Taurus .357 Raging Hunter

Shooters buy firearms for many reasons including self-defense, hunting, target shooting and just plain old plinking. Many of the handguns purchased are for use afield; getting off the beaten path and traveling sagebrush and foothills. Anyone traveling these areas requires a reliable handgun as a companion. It can be anything from a .22 to one of the largest .500 custom revolvers. Each of us has to decide just what our needs are.

Taurus has recently introduced two handguns serving quite well for our travels afield. One is a very lightweight .22 semi-auto pistol, while the other is a heavy 7-shot .357 Magnum revolver. I can’t think of any more useful sidearms for most of us than a dependable .22 pistol and a .357 Magnum sixgun. They are not the do-all and end-all — but rather a nearly perfect beginning.

Taurus offers several versions of .22 revolvers as well as double action .357 Magnums, however, I think this is their first full size .22 chambered semi-auto. The .22 has been labeled the TX22 while the .357 Magnum capitalizes on the original Raging Bull nomenclature to give us the Raging Hunter. This model is also offered in .44 Magnum and .454 chamberings giving us a choice depending on what we are likely to encounter in our off the pavement excursions.

The TX22 is a full-sized pistol with a 4″ barrel and a magazine capacity of 16 rounds, with two magazines supplied. Holding this many rounds is also very rare for a .22 pistol. Total weight is just over one pound. Sights are excellent too, with a white dot front and white dots on both sides of the rear notch (adjustable for windage and elevation).

The trigger is exceptional especially for a .22 pistol with an MSRP of $349. It is smooth, very smooth and as the pull begins it rotates slightly and then starts straight back. It’s designated the precision-design Taurus Pittman Trigger System (PTS). The engineers said they specifically wanted a great trigger on this gun and they succeeded. This striker-fired .22 also has an extremely comfortable grip with an aggressive pattern for secure handling. It’s available both with and without an ambidextrous manual thumb safety.

Raging Hunter

That’s the fun gun; now we look at the more serious example. I chose the .357 Magnum version for its versatility and also the fact it’s so much more enjoyable to shoot. There are several versions offered in the three chamberings, however I went with the 83/8″ barreled version — a two-toned sixgun. The cylinder and barrel assembly are both matte black while the frame is matte stainless. Total weight of this 7-shot .357 Magnum is right at 43 oz. empty, so it’s no lightweight. This, coupled with the very comfortable rubber grips with the red insert in the back and the porting of the barrel make it exceptionally comfortable to shoot.

Much of the weight comes from the very heavy full under lug barrel. Actually this whole assembly fits over the barrel. The entire wide top rib of the lug consists of a full-length Picatinny rail for the ease of installing a scope. For most of my testing I used a 2X Leupold to remove as much human error as possible. The main option for sighting is excellent, though, consisting of a slightly undercut flat black post front sight matched up with a fully adjustable square notch black rear sight.

The cylinder on this Taurus .357 Magnum locked both at the front and the back. This requires pressing forward on the latch behind the cylinder shield and downward on the latch in front of the cylinder at the same time to swing the cylinder out to the left. With its two-tone finish the Raging Hunter is quite attractive. The right side of the barrel assembly is marked “TAURUS” while the left side reads “RAGING HUNTER.” The Taurus Raging Hunter is heavy enough — whether scoped or with the factory sights — I would pack it in a shoulder/across the belly holster rig or pack.

Taurus has a reputation for smooth actions on their DA revolvers. The double-action operation is quite acceptable and smooth, however, when we come to the single-action trigger there is no way to describe it except, well … awful. I gotta’ believe this is an anomaly and somebody missed this during final inspection as it’s very odd to have this, but it’s the truth and is what I found. You can bet once I purchase it — and I like it so much, I’m definitely going to — my gunsmith will bring it down to a much more acceptable and usable 3–4 lbs.

.357 Bite!

In spite of the heavy trigger pull — or perhaps because it required extreme concentration — the test-fired groups are exceptionally good. In fact so good I can say this is the most accurate double-action .357 Magnum sixgun I have ever encountered. I can hardly wait to see what it will do with a decent trigger pull! Average groups for six shots at 25 yards were all well under 1″. Quite often the groups were simply one hole. The most accurate load is a load I have used in .357 Magnums for many years now, the Black Hills 158-JHP. Clocking out at just over 1, 300 fps from the long-barreled Raging Hunter, it put six shots in 5/8″ at 25 yards.

Not only did it shoot all jacketed bullets well, it also did the same thing with cast bullets. That’s somewhat of a surprise because of the ported barrel. Often the porting will cause distortion and inaccuracy of cast bullets. Not so in this example as once again my groups were well under a 1″ average. One of my heavy-bulleted loads, the Cast Performance Bullet Co. 187-gr. FNGC over 13 grains of W296 clocks right at 1,250 and results in consistent groups of 3/4″ for six shots at 25 yards.

At one time, beginning in 1935, the .357 Magnum was the most powerful sixgun cartridge available. This changed in 1955/56 with the introduction of the .44 Magnum followed by several other more powerful cartridges, including the .454 Casull. All of these big bore cartridges are certainly above the .357 Magnum in muzzle energy. This may be, however, with all the progress in ammunition and bullets, the .357 Magnum is an even better choice than it was when Col. Wesson used it to take deer, antelope, elk and bear with it in 1935.

In fact with all the progress in ammunition and bullets, the .357 Magnum is better than ever. I would certainly not hesitate to use it on deer-sized game, antelope, or feral pigs with the proper ammunition. With its built-in accuracy the Taurus .357 Magnum Raging Hunter is certainly up to the task in the hands of a shooter who chooses his ammunition, distance and quarry carefully.

For more info:

www.taurususa.com

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