My Brand New Taurus 856 Defender

[Bosshoss]

I went back through my range records and discovered that I have run a box of this Winchester (4 misfires in Galloway sprung 856) through my Charter Arms Off Duty. This ammo worked in my Off Duty. For the record, the Off Duty had 1-3 misfires PER CYLINDER of Magtech ammo, and worked fine with everything else I fed it. I have drawn the conclusion that the Galloway hammer spring is too light for my 856. I put the factory hammer spring back in the 856 this morning. I left the Galloway trigger return spring in the 856. I can't comment about the trigger pull. I want it to be lighter than factory, but I can't be sure it is. And I have no trigger pull gauge. Back to the range.

You can shim the lighter spring with a washer and that will increase the trigger pull weight some and help reliability.
Find one at hardware store or your garage if you have a supply, that just slips over the spring strut and is just a little bit bigger diameter than the spring.
The 856's I've had in the shop are usually around 12 pounds DA from the factory but like S&W some can be lower and some higher. The really high S&W DA pull weights are usually masking other problems.

 

[gregkl]

I'm no Bosshoss but I have worked a few actions in my life. IMO, all the talk about polishing isn't going to net a whole lot without doing some stoning first.

I have done light stoning, then polishing with great results. However, I never touch the sear. I let the pros do that!

 

[Bassat]

If you think that trigger is bad, I've got an AMT backup that will work your digits over. I've owned a couple Taurus revolvers in the past and they had decent triggers on them from the get-go and I haven't had to do much except polish them to be phenomenal. I have zero experience with any of their new stuff. Maybe the liability lawyers have a say in the springs or complaints of light primer strikes?

If you were closer, I'd work on it.

I shot an AMT Backup in 45 acp about 30 years ago. Stiff trigger and harsh recoil. Yikes!

 

[92FSTech]

I'm no Bosshoss but I have worked a few actions in my life. IMO, all the talk about polishing isn't going to net a whole lot without doing some stoning first.

I have done light stoning, then polishing with great results. However, I never touch the sear. I let the pros do that!

When "polishing", I always start with an Arkansas stone and then finish up with 1500 grit sandpaper. I agree, stoning is an integral part of the process.

 

[Bassat]

When "polishing", I always start with an Arkansas stone and then finish up with 1500 grit sandpaper. I agree, stoning is an integral part of the process.

I appreciate those of you who have the knowledge and experience to work guns. However, If I am going to stone anything, it will be myself.

 

[Bassat]

First up, a correction. The Winchester ammunition I had the problem with last outing was "Target and Practice", not "Train and Defend."

Today's range trip involved the Taurus 856, and the Charter Arms Off Duty.

I put the Taurus hammer spring back into the gun, and left the Galloway trigger return spring in the gun. The trigger is way better than stock with regard to weight of pull, and smoothness of action. I put 60 rounds (10 cylinders) of the Winchester ammo downrange with the 856; no misfires. (Note: I was getting 1 misfire per cylinder with the Galloway hammer spring installed.) I also launched 74 rounds of various other ammo. I had two misfires with the MagTech, AGAIN. One box of that crap left to shoot! No misfires with the Winchester ammo, or any other ammo. I am happy with this gun with the current spring set up: Taurus hammer spring and Galloway trigger return spring.

I took the Charter Arms Off Duty along just because it misfire(s/d) with the Magtech ammo. I put 66 rounds through the Off Duty, and had 1 misfire with the MagTech, AGAIN. I have repeatedly mentioned misfires w/MagTech ammo, specifically the .38 SPL 148gr WC. I will assume I bought from a bad batch. This ammo has misfired, with some regularity, in my Charter Arms Off Duty, my Taurus 856, and my S&W 442. I cannot recall for sure, but I think I put some of the MagTech ammo through my 686+, with no problems. That said, I have 3 guns that misfire with the MagTech 148gr WC ammunition. None of them misfire with any other ammo I have used (blaming the Winchester misfires on the Galloway hammer spring, removing it corrected the problem). Sorry, but I have to call that an ammo problem.

