Taurus TH10 10mm Pistol

When I first decided to become an armed citizen approximately 20 years ago, I didn’t have any experience with semi-automatic pistols, so I didn’t know what I should buy for my wife and myself to be our carry guns. Fortunately, I had a friend who knew guns, and he recommended the Taurus 24/7 DS Pro in 9mm. He took me to Academy Sports where I bought one for around $400. That was the first of many Taurus pistols and revolvers I’ve owned over the years. When I became an instructor and was actively engaged in teaching the concealed carry classes in Texas, I heard lots of murmuring about Taurus quality and Taurus customer service, but none of that was applicable to me. My Taurus pistols operated perfectly. And so it has been over the years. Since becoming a gunwriter, I’ve reviewed virtually every new Taurus handgun that came out. That took me through the Taurus Millennium Pro series, G2 then the G3 and finally G4, all striker-fired pistols. All of them have worked perfectly. And the neat thing about them is you can buy two of the most popular models of Taurus pistols for what one Glock, M&P or Sig would cost you.

The Taurus TH10 is a totally ambidextrous full-sized, hammer-fired pistol that

represents the 10mm market.  

Alongside the striker-fired pistols, Taurus has a line of hammer-fired pistols known by their TH designation. It seems these have somehow been relegated to sideline duty. That’s a shame. I know some law enforcement agencies carry them, but they have not really been promoted to the concealed carry crowd. Yet they offer some benefits found in more expensive guns. The TH guns can be carried “cocked and locked” just like a 1911. Or they can be carried hammer down with a strong trigger pull required for the first shot and easy-pull follow-up shots. The TH9 and TH45 guns have been in the lineup for some time. Now comes the TH10.

The TH10 ships in a lockable plastic case with two magazines, to extra backstraps and a magazine loader.

We seem to be experiencing a renewed interest in 10mm handguns. Springfield released a 10mm version of their XDm model a year or two ago. In recent months, we’ve had the Taurus TH10 which is the subject of this review and the Smith & Wesson M&P 10mm. Girsan, Rock Island, Tanfoglio, Les Bauer and FN all have 10mm pistols in their lineup. People who hike and camp in bear country seem to like the 10mm. Others apparently figure if it’s good enough for bears, it’s obviously good enough to stop bad guys should the need arise. Ballistically speaking, the 10mm round fired through a handgun has some advantages over the .45 ACP round. It is a faster, flatter shooting round with muzzle velocities that exceed those of the .45 ACP. Because its diameter is less, the magazine capacity for a typical 10mm is more than for a similar model in .45 ACP. Yes, there is significant recoil. More on that later.

Takedown is standard Taurus with two sliding buttons just ahead of the trigger guard which you  pull down to allow the slide to move slightly forward and lift off.

The TH10 is a full-size gun with a barrel length of 4.25 inches and an overall length of 7.80 inches. The height is 5.80 inches and the width is 1.43 inches. It weighs 28.50 ounces unloaded. The stainless-steel barrel has a 1:16 inch right-hand twist with six grooves. All vital controls exist on both sides of the gun. One control many may not be familiar with is the decocker which shares duties with the thumb safety. Press it up and the safety is on, press it down and the hammer drops without firing a round. This occurs because the firing pin is blocked from going forward when the decocker is activated. The slide lock is further back on the TH series than on a lot of guns which makes it easy to reach. It is relatively small but has an interesting design that makes it easy to operate. There is a ridge in the middle that provides your thumb with enough leverage to push it up or down. The safety/decocker has the same design. Both are easy to manipulate. The ambidextrous mag release button is a bit of a different design than what you see on most semi-automatic pistols. If you look at a typical magazine, you’ll see a slot cut on the side or sides of the magazine. A spring-loaded pin or tab pops into that slot when the magazine is fully seated. Pushing the mag release button moves the tab sideways out of that slot. On the TH10 and the recently released Taurus TS9, also with ambidextrous controls, the tab that holds the magazine in place engages in the front part of the magazine. Pushing the mag release button from either side of the pistol moves the tab forward out of the slot. On my TH10 sample, the button was extremely hard to push. I lubricated it and worked it back and forth a lot and it got somewhat better, but the idea of a tactical reload wasn’t going to work. I rationalized at first that having TH10’s full 16-round capacity on board should be enough to handle any situation I might encounter. But that’s not a fair treatment of the gun or a complete review for those of you who may wish to get one of these and use it as your self-defense gun. Realizing that it was getting better with use, I decided to accelerate the break-in period a bit. Using a small file, I took a little off the tab and smoothed the edges of what was left. That worked and now the mag releases and drops free when the button is pushed.

