun looks a bit like one of the above Berettas after injections of growth hormones. It just looks like a Beretta. I’ll bet they sell a ton of them since I can’t seem to get one to review. Girsan guns are made in Turkey and have an acceptable fit and finish, and the ones that I’ve had experience with all worked as they were supposed to… very reliable
So, if you are arthritically challenged or tend to be lazy like me, you have options. Choose a .22, .32, or .380, and don’t look back. The smaller guns each have an 8+1 capacity, with the Girsan holding 13+1 as I said above.
Taurus And The Flip-Up Barrel
The 22TUC is not the first flip-up barrel that Taurus has made. Once upon a time, I owned its predecessor, the PT-22. That little gun was like a cousin I have… really interesting, but with issues. The gun performed pretty well for me, but now and again it decided it wanted time off so it quit feeding cartridges until I cleared it and switched the ammo brand. It was extremely ammo-sensitive. I’ve seen online video reviews about this pistol that substantiated my experience.
Two things that my eye was drawn to in terms of differences between the older and newer models are the obvious frame-mounted safety on the original and the angular lines of the newer one. The PT-22 tends to be rounder, while the 22TUC has sharper angles and no thumb safety. The sights are improved on the newer model, as well.
The large orange “square dot” is easy to see
- Caliber 22 LR
- Capacity 9 Rounds (one 8-round magazine included)
- Front Sight Fixed (Orange Dot)
- Rear Sight Fixed
- Frame Size Microcompact
- Barrel Length 2.50 In.
- Overall Length 5.00 In.
- Overall Height 4.35 In.
- Overall Width 1.00 In.
- Overall Weight 10.00 Oz. (Unloaded)
- Action Type DAO, exposed hammer
- Twist Rate 1:10-Inch RH Twist
- Grooves 6
- Frame Material Polymer
- Frame Finish Black
- Slide Material Stainless Steel
- Slide Finish Matte Stainless
- Barrel Material Stainless Steel
- Barrel Finish Matte Stainless
Where To Buy
Why Would I Want One Of These?
When I owned that PT-22 several years ago, I discovered that it was perfect for sticking in a pocket holster when something like light summer shorts was worn. Let’s face it… in summery, lightweight shorts even a normal pocket-blaster .380 is going to weigh around a pound or more and will be noticeable in a holster in your pocket, or worse yet drag your shorts down. This tiny 10-ounce tip-up will not pull on your pocket and will be more easily carried in lightweight shorts. Even fully loaded, it doesn’t quite hit 12 ounces.
I won’t go into the suitability of .22LR as a defense round… as I said above, the first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun. If you tend to leave your bigger-boomers home because you don’t want to have to
“strap up”, then maybe something like this little guy is indicated.
Here’s another reason to own a gun like this. If you are a fairly steady reader of my reviews and have ever read about my travails with our chicken coop, then you know how we struggle with predators. We tend to attract them. To date, we’ve had: 4 possums, 2 raccoons, one weasel, one hawk, one HUGE great horned owl, and two,,, not one, but two… juvenile bald eagles get into the coop and do bodily harm to our egg-layers. It happens so often that I keep a .22 pistol and light handy to dispatch whatever fauna has decided that raw chicken was on the menu for that night. (Except for the federally protected species, of course. We just scare them away with threats of bodily harm).
This small, unobtrusive rimfire with its bright orange front sight marking is perfect for this use. I can keep it ready, with a full magazine but nothing in the chamber. With its barrel open and up, I can stick a .22 cartridge in it, press the barrel down, and be ready quicker than a chubby kid can jump on a Twinky. Sometimes, time is of the essence – predators tend not to stick around – and this gun would help there, as it is really quick to get into action from a safe condition. At across-the-coop range, it would be deadly on possums and coons.
Yet another reason to stick this gun in your pocket is what I call stump-kickin’ time. Living in the woods as we do, with one of our sons and his family just across the ridge from us, we tend to wander those woods from time to time. The 22TUC is at home on those little jaunts. You never know what you’re going to run into in our woods.
It’s not exactly the African bush, but we do have coyotes, bobcats, and even a mountain lion with a lousy sense of direction in our immediate area. (How can a mountain lion have a lousy sense of direction? He obviously hasn’t read his territory boundaries and did not know that Indiana was not part of it. But, he ran through our yard and has also been spotted by local law enforcement so we know he’s here). Even though these critters really don’t want to be chummy with humans, I’d hate to surprise one while it was eating. It may not end well. Being armed is a good thing, in our woods. At least we have no bears…
How Did It Shoot?
When you take a short, stubby, featherweight .22 pistol to your shooting bench, you abandon great expectations – you can’t take accuracy results too seriously. So, with that thought in mind, I proceeded to unload the magazine several times downrange. I put targets up at 10 yards – that’s generous, given the nature of this little beast – and gathered a small assortment of .22 ammo. What helped, when I shot this gun, is its sights. The front is visibly orange and the rear is wide enough but not too wide. The front sight centers itself very quickly and easily in the rear.
After I shot it fairly extensively, I am relieved to be able to report that, with ammo that it likes, it ran like a champ. I had just two failures to feed – not bad considering how much I shot it. With more experimentation, I would find a brand of ammo that would give me 100% reliability – I’m not worried about that. Ammo pickiness is nothing new to .22LR shooters – most guns have a preference for one or two brands of ammo that they do well with.
Anyway, here is a target. I put three different loads onto this one target – frugal is the word that comes to mind.
The lower left quadrant was shot by Norma TAC-22 (most shots were just off the target to the left); upper middle is Aguila 40-grain, and right is Fiocchi Range Dynamics 40-grain. As I said above, this gun will be good at chicken-coop-range.
If I had more time and wasn’t recovering from a nasty fall I had a couple months ago, I would try to wring greater accuracy out of the gun by trying a whole lot of different loads. I know it will do better than this – its predecessor did. I stated above about not having great expectations where accuracy was concerned, but this would do in a “get-off-me” situation.
Being a DAO pistol, the trigger pull is long and fairly stiff but it’s nothing you couldn’t get used to.
Summing Up
Let’s face it – the 22TUC is not going to give bullseye (or any other type of competition) shooters sleepless nights, dreading having to shoot against it. It was not designed for that purpose. Its reason for being, its raison d’être, is as a close-in, last-ditch belly gun. The other uses I mentioned above are icing on the cake.
The tip-up barrel means that more shooters will be able to use it since no slide-racking is required. So, if you are like me and have hands that hurt because of a visit by your Uncle Arthur(itis), then you might want to give this pistol a look. For under $350, you get a decently built and accurate-for-its-purpose semiauto pistol that requires no slide racking. (Press checks are a different story. At least with this gun, you don’t need to do that… just flip the barrel open and see if the hole still goes all the way through, or if there’s a cartridge in the way…).
I do sincerely hope that the second version of the Taurus flip-open-barrel rimfire pistol turns out to be a major league winner. I like the feel of it in my hand and the great sights. Unlike its predecessor, it has no thumb safety. I know, many of you like safeties – you’ll get no arguments from me, I see your point. But it works, is reasonably accurate, and would fit very nicely in a pocket holster. Another point is that it does get noticed at the range – that flip-up barrel is popular. You might want to check one out at your local Taurus dealer.
At a real-world price of under $300, it’s a bargain-in-the-making!
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