 

[92FSTech]

Good deal, glad you found the right combination to make it work reliably with a decent trigger pull.

Coincidentally, I finally exorcised some light-strike demons of my own today in a surplus P228. It has been giving me fits with all sorts of ammo, and I tried a number of extra-power mainsprings (had it running at 26lbs, but the trigger was so heavy it was almost unshootable) and polish jobs trying to correct the issue. What ultimately did it was a new barrel with tighter headspace. I put a 100-round box of Winchester White Box and a bunch of other known-problem stuff through it today with no problems, so I'm gonna call it fixed. I have way too much money in this beat-up old gun now, but I'm happy that it's finally happy.

 

[Bassat]

Good deal, glad you found the right combination to make it work reliably with a decent trigger pull.

Coincidentally, I finally exorcised some light-strike demons of my own today in a surplus P228. It has been giving me fits with all sorts of ammo, and I tried a number of extra-power mainsprings (had it running at 26lbs, but the trigger was so heavy it was almost unshootable) and polish jobs trying to correct the issue. What ultimately did it was a new barrel with tighter headspace. I put a 100-round box of Winchester White Box and a bunch of other known-problem stuff through it today with no problems, so I'm gonna call it fixed. I have way too much money in this beat-up old gun now, but I'm happy that it's finally happy.

I am curious. How did your P228 start having problems? Did it work fine, then one day it started having issues? I am assuming the spring you mention is the hammer spring, right? Do they actually wear out? I've put thousands of rounds through 1911s and never had to mess with hammer mainspring. What lead you to try changing the barrel? And last, but not least, how much ammo do you run before deciding the problem is 'fixed'?

 

[92FSTech]

How did your P228 start having problems? Did it work fine, then one day it started having issues?

It was a surplus import gun that had the problem when I got it. It has clearly been shot quite a bit and was pretty worn out.

I am assuming the spring you mention is the hammer spring, right?

Correct.

Do they actually wear out?

I'm sure they can. I've never personally seen it happen, but if it was going to happen on any gun, it would have been this one.

What lead you to try changing the barrel?

A knowledgeable member over on sigforum suggested I look at that, so I measured the headspace on a bunch of 9mm Sig barrels that I have, and determined that the round sat much further from the breechface in that barrel than the others.

And last, but not least, how much ammo do you run before deciding the problem is 'fixed'?

That depends on the problem, how repeatable it is, and the intended use for the gun. In this particular case, it was happening 2-3x per mag with certain types of ammo, so it was pretty reliably repeatable. Based on its previous behavior, I'm pretty confident it would have shown itself in the 100 rounds I put through it were the problem still there. Also, I'm not likely to actually carry this gun. I'll definitely have more rounds through it on the range before that would ever happen. If it was going straight into a defensive role, I'd want a few hundred more trouble-free rounds through it before I trusted it enough for that.

So there's the answers to the specific questions...if you want the long version of the story, I'll share, but you're probably going to want to grab a cup of coffee, because it'll take a bit.

I've wanted a P228 for years. I got my first Sig, a P6, probably around 2006. It was a great gun, but being single-stack had limited capacity and the original barrel design wouldn't feed hollow points. The factory trigger-pull is amazingly heavy. Mags have also been discontinued and become ruinously expensive over the years. But it has a nice slim profile and the stamped slide gives it good balance.

When I started at the police department in 2010 they issued me a P229 in .40. Great gun, but .40 is annoying from a logistical standpoint because I mainly shoot 9mm, and the milled stainless slide is bulky and top-heavy compared to my P6/P225. It was an excellent duty gun, but not particularly comfortable to carry off-duty in a CCW role.

My experience with Sigs was largely colored by those two guns. I decided that a P228 had to be the best of both worlds...9mm, higher capacity than the P6, with a nice lightweight stamped-steel upper that would be trimmer and lighter than the milled stainless slide on my P229. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one. To this day I've never seen a P228 on the shelf at an LGS around here. Midwest Gun Exchange has a few but want north of $1000 for some heavily used examples. I'm not doing that.

