Taurus TX 200 Competition

At risk of offending the kind folks from Taurus, I don’t see the TaurusTX 22 as a competition-specific pistol at all.

Sure, it’s a souped-up version of the popular TX 22 rimfire pistol with more bells, whistles and a red dot sighting platform. So, it does in fact, make for a stellar pistol to use for handgun action-shooting sports like Steel Challenge or whatever mano-a-mano test of skills floats your boat.

What I quickly found with this nifty pistol is its suitability for just about anything. With its red dot sighting platform, it’s a truly exceptional plinker. Even in these arduous times, .22 LR is a heck of a lot cheaper than centerfire ammo. The threaded barrel slides this handgun into a category approaching more fun than should be legal. Its size and profile make it an excellent service pistol trainer, so don’t hesitate to bone up on your defensive shooting skills without all the flash, recoil and general conflagration. Oh, and if you’re a new-shooter ambassador like me, the TX 22 comes with an absolute guarantee your pupils will grin ear-to-ear when putting it to work.

To top things off, this is one of the rare pistols that surprised, no, shocked me, with its downrange performance. Hold that thought.

Just The Facts

The TX 22 sports a polymer frame mated with an aluminum slide made possible by the pistol’s rimfire chambering. Three 16-round magazines are included with the standard TX 22 Competition model. Taurus does offer a version equipped with 10-round magazines for you poor souls living under the iron-fisted rule of a Republik. The magazines are made of polymer, but they still drop freely with a press of the left-side release button. I anticipated a bit of stickiness, but it wasn’t to be. Those magazines do have recessed loading-assist buttons on both sides so you can lower the follower with your support hand to more easily drop tiny rimfire cartridges into place.

The magazine release button comes on the left side of the frame but is easily reversible. You’ll also note safety levers on each side of the frame — a necessity, since the TX 22 Competition is a single-action pistol.

The safety lever doesn’t block administrative actions so you can operate the slide to load, unload, or show clear. It does positively block the trigger to prevent firing. The only other visible controls are a slide lock lever on the left side and a recessed takedown release. This mechanism is flush with the frame just above where you’ll place your trigger finger. Rounding out frame features, you’ll get a two-slot Picatinny rail up front for lights, lasers or — if you’re feeling really spunky — a pistol bayonet.

The sights are the three-dot variety with a twist. While the front is fixed through the slide a la GLOCK, the rear is adjustable for both windage and elevation. Inside the rear sight outer body is a floating section housing the actual rear notch. Two independent screws on the right side allow separate adjustment of windage and elevation so you can match point of impact to point of aim for your chosen load. This is particularly handy for .22 LR pistols, given the variety of bullet weights, jacket material and velocities. Find the ammo your TaurusTX 22 likes and then adjust as needed.

Blowback Is Your Friend

“I never worry about action, but only about inaction.”

The undisputed master of the pithy comment came up with that one. Yes, Winston Churchill, although I doubt he was referring to the TaurusTX 22 rimfire pistol when he said it.

As are most rimfire pistols, the TaurusTX 22 operates via simple blowback. The pressure from each shot knocks back the slide to allow the empty cartridge case to shove its own self out the back door. The returning slide, powered by the recoil spring, picks up a fresh cartridge and locks everything up neat and tidy. While that may sound like any other pistol, the nifty benefit to a blowback design is the barrel doesn’t move. It’s stuck to the frame like crazy-glued fingers. With a low-energy and low-recoil round like the .22 LR, there’s no need to implement a fancy locking system for the barrel.

This combination of action and inaction is, in my opinion, what makes the TaurusTX 22 perform. As the barrel is fixed in space, it’s possible to mount the red-dot sighting platform right on it, and this is precisely what the Taurus does. The benefit is easy to picture. From shot to shot, the barrel and sights remain in exactly the same orientation. There’s no need to hope and pray the slide, where sights are normally attached, comes back into perfect re-alignment with the bore.

