A friend recently sent me an ad from Gander Mountain where they had the new Taurus .380 Semi-auto pistols on sale for $199. That seemed to be a mighty good price, so I went to the local store to see if they had any. They did not, and could not tell me when they might get some in. “Just call every now and then and we will tell you if we get any.”

That didn’t sound very promising to me.

So, I went to the local Academy to see if they had any. They also had them for sale for $199, but again, did not have any in stock and were not able to tell me when they might get some in. They told me to just check back now and then.

After checking several times, I walked into Academy yesterday, and they had one on the shelf. I asked to see it and then told the guy, “I’ll take one.”

He looked in inventory and told me that the display model was the only one he had.

I said I’d take it.

Here it is, in the original box.

It has a useless locking device and a pretty good instruction manual.

It looked nice, but how will it shoot?

We took it to the range today and shot it with several brands of ammo.

It is a .380 ACP, so it is not a big “kicker”, but shot well and ran 100% today.

It also shot to POA (point of aim).

And, it was impressively accurate.

I tried both Remington ball, which is a round nose jacketed bullet, and the Winchester ball, which is a truncated cone type jacketed bullet.

I do not carry JHP ammo in these pistols, as they do not always make the FBI minimum penetration standards.

I usually carry the Winchester ammo to assure maximum penetration.

My wife had had trouble with my Kel-Tec .380 ACP, as the trigger is very stiff and makes accurate shooting difficult.

We were amazed at how much better the trigger pull is on the Taurus.

It has a MUCH lighter trigger pull.

It only weighs 10.2 ounces and is very light.

Here’s the TCP in my hand.

It is very similar in size to the Ruger .380 and the Kel-Tec .380.