Buy Taurus G3C Pistol, Striker Fired Online Australia

Introduction

The Taurus G3C was a sneaky one. It premiered quickly without much build-up, no big NRA or SHOT Show reveal. Taurus was just like bam, here it is. The G3C model builds off the preceding G3, a full-sized pistol released a year prior. The C stands for Compact; notably, the G3C is a shrunken variant of the G3. The Taurus G3C seems to want to keep the theme of producing affordable handguns aimed at shooters on a budget. Is it worth the money? Read our Taurus G3C review and decide for yourself.

Many people like to claim Taurus makes good revolvers but bad automatics. In my experience, the opposite is true. Their automatic pistols seem to be much more reliable than their revolvers. The G3C is not a compact handgun variant of the G3 but the successor to the very popular G2C handgun. The G3C features several upgrades over the G2C.

These improvements include front and rear slide serrations, as well as the front and rear sight are steel sights. The trigger is the third generation Taurus trigger and is a flat-faced trigger with a much larger trigger safety.

To me, the most notable improvement for the Taurus G3 handgun seems to be the G3C’s ability to utilize Glock pattern sights and SIG Sauer P226 magazines.

This opens up an existing aftermarket to make upgrades easier.

The Compact design points the gun toward concealed carry. The compact pistol price points appeal to those on a budget. The G3C is far from the smallest gun on the market and does feature a double-stack 12-round magazine (more with extensions). Who doesn’t like more ammunition?

The Taurus G3C fits into an odd category of concealed carry guns size-wise. It’s smaller than your traditional compact, like a CZ P10C or Glock 19, but larger than subcompacts like the Glock 26. It’s a compromise in both directions, but not necessarily a bad one.

The Taurus G3C retains an effective trigger system that’s been around since the old 24/7. This trigger system is a single action, with restrike capability. It could be described as a DA/SA gun, but that doesn’t adequately describe it.

You cannot manually decock the weapon, and the double-action trigger only comes into play if the single action does not fire the weapon. From a practical perspective, I do like this trigger, and it does offer something different than 99% of the striker-fired guns on the market.

As a dude with XL-sized hands, I find most compact guns to be a bit small. I can’t stand a hanging pinky, so the G3C’s larger grip is quite comfortable and does provide me a full-handed grip on the gun. That’s the blessing.

Here’s the curse. With a high grip, I get a nasty slide bite. That slide bite translated into my hand, bleeding within 50 rounds. It made testing the gun rather slow and uncomfortable. The good news is once you lose enough skin, you don’t feel it anymore.

The grip texture is very aggressive and separated into panels that cover the entire grip. This includes a bold front and backstrap. When firing, that textured grip provides an easy-to-hold, and the gun never tries to work its way out of your hand.

The addition of front serrations is excellent. The front serrations are rather short, but the serrations are deep and easy to grip. It makes racking the gun easy enough.

Accuracy is always challenging in a little gun. I found myself developing a flinch, mainly due to the slide bite. I did see acceptable accuracy, though. Even out to 25 yards, I can place rounds consistently into the chest of a bad guy. At 15 yards, I’m making fast and accurate headshots.

I feel like the trigger is the definition of meh. It has a lot of pre-travel for a single action trigger. The single-action travel is just as long as the double-action trigger. It’s merely much lighter than the double-action mode. The trigger has a short reset, but if you don’t pin your trigger, that doesn’t matter. The longer trigger travel does create more of an opportunity to make a mistake before the gun fires.

I do like the sights, especially the rear sight, and appreciate that a budget gun is coming with metal sights. Even Glock doesn’t do that. The only downside is they seem rather small. Also, as I mentioned, the G3C does have aftermarket sight options available from Tru-Glo, and these are Glock patterns.

Based on my tests, accuracy is perfectly usable, especially from a practical standpoint. I can make smaller groups with the P365, but from a practical perspective, the gun will put the lead where you want it.

When shooting fast, the trigger isn’t noticeable. I do feel a shorter overall pull would still be better, but a short reset helps. The gun is easy to hang onto, and the recoil is far from punishing. Muzzle rise is noticeable, but within ten yards, you can score a 1.5-second failure to stop drills.

After many times of going to the range, the G3C ate and ate and ate. After all of that, I had a single issue regarding the magazine failing to feed a round. I had to give the magazine a hearty hit to get the followers to release and the round to rise. I fired 450 rounds with 150 being Winchester Forged, which is notoriously dry and dirty ammo.

Outside of that one issue with the magazine failing to feed, the gun ran cleanly. Speaking of cleaning, I did not clean the gun and allowed it to get nice and filthy throughout my testing. A mixture of sweat, gunpowder, and a little blood gave it a lovely natural oil to run with!

Overall the gun isn’t fancy. It’s not a tuned 1911 where everything just drips and reeks of quality. It’s a plain Jane semi-automatic, striker-fired pistol that goes bang when you need it to. Lots of the parts feel somewhat plasticky, especially the safety. The safety almost feels like an afterthought, like the safety on an imported Tokarev. So, as you can see in this Taurus GC3 review, I think this is an excellent pistol for the price. I wouldn’t give it as great of a grade if say it was over $600. Furthermore, you get 3 magazines at that low of a price, and all in all, I feel like it was well made for a budget gun. Because of the above statement, I did include it in my list of best handguns under the best budget options – however, you might be surprised to see that it isn’t listed as the #1 budget gun.

TAURUS G3C SPECS

• Caliber9mm Luger
• Capacity12+1
• Height5.1″
• Overall Width1.2″
• Barrel Length3.2’’
• Overall Length6.3″
• Front SightFixed
• Rear SightAdjustable
• Weight22 oz