Double-action trigger pull is slightly over the 12 pound limit on David’s gauge but smooth. Single-action trigger pull is slightly over five pounds.

Sights on the gun consist of a bright white dot in front with a black serrated rear sight. Both are drift adjustable. Racking serrations on the slide are only on the back but are deep enough that I found slide operation not to be a problem at all. On a hammer-fired gun, I do cock the hammer to take tension off the slide when I’m going to manipulate it. The frame mounted safety doubles as a decocker. Push it up to put the gun on safe, down to drop the hammer safely. How you carry this gun will depend upon your experience and comfort level with the possible scenarios. One possibility is to carry the gun with a round chambered, hammer back and safety on. “Cocked and locked,” just like a 1911. Every shot would be a single-action shot with a trigger pull of just over 5 pounds. The other possibility is to carry it with a round chambered and the hammer down, also with the safety on. That first shot would require a double-action pull that’s just over 12 pounds. The action is smooth, right up to the break. This is how I would carry this gun.

There is a two-slot Picatinny rail in front of the trigger guard. The back part of the trigger guard is elevated enough to allow a good high grip. The grip surface is textured all around, and there are small finger grooves on the front strap. As we’ve come to expect, the TH10 ships with three different backstrap inserts which allow you to fit the grip to your hand size. The trigger is curved with a wide, flat front surface. Taurus’ signature grooves for the thumb and resting place for the tip of the index finger exist on both sides of the frame. The hammer is almost bobbed to help with concealment but still has enough surface area showing for you to cock the gun should you desire. That especially helps in dry-firing, making it where you don’t have to rack the slide each time to cock the gun.

Any discussion about shooting a 10mm handgun should begin with recoil and cover both subjective and objective aspects of dealing with recoil. The subjective includes things like the experience of the shooter, their hand size, grip and tolerance for recoil. Objectively we have the gun’s frame, texture and ballistics. I picked a common defensive round, Federal’s HST Jacketed Hollow Point to get a ballistic comparison of the popular defensive calibers. Take a look at this table paying particular attention to the muzzle energy column:

You can see by the chart the only round that packs more of a wollop than the 10 mm is the .44 magnum. The muzzle energy figure is a good indicator of how strong the recoil would be. Bottom line is the recoil will exceed that of a .357 Magnum but would be less than a .44 Magnum. Yet I personally found the Taurus TH10 manageable. The other two shooters who put the gun through its paces with me also commented that the felt recoil was not as bad as they expected.

The TH10 fit comfortably in holsters designed to fit other full-size Taurus pistols such as the 24/7 and the TS9. This is a Bullard IWB holster.

How did it do in the accuracy department? We didn’t have a bench rest set up, so I don’t have any 25-yard data for you. But at typical self-defense ranges of seven and 10 yards, we were consistently putting all of our rounds within a 5-inch target circle, with many four and five shot groupings into one ragged hole. Over the course of three range trips, with 200 rounds shot each trip and five ammo types, the TH10 performed flawlessly with one exception. On the first trip I had two failures to feed—both with Winchester Silver Tip which is interesting because for years I’ve used Silver Tip as a break-in ammo. The iron oxide silver coating on the bullet actually works as a lubricant. But guess what? We went straight to the range from the gun store where I picked it up. I did not lubricate the gun before firing. My bad. No issues existed with several other brands we shot, and the other shooters didn’t experience any issues.

During range sessions the TH10 proved itself to be functionally reliable and accurate

Since I don’t live in bear country, and I’ve put close to eight decades on my physical structure, you won’t find me carrying a 10mm as my EDC. But I can attest to the fact that it’s a viable round for situations in which you might encounter big, bad creatures, human or otherwise, heavily clad attackers or those high on drugs. And the Taurus TH10 is up to the task at hand should any of these possible scenarios be the case.