Taurus 22 “Tip-up” Updated - 22TUC

The Taurus 22TUC was recently introduced. It’s the company’s “First Rule” gun – as in “The first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun.” 

That’s not a terrible idea. 

The new Taurus tip-up 22 auto (above) differs from the older gun (below) with less weight, more ammo capacity. Both have relatively hand-filling grip area for such small guns.

The earlier iteration I’d had – and let go – was a used Taurus PT-22. This had wood stocks, as befitting a gun from Brazil, an 8-round magazine capacity, and weighed about 12 ½ ounces. It was a hammer-fired, trigger-cocking pistol (no single action option). It had no extractor. 

The barrel tips from the front, putting the chamber in the air above the pistol. This facilitates loading the chamber and prevents having to rack the slide, a nice touch. 

The 22TUC is a 10-ounce gun, with a 9-shot magazine, and it is hammer fired with a trigger cocking (only) action. It has a polymer frame and the website discusses the stainless barrel and slide (available in black, as the sample is). 

The front sight has an orange dot, which is helpful. The barrel length is 2.5.” 

During the winter-range excursion to an indoor range, I took only Winchester Super-X “Super-Speed Roundnose” 40gr. high velocity ammo to shoot from the new Taurus 22. I kept ranges short, in keeping with the likely use of a 10 oz. 22 pocket auto. 

The five-yard “head” shot target shows good accuracy for a small DA auto.

Loading was simple; use the pull-tabs on the magazine to load nine rounds into the magazine, push down the lever on the left side of the tip-barrel 22 – causing the barrel to flip open, and load the tenth round into the chamber.

As noted, the tip-barrel designs don’t have extractors, something that could have come in useful on this trip. In the first ten rounds, I had three failures to fire. The first I tried to “restrike” after moving it around in the chamber.

That rim was positively hammered by the firing pin, it was no light strike.

And this is first-rate ammo. I’ve used hundreds of rounds of it in a range of rifles, pistols and revolvers, with very good results.

The second failure fired upon restrike without moving it in the chamber. The same with the third. After I quit trying to do a deliberate trigger press, I found the rounds were firing. 

At seven yards, nine rounds hit around my point of aim. It’s handy when you don’t have to hold off to hit a mark. Six of those nine rounds clustered into 1 ½”. 

At five yards, shooting at a reduced target, I had a failure to eject. This isn’t unexpected with the extractorless design. Shooting at ten yards, somewhat faster, I found that my hold causes the five-shot group to be left out of the scoring zone, but well on the target. The group was two inches, with the best three hits crowding into an inch.

That’s not at all bad. 

The 22TUC with the MTM-Casegard P-100 plastic ammo box. If you use bulk ammo and don’t want to take the whole bulk-packed box to the range, the P-100 is the answer. Below, the 22TUC didn’t seem to be vulnerable to stoppages when shooting one-handed.

I later shot the gun at the club range with Winchester-Western bulk packed 36-grain plate HP. I took 100 rounds out of the pack and loaded it into the MTM-Casegard P-100 flip top plastic box. This is a handy way to take less than a whole heavy bulk pack to the range, when you’re going to shoot 100 rounds or less. 

With the Winchester-Western load, I noticed the fail-to-fire on a slow trigger press – just like with the Super-X load. 

The failures to fire seemed to occur from attempting to slowly draw the trigger back for some precision. And I’m not sure quite how that changes the dynamic of the hammer striking the firing pin. 

It’s an interesting little gun. The MSRP is just under $334 and the gun is supplied with one magazine.