Taurus TX22 Competition .22LR Semiauto Pistol (Photo courtesy of Taurus USA)
February 15, 2023
By Paul Scarlata
Previously, Firearms News ran my report on Taurus’ new TX 22 pistol . But, as has happened to many pistols on today’s market, it has now been upgraded to accept electronic dot sights.vAt the danger of repeating myself, I believe it would be informative to repeat the many advantages to using an electronic dot sight.
The new Taurus TX 22 is designed to be used with electronic optical sights. The magazine holds a comforting sixteen rounds of .22LR. (Photo courtesy of Taurus USA) Faster Targeting — Once a target is acquired, it is easy to quickly center the red dot on the target and fire the gun. There is no need to align the sights and take time to aim. In addition, this type of sight gives a much greater accuracy rate when taking aim at a moving target.Unrestricted Eye Relief — Eye relief is unlimited which allows for faster targeting as it takes away part of the restraint placed upon someone who is aiming with another type of sight.Greater Field of View — Having a wider field of view allows for a shot from a greater distance, but the sight is still not magnified so being reasonably close is still recommended.Works Well in Low Light — Red dot sights are easy to aim in the dark of night. The cross hairs of most sights become invisible in the dark, but the red dot is visible even in the darkest environments.Vision Issues — While most shooters can benefit from these advantages, dot sights are especially useful for those shooters who, because of poor eyesight, handicap or age, have trouble using standard iron sights.I’m sure most of our readers know of Taurus Forjas of Porto Alegre, Brazil and their extensive line of revolvers and pistols which have been marketed in the USA for decades. Over the years Taurus has offered a line of .22 rimfire pistols that have been constantly improved and upgraded. In 2019, they introduced the TaurusTX 22 which — as you know if you read my earlier report on it — is one of the most user friendly .22 pistols I have ever fired. After testing the TX 22 my wife Becky became so enamored with it that, instead of returning it to the factory, she purchased it for herself!
Here is Jessie Duff, Taurus’ sponsored shooter, trying out the TX 22 Competition. (Photo courtesy of Taurus USA) In early 2021, Taurus announced an upgraded version of the TX 22 intended for serious competitive shooting. Known, appropriately enough, as the TaurusTX 22 Competition pistol . Like the TX 22, the competition model uses an injected molded Polymer frame which keeps the pistol’s weight down while providing improved resistance to moisture, salts, solvents, wear and abuse. Thanks to the .22 LR’s low operating pressures, the pistol’s slide is machined from light weight aluminum with a separate steel breech face (which the owner’s manual refers to as an “impact insert”). The slide reciprocates on four steel tabs, two on the steel central block in the frame and another pair on the fire control housing.
The TX 22 features Taurus’ Pittman Trigger System (PTS) which provides a short, spring assisted trigger reset allowing the shooter to deliver quick follow-up shots while maintaining good sight alignment. Unlike the so-called “safe action” triggers, the PTS is, for all practical purposes, a single action trigger and has an audible reset which can be felt and lets the shooter know when the sear is re-engaged, and the pistol is ready to fire the next round.
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The TX 22 Competition is a natural for “ringing”steel. The TX 22 Competition pistol with a Leupold DP-Pro sight mounted. Note the removable muzzle cap for mounting a suppressor adapter collar. (Courtesy of Taurus USA) It features a bull barrel assembly that adds recoil reducing weight up front where it helps to hold down muzzle flip. The muzzle of the pistol is threaded to allow attaching a suppressor adapter collar for use in those localities were suppressed firearms are legal. The 1/2-28 threads are compatible with the majority of .22 LR suppressors on the market and are protected by a barrel thread collar which must be removed before the suppressor adapter collar can be installed.
A traditional striker-fire design has the trigger bar contacting the striker which means that the striker spring will influence the trigger pull weight. To break the connection between striker energy and trigger pull weight, the PTS’ striker is fully cocked as the slide goes forward and the sear simply prevents the striker from being released. To release the sear, the PTS has a rotating sear trip that the trigger bar contacts.
The TX 22 Competition is a blowback operated pistol which means that upon firing the weight of the slide and the pressure of the recoil spring hold the slide in battery until the bullet leaves the barrel and pressures fall to a level where it is safe for the slide to reciprocate to the rear extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case. The recoil spring then pulls the slide forward, feeding the next round out of the magazine and chambering it as the slide goes into battery.
