Taurus TX22 Review: A Great Idea Executed Well

A .22 LR pistol can be a very useful firearm, and the Taurus TX22 is one great pistol to own. Introduced at the SHOT show in January of 2019, this gun was designed to fulfill three main purposes: to be an inexpensive-yet-feature-laden plinker, to be a gun you could compete with and to be a training gun to use in place of your 9mm, .40, .45 ACP, etc. In terms of mission accomplishment, Taurus has achieved all these goals.

Let’s look into the features and performance of the Taurus TX22.

Taurus TX22 Review: A Plinker?

The TX22 makes one very great plinker. It is not capable of Olympic-style accuracy, but it gets the job done. Like all .22s, it shoots some brands of ammo better than others. I tested it with a few different loads (see below) and discovered it liked CCI Stingers and Aguila High Velocity better than some other brands and types of .22 ammo.

It is so light and compact. And since we live in a hilly area, so my backstops are natural and many. I can shoot without cause for concern. This pistol is perfect for that. It is light at 17 ounces, and that goes a long way to insure that it would be added to my belt in future forays.

Taurus TX22 Review: Training Substitute

I mentioned above how the Taurus TX22 was designed to be not only a plinker but also a gun that you could train with in place of your big gun. This is not a new concept. The military has, for decades, started new soldiers /sailors/ airmen/ marines out shooting, but not always with a 5.56, .308 or .30-06. Also, they sometimes put a .22 of some sort in the new shooters’ hands in the beginning.

Learning The Basics

To be a good shot, you must learn the following, in no particular order:

• press the trigger properly
• line the sights up
• regulate your breathing
• hold the weapon, and other fundamentals.

As I said above, it only makes sense to start out someone who may have never shot a gun before on the low-recoiling and fairly-quiet .22. The military has this figured out, and we civilians have also seen the benefits of using low-cost ammo to get up to speed before committing to more expensive centerfire rounds.

Even those of us who have been shooting for years can benefit from shooting a .22 pistol. The more we shoot, the better we get (or should get, at least).

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Taurus TX22 Review: Competition

This pistol may also be used for competition. This would be an ideal steel target gun, what with the custom-feel Pittman Trigger System trigger/ reset and adjustable rear sight. The trigger on this gun is amazing — I would be very happy competing with the TX22, at least.

Taurus TX22 Review: Specifications

Now let’s look at this gun in some detail. Here are some quick specifications.

It’s important to note that the manual that comes with this gun is as detailed as any gun owner’s manual I’ve seen. As stated in the Specs, it even tells you how to reverse the magazine release and how to install the suppressor adapter collar for a suppressor.

Taurus TX22 Review: Unboxing

Here we see the cardboard box with an owner’s manual, two 16-round magazines, a loader for same, the by-now-standard-issue bicycle lock. There is also included a suppressor adapter collar.

Taurus is really upping its game now. You might expect to see some of these items (collar, mag loader) in a gun that was intended to sell for a lot more than this gun goes for. There are also cards in the box to remind you to register the gun for warranty purposes and to join the NRA.

Taurus TX22 Review: The Gun

Let’s start with a profile shot.

The gun fits well in my hand. It only weighs 17 ounces, so it handles like a dream. As you can guess, the .22 LR is not known for its horrible recoil, and even in a pound-plus-an-ounce gun, it’s just about non-existent. I keep coming back to the fact that this is one fun gun to shoot.

Taurus TX22 Review: Features

Now, let’s look at the gun’s components.

Frame and Slide

Here’s the top of the frame. You can see the polymer rail guides — that’s all this low-pressure pistol needs. The magazine release spring is down in the grip well, at the front of the frame. Both thumb safety levers are visible at the rear.

The gun is made in the U.S.

Forward cocking serrations.

Here’s the front sight.

Fully-adjustable rear sight.

Safety and Rear Sight Dovetail

This particular TX22 has three safeties: a trigger safety, a striker block, and an ambidextrous thumb safety. The gun will not fire unless the trigger is pulled all the way to the rear, and is drop-safe. The striker block sees to that. It is available with or without a thumb safety.

One very large, obvious omission on the part of Taurus — there is no key-lock internal safety. That fact alone will no doubt help sell this gun, as those types of locks are fairly well disliked by many shooters (at least the ones I talk to).

