Experienced shooters and novices can find value in Taurus’s new 22TUC .22LR polymer-framed, semi-automatic pocket pistol for self-defense. It’s a little gun weighing 11.5 ounces, loaded with ten rounds, and small enough to fit in my palm at 5.12 inches long. The virtue of a little gun is that it can go with you just about anywhere and not be a burden.

The Taurus 22TUC Pocket Pistol

Say what you will about the flaws of the .22LR as a defensive cartridge. However, a .22 in your pocket is better than a .45 at home in the safe if you’re suddenly faced with violent crime on the street.

There are smaller guns than the Taurus 22TUC, but they aren’t as easy to shoot well. I think Taurus struck a great balance between concealability and shootability. It has an unconventional look with its small stainless steel barrel and slide (4.4 inches long and 0.73 inches wide).

It features a relatively large grip frame for a small gun. As a result, it allows my medium-sized hand to get all my fingers involved. The grip is 1.04 inches thick and 2.25 inches long along the frontstrap thanks to the pinky rest floorplate on the nine-round magazine. Additionally, it has a long, thin beavertail to keep the recoiling slide out of the web of your thumb.

The front of the triggerguard, housing the Double-Action-Only (DAO) trigger, slopes forward to the muzzle to make extra room for your fingertip. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend the supporting-hand-index-finger-on-the triggerguard grip.

The 22TUC in Detail

Low recoil report and muzzle-blast, combined with a light weight, a practically scaled grip frame (nicely stippled), and decent fixed partridge sights, make the 22TUC an easy gun for anyone—especially novices—to shoot effectively.

However, this is a right-handed pistol. Left-handed shooters will still find it easy to shoot, but you’ll need to switch hands to reach the controls. Fortunately, there are only two: a barrel catch release lever for the tip-up barrel and a magazine release button.

The design is purposely simple to avoid befuddling the inexperienced. Very significant for people with diminished hand strength is the tip-up barrel feature. This generally eliminates the need for the shooter to rack the slide to inspect, load, or empty the chamber. Instead, the barrel catch release lever is pushed forward, and the barrel chamber springs up to allow the loading or unloading of a single round.

On two occasions when I unlatched the barrel to remove a misfired cartridge, the energetic spring threw the dud round right out of the chamber! That’s convenient when you want to clear the chamber fast. However, if you just want to check if it’s loaded, I suggest putting your off-hand thumb over the barrel breech to retard its travel before releasing the latch.

This is an unlocked blowback-operated pistol with a fairly heavy recoil spring. If you need to rack the slide to clear a jam, the rear sides of the slide are deeply cut with four angled grasping ridges. Likewise, the front face of the rear sight is squared off to allow hooking it against a belt or hard surface to rack the slide one-handed.

Shooting the Pocket Pistol

On the range, the 22TUC proved serviceably accurate in hitting soup cans one-handed at 50 feet more often than not when I did my part. The double-action trigger-pull is light by revolver standards. It requires just 10 pounds of pull to draw it back through 0.84 inches of travel to the break.

The weight stacks a few pounds in the last part of the pull. But not as noticeably as old Colt revolvers do. There were about 0.05 inches of overtravel after the break. Trigger reset required a full return to the starting point, as you would expect with a revolver-like double-action trigger.

Overall, I judged the trigger to be good, heavy, and long enough for pocket carry safety. Yet, it is still easier to manage, without disrupting the aim, than most revolvers.

I tested the 22TUC for accuracy from a bench rest at 7 yards, shooting several five-round groups. I shot each ammo type and recorded the velocity 15 feet from the muzzle with a Competition Electronics Pro Chrono Digital chronograph. Since this is a self-defense gun, I included two loads designed for killing as well as a general practice load.

The most reliable, highest velocity load tested was Federal Premium 22LR Personal Defense PUNCH, which uses a 29-grain flat-nosed bullet. Historically, flat-nosed bullets have shown better stopping power than round-nosed bullets of similar weight. This load averaged 986 feet-per-second (FPS) from the pistol’s 2.5-inch barrel.

Five-shot groups averaged 2.17 inches measured from center to center. Groups were centered about an inch above the point of aim. Most importantly, there were no malfunctions with this load. Every round chambered, fired, and ejected. The extreme spread for this load was 75 fps with a standard deviation of 26, the best of the three loads tested.

Picking the Right Ammunition

Remington Thunderbolt 40-grain, lead round-nosed bullets had the lowest velocity and the best accuracy. However, they were also the most prone to malfunctions. This took the form of the fired case getting captured horizontally between the slide and the rear of the barrel.

Clearing this jam only required pulling back the slide, shaking the empty casing clear, and letting the slide go to load the chamber. I also had one misfire with this load, but pulling the trigger again fired that round.

The average groups measured 1.57 inches, and the average velocity was 673 FPS. This load showed some big swings in the velocity of individual shots. The extreme spread was 253 FPS, and the standard deviation was 62. The lowest velocity shots seemed to correspond with the failures to eject.

Though inexpensive and apparently less precisely charged, this load was still notably more accurate. However, because of the jams, I’d use it for practice rather than self-defense. Point of impact of the aggregate test group was about an inch below the point of aim.

The bigger-than-average mouth of Winchester’s XPERT Rimfire 42 grain copper plated hollow point bullet looked promising as a self-defense load and cycled perfectly when it went off. Unfortunately, this load had the highest misfire rate.

In twenty rounds, there were three misfires, which defied multiple firing pin strikes. When repositioned in the chamber, only one of the three could be induced to go off. The average velocity was 816 FPS, and the average group size was 2.47 inches.

While this load isn’t one I’d want to rely on for self-defense, its consistent cycling suggests the lower end of what is needed to operate the pistol’s action reliably.

A Pocketbook-Friendly Pocket Pistol

This limited testing illustrated that two of the three loads showed the sometimes contrary nature of rimfire ammunition, making much of it less than ideal for use in life-or-death situations.

The only thing you can do is to actually test the ammo you plan to use to judge its reliability. The good news is that even expensive .22LR doesn’t cost that much. So, there’s no reason not to test a few hundred rounds. When you find one you trust, buy a brick of it to set aside for use when you carry.

The added benefit of these experiments is that you’re bound to improve your shooting and immediate-action skills for clearing malfunctions.

For more information on the Taurus 22TUC line of pistols, visit TaurusUSA.com.

Taurus 22TUC Specs

Performance