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It features a sixteen round, polymer magazine and comes with a loading tool that allows you to quickly fill the cartridge container to capacity without needing a manicurist to repair your fingernails. Like its predecessor, the TX 22 Competition has ambidextrous thumb safeties at the rear of the frame and the magazine release can be switched from the left to right side for the Southpaws among us.
The TX 22 Competition’s open top slide is reminiscent of those on Taurus’ P92 series pistols which not only looks (IMHO) sexy as all get out but is designed to keep the slide’s weight within limits to insure functioning with a wide variety of .22LR ammo, allow mounting electronic dot sights directly to the barrel instead of the slide and reduces the likelihood of a spent case hanging up in the ejection port.
Sample targets showed the TX 22 Competition pistol was capable of excellent accuracy. (Firearms News photo) Two, double-sided mounting plates are included with the pistol which secure to the top of the breech end of the barrel and each of the plates is configured to accept one of a number of electronic dot sight patterns including: C-More STS, Leupold Delta-Point/Bushnell RXS 250, Trijicon RMR/Holosun 407 and Vortex Venom/Docter Noblex/Burris FastFire/Sightmark Mini. For those who do not want to use dot sights, the TX 22 Competition comes standard with a fully adjustable rear sight whose dual white dots mate up quickly with the white dot in the front sight.
Taurus USA kindly provided me with a TX 22 Competition pistol to evaluate for Firearms News’ readers. I was suitable impressed with its quality of materials and assembly, the trigger had a short take up and broke crisply, according to my trigger pull scale, with slightly less than 4.5 pounds of pressure. While it came with a very practical set of iron sights, being it was really designed to be shot with an electronic dot sight I mounted a Leupold Delta-Point on the Taurus. A search of my storage closet (or as my wife Becky refers to it, “Your landfill”) I gathered a supply of .22 LR ammo from Winchester, Remington, CCI and Browning and we beat feet to our gun club.
The TX 22 Competition comes standard with a plate for mounting optical sights. Note the ambi safeties, Picatinny rail, extended magazine release, adjustable rear sight and dual grasping grooves on the slide. The open top slide ensures complete ejection of spent cases and allows optical dot sights to be mounted directly to the barrel where they don’t reciprocate with the slide. (Photo courtesy of Taurus USA) At the range we set up a series of targets at 15 yards and I proceeded to fire groups from an MTM K-Zone pistol rest . After a few turns of the adjustment screws on the Leupold — and once I got used to that little red dot bouncing around! — I was soon shooting well centered groups ranging from a very impressive .80 inches to 1.6 inches in size. Honors went to Winchester’s fast stepping Wildcat load, but the other three brands produced groups small enough to keep us happy.
We then moved over to the club’s steel range and proceeded to shoot various plates, animal cutouts and — what was really challenging and fun — a dueling tree. We both racked up satisfying ratio of “dings” to “bangs” and before we knew it we had gone through almost 300 rounds of .22 LR! Early on we experienced two failures to feed with the Browning ammo, but after that the TX 22 ran like gangbusters the rest of the day.
In conclusion, we found the TX 22 Competition to be just as impressive as the TX 22. It was reliable, easy to shoot, had a very nice trigger and excellent ergonomics. We believe it would be a good choice for rimfire competition, hunting small game/vermin, as a farm/truck gun, teaching new shooters or just for fun. And after all, the latter is a .22 pistol’s main purpose in life. Isn’t it?
Taurus TX22 Competition Specs Type: Rimfire, semiautomaticCaliber: .22LROverall Length: 8.15 in. Barrel Length: 5.2 in. Width: 1.25 in. Construction: Slide: Aluminum; Frame: PolymerFinish: Black AnodizedWeight: 23 oz. (unloaded)Magazine: 16 rds. Sights: White dot front; Adjustable dual white dot rearGrips: PolymerExtra Features: Suppressor adapter collar, ambi manual safeties, reversible magazine catch, Picatinny rail, 3 magazines, magazine loader, cable lock & owner’s manual.MSRP: $540Manufactuer: Taurus USA About the Author Paul Scarlata began writing articles for various gun magazines in the 1990s. Over the years he has contributed to firearms and military history publications in the U.S. and a number of foreign countries, has had three books on military firearms published and just finished writing a fourth. He became a regular contributor to Shotgun News, forerunner of the Firearms News, in 2010, eventually becoming a staff member where he specializes writing about military small arms from 1850s to present day. His wife Becky, an excellent photographer, has been a major plus to "their" careers.
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