in 2004 my dad bought me my first firearm it was a Taurus 357 magnum
revolver model 607 had a big ol six and a half inch barrel scope mounted on top
of it that I eventually took off and it was used and I think kind of misused
before we got it it was very accurate lovely to use but it had a few
problems and eventually in 2012 it died which leads us to this I sent it to
Taurus to have it repaired and they don't make the 607 anymore and they
couldn't repair that particular part was a trigger pin that broke and so what
they did is they sent me this the model 66 which seems like at first glance it
should be a pretty good replacement for the old 607 this is a seven-shot 357
magnum revolver and let's see what they included here alright got a manual a
couple of strange-looking keys we'll see what those are all about here in a
second here's the item itself nothing really special going on in the
packaging here you can see that I didn't get a hard case or anything this is it
this is the model 66 the revolver straight out of the box comes with a few
extra plastic goodies on it just to protect it so let's get rid of those and
see what we have underneath so we have a protector for the rear Tang sight there
inside the little gap in the cylinder you here at the back there we go just
have a plastic disc knock that out let's take a look at the specs of this
revolver first you can see it's all made of blued steel until you get back here
to the hammer and to the trigger which appear to be a case hardened steel it's
a seven shot 357 magnum revolver of course he can fire 38 special in it as
well and the sights are fantastic I love these on the 607 adjustable for height
and for windage and let's go really quickly through the battery of arms on
this thing as with any other single action double action revolver of course
this is where your rounds are gonna go this is like your little magazine the
cylinder if you want to fire with a nice crisp pull you can pull the hammer back
first and this shows off one of the features that is very common to
revolvers now if I don't think anything is made without it this is the the
transfer bar system instead of having a fixed firing pin like some older
revolvers had and which could lead to some potentially catastrophic situations
where you drop your gun and it fires at you
even if the hammer were to go forward and strike right in there the firing pin
would not go forward and hit anything unless the trigger was being pulled at
the same time here is the single action pull just a nice light crisp pull or if
I wanted I could do a double action pull or I pull the trigger and you can see
that it cocks the hammer as well and turns the cylinder and fire that way
once I'm done I can just open the cylinder here by pressing this button
and then eject when he empties or any unfired cartridges by pressing this
little plunger what makes a model 66 different than the 607 one of the first
and most obvious differences to those that have held the two is the absence of
these ports on the 607 there were eight upward firing compensator ports and this
does not have that the purpose of that is to reduce muzzle jump when it's
firing gases would be released upward pushing the muzzle down
pretty slick little thing also made the revolver extremely loud in addition to
that it extended the barrel length this right here is a six inch barrel and the
607 had a six and a half inch barrel just to make room for that little kind
of gas expansion area up at the front can't really tell the difference by
looking at them back-to-back but this one is just a little bit shorter
another difference is back here on the hammer at the back there's this funny
little round thing and that is where these keys come into play this is a
safety system which I don't really anticipate every using unless I'm
locking up this revolver for a long period of time it's basically just an
allen wrench
it's like a security Allen put it in here turn it till it clicks and that
locks up the hammer so this gun cannot be fired now not by pulling a trigger or
not by pulling the hammer and the only way to return it to a fireable condition
here's the twisted back so kind of neat I guess if you're especially if you're
living in one of the northeastern states where they require such things it makes
you don't have to have all kinds of external junk attached to it in order to
make it safe you can just turn that little key that for me it's not that
useful actually picking up the gun this is where some of the the new changes
really become apparent the sight used to have on the front that used to be this
little orange plastic insert up at the very top of that site and on here that
is gone it's just black at the back there also used to be kind of a white
little outline around that that little Patridge cut out there and that is gone
it's just black on black and I'm kind of curious to see if that will affect my
speed with this thing not that I was very fast anyway but I
think these sights are just going to be fantastic even with that stuff missing
and actually as far as the orange insert goes that was kind of rubbish all
it tended to do is reflect the light and so kind of wash out the front sight now
the biggest thing about this revolver that I just love is the weight I can
already tell you know it's been a few months since I've held the 607 when I
sent it off to have it repaired it took about three months for me to get it back
I might to get this one back and even though it's been that long since I've
held it the first time just just holding this thing right now I can already tell
this is considerably lighter and I can tell where a lot of that weight has been
shaved it seems like a lot is taken off the barrel somehow they've just used
less metal the cylinder is much thinner and uses less metal I guess they found
some way to make it stronger without needing all that metal in place the
trigger you can see where it's been kind of scooped out on the backside that was
not the case with the original if I remember correctly that was just a solid
piece of metal and overall this whole thing just feels so much more handy
before holding this thing out for a few minutes to take a shot you just be you
know you could really wear yourself out firing this gun but this I think I'm
really gonna like this once I get it out on the range another really big
improvement is in the single action trigger pull the original had some creep
and some junk in it and this one is just light and crisp and just a tiny bit of
over travel let's see if we can get a good view here
it's just beautiful to me it feels very much on par with a Smith & Wesson or a
cult I love the triggers on those and the
trigger on the old Taurus 607 just never matched up this I think is the first
tourist trigger that I've ever tried that competes with those guys in summary
I'm really excited to get this replacement handgun I think this is
going to be quite a bit better than the 607 in several key ways
I love the lightness of this thing it feels so much more manageable you know
here on the bench anyway than the old 607 the trigger pull is going to be just
fantastic I think when I get it out on the range huge improvement and really
the only thing that's I think worse than my 607 is just a little bit of the the
fit on some of the moving parts here opening the cylinder is a little bit
stiff it's kind of it feels like the parts weren't completely machined and
polished it's like they were just kind of cut and thrown in there and I think
it's just going to be a matter of time before they polish themselves into place
manipulating the cylinder up into position I can feel it's sticking at
various points before it goes in opening the cylinder it's a little bit weird but
I think over time those things will slick up and this thing should be just
fine I think I'm gonna like this a lot more than a 607
you