Taurus USA has no love for me, and I no love for them. However, their uber-affordable G2c pistol is a very good value for a handgun, especially with a price of under $200 if you shop around. What’s more, with a $30 trigger upgrade from Keep Tinkering, the G2c becomes a terrific performer for its price point.
I had a chance to shoot one last weekend. Two of them, actually. One of our GSL Defense Training team brought a pair that he’d given the trigger upgrades from Keep Tinkering.
“Here, try this and tell me what you think,” he said to me, while handing me the first G2c with the slide locked open and a loaded magazine. I looked at the gun and saw the Taurus logo and the G2c on the slide. What he didn’t know was that I came about this -><- close to buying a pair for my twin boys a couple of months ago. Locally, a shop had them on sale for $179 each and I’ve shot a couple that came through earlier classes and liked the experience.
So I tried the first one. I turned the first 12-round magazine into a ragged hole at about five yards. Then I added to the same hole with a second magazine, except for one round I cranked off when I lost my concentration. Clearly the gun won’t shoot itself into a single hole, but if you do your part, it performs very, very well.
My fellow instructor then handed me a second G2c with some fiber-optic aftermarket sights. Yeah, he hasn’t had as many boating accidents as I have had.
With the same aftermarket trigger on a different G2c, I got the same results on a different piece of paper. Forty-eight rounds. Forty-seven of them in a ragged hole at 5 yards. All for about $200 including the aftermarket trigger. Two bills!
The inexpensive trigger upgrade makes the trigger break at about 3.5 pounds, give or take, and while it lacks the crispness of a 1911 (what doesn’t?), it pulls very smoothly once one takes up the minimal slack. The reset is nice, as you’d expect. In short, it performs very nicely. As good or better than some $100 upgrades I’ve shot.
What’s not to like?
For the price point, the stock Taurus G2c is already on a short list of the best inexpensive self-defense 9mm guns out there. With the Keep Tinkering triggers, they’re hands-down the best super-affordable concealable gun out there that I’ve encountered. And I’ve shot more than my share.
To Taurus’ credit, even with the stock triggers, the G2c guns represent, in my mind at least, a big improvement for Taurus over the harsh triggers so common five or ten years ago in their production semi-autos.
So, not only does the Taurus G2c not suck (four stars from Sam Hoober), but with the Keep Tinkering trigger upgrade, it’s a truly stellar performer. I’ll even suggest its handling and performance reminded me of the couple hundred rounds I fired in a SIG P365 some time back. Yeah, that good, albeit minus the tritium sights.
Fair disclosure: I received no goods, services or good old cash money from any of the aforementioned companies.