Even before the start of one of the largest exhibitions of weapons and equipment SHOT Show in Las Vegas, many manufacturers announced their new products. The Brazilian company Taurus was no exception, which added a new revolver model to its catalog. A notable feature of this weapon is that it is multi-caliber, that is, it can use various ammunition, in particular, we are talking about.38 Special,.357 Magnum and 9x19 cartridges, although for the latter you will have to replace the barrel in the revolver. I think that those who know the metric parameters of cartridges and the history of the appearance of the.357 Magnum are already smiling at such a "multi-caliber" weapon. Nevertheless, it will not be superfluous to clarify the situation.
Marketing multi-caliber revolver Taurus 692
What is multi-caliber in general in the minds of a sane person? Multi-caliber - the ability to use cartridges in weapons, different in their metric and other characteristics. Implementing this capability is actually not that difficult, as has been repeatedly demonstrated by various manufacturers. However, the real opportunity to use various ammunition in weapons requires a minimum of replacement of the barrel for each ammunition, or even partial replacement of the bolt group.
In other words, it is necessary to adjust the barrel bore to the diameter of the bullet, and the chamber to the dimensions of the weapon sleeve. In any revolver, the role of the chamber is played by the drum chamber, which in the Taurus 692 does not change for all three variants of ammunition, and only for one of them you need to replace the barrel of the weapon. That is, the revolver can use at least two different cartridges without any changes in the design, which means we can safely say that the weapon is multi-caliber. But there is always one "but" and a thousand reservations. Let's take a closer look at the.38 Special and.357 Magnum ammunition.
The.38 Special cartridge appeared as early as 1898, has long been the main cartridge for US police revolvers and is still considered one of the best cartridges for revolvers used as a means of self-defense. This ammunition did not appear out of nowhere. Its predecessors were the.38 Long Colt and.38 Short Colt, all three ammunition differ only in the length of the sleeve and, accordingly, the powder load. However, no matter how good ammunition is, there will always be a moment when something better is needed. Such a moment came during Prohibition in the United States, when the police needed more effective weapons than Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolvers.
It would seem that there is no problem in this, by that time there were quite a lot of pistols and revolvers for sufficiently powerful ammunition - take it and replace it, only there was no money for rearmament, therefore another solution was found. They decided to modernize the.38 Special cartridge, and in exactly the same way as it was with the.38 Long Colt - by lengthening the sleeve and, accordingly, increasing the powder charge. Unfortunately, it turned out to be impossible to use this ammunition in the Smith & Wesson Model 10, since the design of the revolver could not withstand the more powerful ammunition. Outwardly, the changes affected only the dimensions of the cartridge, in particular, the sleeve was lengthened from 29.3 millimeters to 32.8 millimeters, that is, if the strength of the revolver design allowed, then it would be possible to use the new cartridge in it. In order to avoid confusion with the old cartridge, the new ammunition received the designation.357 Magnum, although the diameter of the bullets in both ammunition is 9, 12 millimeters.
From this we can conclude that if the revolver is designed for the.357 Magnum cartridge, then you can safely load the.38 Special and even more ancient.38 Long Colt and.38 Short Colt into it, they differ only in the length of the sleeve. So the marketers of the Taurus company could safely add two more types of cartridges, increasing the imaginary multi-caliber of the weapon.
And what about the 9x19 cartridge, which can also be used in the Taurus 692 revolver? With this ammunition, everything is somewhat more complicated. First of all, the cartridge case of the 9x19 cartridge does not have a rim, therefore, to fix the ammunition in the drum, moon clips are used, which the manufacturer puts in the kit to the weapon in the amount of two pieces. Of course, the cartridges also differ in metric characteristics. So, in order for the weapon to be able to use ammunition with a bullet diameter of 9.01 millimeters, it is necessary to replace the barrel. It would seem that the difference of 0, 11 millimeters is insignificant, but it matters, in addition, the trunks differ in rifling. Everything is much easier with the diameter of the drum chamber. The diameter of the case of the 9x19 cartridge is 9, 93 mm, while the diameter of the case of the.357 Magnum is 9, 63 mm. The way out of this situation is simple - drill the chamber under 9x19 to the length of its sleeve, and drill the rest under.357 Magnum. The drilled chamber itself probably did not allow the.38 Long Colt and.38 Short Colt to be added to the list of used ammunition, and not the age of these cartridges. Although the Long Colt would still reach the narrower part of the chamber, the Short Colt would only cling to it with an edge of 0.25 millimeters.
In general, multi-caliber is really present between the two calibers, so no one seems to have deceived anyone, but the feeling that the manufacturer is not completely honest in this matter remains.
The design of the Taurus 692 revolver
In addition to the so-called "multi-caliber", the Taurus 692 revolver does not stand out in any way anymore. This is a normal 7-barrel revolver that swings to the left for reloading. The trigger mechanism can be in two versions: single and double action.
Also, in two versions, this weapon is offered for such a parameter as barrel length, with a length of 76 millimeters and 165 millimeters. In addition, there are two color options, stainless steel and black. In total, we get 8 variants of the same weapon.
An interesting point in the revolver is the sights, namely the target, which is adjustable both in height and horizontally.
To reduce the throwing of the weapon when firing, holes are made in the front of the barrel through which the powder gases make the revolver more stable.
On the trigger of the revolver there is a safety lock, which is already familiar to Taurus products. This lock blocks the trigger mechanism, which ensures the safety of the weapon in case it falls into the hands of a child.
The handles of the revolvers have a rubber coating that is resistant to both temperature extremes and ultraviolet rays. Such handles have already become an integral part of the Taurus revolvers and cause only positive emotions among the owners of the weapon. They have only one drawback, they are very good at collecting dirt from their hands, so it is better to wash your hands before using the weapon, since cleaning the handle of the revolver is much more difficult than it seems.
Features of the Taurus 692 revolver
For a revolver with a barrel length of 76 millimeters, the following parameters correspond. The mass of the weapon without cartridges is 1 kilogram. The total length is 207 millimeters. Height - 144 mm. Thickness - 39 millimeters.
For weapons with a barrel length of 165 millimeters, the total length is 29.5 millimeters. The mass is 1, 3 kilograms. The thickness and height correspond to the more compact version of the weapon.
Both versions of the revolver are fed from a drum with a capacity of 7 rounds.
Conclusion
As it turned out upon closer examination of the Taurus 692 revolver, this weapon is unremarkable. This is the most common revolver without any original and interesting solutions. Yes, it has the ability to use various ammunition, but the same possibility is present in many other revolvers after replacing the barrel and drum, and the list of cartridges that can be used by many manufacturers is much wider.
By themselves, revolvers have a design that has already been worked out over the years, and it is simply impossible to make them bad, with appropriate quality control. As well as making them superior in characteristics to competitors is impossible without changes in the design.
We can only hope that the Brazilian arms company did not show everything that they have, and has something interesting in store for the SHOT Show, where for the last two years it has demonstrated interesting, not quite ordinary and original weapons with non-standard, albeit controversial solutions.