Barrel and Recoil Spring

It could use some polishing but it functioned well overall.

Magazines

The magazine can make or break a pistol. The rounds will not feed properly if the follower isn’t designed just right. Below is a feature that a few other .22 pistol magazines incorporate: the follower button.

I hooked a thumbnail on top of the round button and pulled the follower down as I loaded the magazine. It made for very easy loading, even for all 16 cartridges. And, if that wasn’t enough, Taurus includes a Glock-style magazine loader similar in operation to the Uplula but with no moving parts. It surely made shooting and reloading magazines easier. ]

The mags are polymer with an enclosed spring. This way, dirt and other dust bunnies cannot get to the spring, so it should not need cleaning very often. (If you are an inveterate magazine cleaner and just have to do that, Taurus explains in the manual how to take it apart for cleaning). The only feed problems I encountered with one magazine occurred when I misloaded a couple of rounds and they weren’t fully seated to the rear. Other than that, the gun functioned flawlessly.

Taurus TX22 Review: Takedown

To takthe pistol apart for cleaning, let’s see what the very-detailed owner’s manual says to do.

It’s very simple to do. Taurus gave us a takedown lever at the top of the trigger guard instead of the Glock-style serrated levers on the side of the frame they use elsewhere in their line but they all work the same.

Remember that you don’t slide the slide off the front of the frame . Instead, you just move it a half inch or so then it pops off. To reassemble, just line the slide’s rail cuts up with the rails on the frame and press down. Rack the slide to the rear and it will click into position, with the takedown lever popping up back into place. That’s all there is to it.

Taurus TX22 Review: Accuracy

Let’s look at a few targets that I shot. These were placed right at 15 yards from my shooting rest. I fired several shots with the following rounds:

There are hundreds of different types of .22 LR ammo out there, and you wouldn’;t have to look far to find something that works. I didn’t have all that many types of .22 ammo on hand, but at least we can get an idea of how fast the bullets are actually moving versus what the factories claim.

Of course, the velocities they get are out of a rifle and we are dealing with a 4-inch barreled pistol so they are going to be different. And, remember that some of the very best .22LR target ammo does not break 1000 fps, so velocity alone is not necessarily a good criterion to hang a judgment on.

Remember, this is a .22LR pistol. You are not going to be concerned with foot-pounds of energy, as you might with a self-defense cartridge. For those who hunt small game with a .22, any of these loads would suffice to take a squirrel out of a tree. In my book, .22 LR accuracy trumps speed every time.

Even though the velocities may not be what the factories claim, at least we can test for accuracy. Here are three targets I shot.

Aguila first, Federal second, and CCI last. Suffice it to say that this pistol is plenty accurate for its purposes: training, plinking, and competition. If you want tack-driving, “shoot-a-gnat’s-nose-off-at-50-yards” type of accuracy, you would buy another sort of pistol–one that was designed to do that. As I said, this gun is plenty accurate for its purpose. I would not be afraid to take it into the woods on a squirrel hunt, after I tested more ammunition. It simply works.

What’s It Like to Shoot the Taurus TX22?

Having plenty of experience behind various .22 handguns, I was pleasantly surprised as I put rounds downrange. The guns is light, as I pointed out above, and that helps with handling. The molded-in grip stippling is great — not too much and not too little.

You might be thinking that a .22 doesn’t need a lot of grip stippling due to lack of recoil, but remember that this gun is designed to be a trainer in addition to putting holes in tin cans. Taurus wanted to match their G2C, TH series and G3 grips in case you use this gun as a lead-in to those others. So, we have some fairly aggressive stippling.

Taurus TX22 Review: Recoil

This would be a great gun to put in a young person’s hands who is just learning to shoot.. You won’t intimidate him or her with a lot of bounce and noise. There can be muzzle flash, depending on what ammo you’re shooting and what time of day it is, but that would just probably add to the excitement for them.

Plus, you have the option of getting one with a thumb safety that works for lefties. It is rather a small lever but at least, it’s there.

Taurus TX22 Review: Wrap Up

For a street price of well under $350, you can get a doozy of a rimfire pistol that will pretty much do just about anything that you want it to in terms of training, plinking or competing and will do it all very well.

Taurus is stepping up its game and it shows. I think you should look this little pistol over so you can decide if it is just right for your rimfire collection. As always, leave a comment below of what you think.

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