Red Dot Madness

You can’t miss the unusual dot platform placement on the TX 22. It’s right smack in the middle of the barrel. It took me a minute to get over the weirdness, but then I remembered there’s no government mandate saying the red dot has to be piled on top of the rear iron sight. One of the benefits of a red dot is its lack of eye relief restrictions. Heck, we stick red dots right on the middle of Modern Sporting Rifles, so why not pistols? Thanks to the fixed-barrel blowback design, this one allows it. On the models shown here, the Leupold and Holosun sight bodies are mounted just about smack in the middle of the pistols’ 8″+ overall length, approaching 5″ forward of the rear sight.

The slide is an open-top design, reminiscent of the Taurus PT92 series. While the design keeps the weight down, it’s actually an operational necessity. As the optics plate is mounted over the breech area, the open top slide allows full travel rearward during recoil — around the optics mount.

There’s the aforementioned generous mounting platform with a small, recessed cutout on the front end. This is where one of two included mounting plates drops into place to provide the mounting interface for optics.

Those adapter plates are cleverly designed to be reversible. So, by flipping each upside down, you’ll get a total of four unique optic compatible platforms. Out of the box you can mount the following: Trijicon RMR, C-More STS, Vortex Venom, Noblex-Docter, Burris FastFire, Sightmark Mini, Holosun HS507C and Leupold DeltaPoint Pro. Of course, you can also use any other make which shares a mounting footprint with any of the above.

The pair of sample pistols I’ve been working with came equipped and range ready with a Holosun HS507C and Leupold DeltaPoint Pro.

Trigger

The trigger blade on the TaurusTX 22 is broad and flat across the front, but with contoured edges on either side. With no safety leaf in the middle, it’s a comfortable fit. I’d describe the sensation as a “roll” trigger style with about 7/8″ of take-up with some resistance, followed by a break at just about 1/2″ of overall travel. You can easily stage it by feel, knowing exactly when to let up prior to the shot or you can press right through during more rapid-fire strings. There’s no detectable over-travel and the reset is positive after about 1/8″ of forward travel. I have two samples here equipped with different optics, and the press weight measured the same, right at 4.5 lbs

Suppressor Ready

If your life is full of sadness and anguish, get a .22 pistol with a suppressor. Then collect all the tin cans, golf balls and dollar store cans of shaving cream you can find and head to a range. Seriously, is there anything more fun than a .22 suppressed handgun? If you’re not taking the hint, the correct answer is — no.

The TX 22 comes complete with a 1/2×24 threaded barrel. Just unscrew the thread protector with exposed flats and pop on your favorite silencer. I used a SilencerCo Sparrow for this review and it worked like a champ.

Paired up with most any .22 LR ammo, you’ll get subsonic velocities out of the 5.25″ barrel, so you’ll hear no supersonic crack of the projectile, just a gentle “pfffhhhht” sound. It might make you just a bit giddy.

To verify my velocity assumptions, I fired five types of ammo through the TX 22 and used a Competition Electronics Pro Chrono DLX placed about 10 feet downrange. I observed the following with the SilencerCo Sparrow suppressor attached: CCI Mini Mag HV .22 LR 40-grain (1,026.3 fps), Winchester Super Suppressed .22 LR 45-grain (946.3), Norma Match-22 .22 LR 40-grain (823.7), SK Pistol Match .22 LR 40-grain (817.7) and Lapua Pistol King .22 LR 40-grain (869.7). Around these parts, the speed of sound is about 1,133 fps, so everything I shot resided in the ultra-quiet zone.

Closing Arguments

Consider me pleasantly surprised. The pistols ran like a champ and accuracy results speak for themselves. A lot of polymer guns come through here, but it’s a rare specimen capable of shooting 1″ groups from 25 yards with regularity. MSRP is listed at $533.33.

As Winston once said, “You must look at facts, because they look at you.” When 1″ groups look at you, it’s time to face the facts — this one is a keeper.

TaurusUSA.com

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