I looked at them online, but for one reason or another never got around to buying one. I picked up a number of other Sigs during this time, but never a P228. Then last year I found one on a surplus importer site for a price I could live with. It looked to be kinda rough cosmetically, but that wasn't a huge deal to me. I figured it could be a fun project.

When it came, it was a bit rougher than expected. The slide had suface rust and some minor pitting. The frame finish had some carry wear, but not too bad. The slide to frame fit was also pretty loose. It rattled like a maraca...not just side to side, but also front to back.

I rust-blued the slide myself, which didn't turn out awesome, but it was an improvement over how it started. The frame is aluminum, so there's not much I can do about the cosmetics on that without sending it out for cerakote or something of that nature.

The biggest problem was the light-strikes. My initial thought was that the fore and aft slop in the slide was allowing the slide to rock forward when the hammer fell, resulting in less energy being transferred to the primer by the firing pin. Examination of the barrel lug showed that there was an actual groove worn in it where it rests against the takedown lever. Luckily (or so I thought at the time), Apex had some used P228 barrels on hand, so I bought one. This tightened up the slide to frame fit significantly, and completely eliminated the fore and aft slop. I thought it would be good to go, but the light strikes continued.

At this point I figured maybe the mainspring was worn out, so I ordered a new 20lb factory-spec spring from Wolff. No joy. So I ordered a set of increasingly heavier, extra-power mainsprings and started working my way up, going incrementally heavier as I went. I finally got the gun shooting reliably at 26lb, but the trigger pull was excessively heavy.

Somewhere around this time I stumbled upon an absolutely pristine P229 SAS in 9mm at a local shop for the same price I'd paid for the P228. I couldn't help myself and I bought it. This gun shattered all of my pre-conceives notions about stamped vs milled slide, and P228 vs P229 debate. Yes, my old legacy-slide .40 is a bulky, top-heavy beast. But this new P229-1 has a much trimmer slide that actually rides a bit lower and is nowhere near as top heavy. It's also a couple of ounces lighter overall, and chambered in 9mm, which I wanted. Also, being an SAS, it has a factory melt job so all the high points are blended down. I always thought this was a sales gimmick, but in actual practice it's truly a noticeable improvement. The gun carries far better than the .40, and even noticeably better than the P228. Ultimately, the P229 SAS filled the role that I had in mind for the P228 before I ever got the issues with that gun completely resolved.

The P228 got sidelined for a few more months by another project. I'd been wanting a red-dot equipped DA/SA handgun to compare to my P320 RX duty gun, and ended up putting together a P226 on a Matrix Precision/Revenant arms frame. I had to send the slide out to get milled and refinished, and the guy said he could DLC coat my P228 slide at the same time for $50, so I sent it along.

Meanwhile, I had posted in the armorer section on sigforum about the light-strikes with the P228. A guy there suggested that I was probably just masking the actual problem with the heavier spring, and suggested I check headspace. I started measuring barrels (it wasn't super scientific because all I have are calipers, but it got close enough to give me an idea of what I was dealing with), and determined that this one was about 0.013" from the face of the cartridge to the back of the barrel hood. Most of my other Sig barrels were significantly less than that. I put a 19lb mainspring (actually lighter than factory) back into the gun while I was still waiting for the slide to get back, and then when it did I bit the bullet and ordered a brand new factory P228 barrel from MGW. It arrived yesterday , and the headspace measures at 0.002". I took it to the range yesterday, put 100+ rounds through it, and the rest you know.

So that's how I now have a new appreciation for the milled stainless P22X guns, a .40 P229 that had cast shade on my opinion of them for years, an awesome P229 SAS 9mm, and a refurbed P228 that I'm now trying to figure out what to do with going forward. Oh, and a P226 w/ Holosun 407k that is really phenomenal!

 

[Bassat]

Fascinating story. Thanks for the detail. I usually buy new, so I may never encounter a 'worn out' gun. Great bit of detective work to get to the bottom of it all. Glad your P228 is working for you, now.

Sidebar: I am taking my 14 year old grandson to Range USA this Saturday. It will be his first experience with revolvers. I'm sure it will go fine. The kid is a natural with his mom's P365.