.32 Revolvers Chapter 7: Taurus Model 74

Written on December 20, 2013   By Tony   in Revolvers

The Taurus Model 74 in my collection dates to sometime in the 1970’s. It’s a blued steel gun, and was available in nickel as well. It’s likely that it was made before Taurus was making SS guns. The front site is a little funky looking because of how tall it sits of the pencil thin barrel, but it seems to work okay.

The Model 74 is the predecessor to the model 741 that I wrote about earlier. The 74 is much cruder in machine work and finish when compared to the later 741. It is roughly J-frame sized, and hold 6 rounds of .32 S&W long. The rear sight is adjustable for windage and elevation, though it seems to be somewhat limited in range. The 3″ barrel is pencil thin, and the revolver is very lightweight. Taurus also made the model 73 revolvers a little later, they were fixed sight models, and had slightly heavier barrels. Most consider them to be more aesthetically pleasing.

The firing pin is hammer mounted, and the double action trigger pull is a bit heavy, but smooth. The single action pull is stiff, but not unreasonable. The hardwood grips aren’t very well finished, but functional enough. As you can see in the photo, there are ridges in the cylinder fluting. Taurus did away with this sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s from what I can tell, and the aesthetics of their guns improved immensely when they made that move. The model 73’s seem to have all been made with the smooth flutes.

The gun is accurate enough, but due to the sight adjustment limitations, Only lighter bullets can be put on target. One day I’ll modify the rear sight a bit, and see if that gives me enough room to shoot heavier bullets to point of aim.

I think with a little work, the little model 74 could be made into a very nice little kit gun. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get around to doing the work to make that happen…