A certain Brazilian firearms company has an optic-ready concealed carry revolver. Yep, you read that correctly. They have two, but this review deals with the Taurus Defender 605 TORO, chambered in .357 Magnum. Sure, people have been adding scopes to big bore revolvers for decades. But a red dot? Come on, man. But Taurus has done it, and they’ve done it well.
Taurus Defender 605 TORO Specs
- Caliber: .357 Magnum/.38 Special (+P Compatible)
- Capacity: 5 Rounds
- Action: Single/Double
- Barrel Length: 3 inches
- Overall Length: 7.5 inches
- Width: 1.41 inches
- Height: 4.8 inches
- Weight: 23.52 ounces (Unloaded)
- Frame Size: Small
- Stainless Steel Frame, Cylinder, and Barrel
- Matte Black or Matte Stainless Finish
- Transfer Bar Safety
- Extended Ejector Rod
Defender 605 TORO Features
“T.O.R.O.” stands for “Taurus Optic Ready Option.” Taurus created the 605 Defender TORO by adding an optic plate to their 605 Defender concealed carry revolver. They just tapped the revolver’s top strap and included the plate and hardware with the gun. The shooter can attach the plate and add an optic or just use the revolver’s grooved rear sight without the plate. It’s nice to have options. The pinned, ramped front sight blade is serrated to reduce glare, but co-witnessing with the dot is pretty much impossible, thanks to the optic’s high perch. Co-witnessing would require a half-inch tall front sight blade. I suppose you could do it, but finding a holster would be tough.
The optic plate features a Holosun K footprint. I chose the Holosun 407K red dot, which fits my revolver perfectly—not just with the mounting plate. It’s a slim, compact little optic that seems to offset the high perch somewhat.
The Defender 605 has a rubber, Hogue-like grip with finger grooves and a thumb shelf. The texture is different from that of Hogue, but I like it. However, the grip is small. I can’t get my pinky finger on it, but a small indentation near the butt helps a little.
The frame and trigger guard remind me of the Smith & Wesson exposed hammer and J-Frame revolvers. That’s not surprising, given Taurus’ past associations with S&W. The Taurus will fit many J-Frame holsters. Just make certain your chosen holster will work with an optic before ordering. The 3-inch barrel offers concealability while providing a little more recoil mitigation and velocity than the standard snub-nosed wheel gun. I like that Taurus uses the extended ejector rod instead of staying with the 2-inch ejector that some companies choose.
Running the Taurus 605 Defender TORO
I’ll get to the particulars of revolver-mounted optics momentarily. But how did the Taurus perform? Well, at first, we were a little concerned. The timing was a little off for the first 50 rounds or so. The cylinder seemed to hesitate very slightly, requiring us to delay firing the next round. But it smoothed out quickly, and we have not experienced that problem again. It probably just needed to be broken in.
The double-action trigger is a bit heavy at 12 lbs., while the single-action is much nicer at 5 to 5.5 lbs. The Defender 605 is marketed as a concealed carry revolver, so we ran it quite a bit in DA. I shot .38 Special loads more accurately than .357 Magnum. Not that the gun is inaccurate. It isn’t. But the .357 recoil is much harder to control with this truncated concealed carry grip. Likewise, I shot SA more accurately than DA, as most people would. The DA requires more practice.
This little revolver shoots .38 Special loads quite comfortably, but the .357 Magnum hurts after a while. Call me a wuss. My son and I shot 150 rounds of .357 during testing, but we’ve stuck to .38 Special since. Firing .38 Special +P was very pleasant as well, though I like having the .357 option if I want it.
- 132-grain PMC Bronze .38 Special FMJ
- 148-grain Magtech .38 Special LWC
- 158-grain Sellier & Bellot .38 Special FMJ
- 158-grain Federal American Eagle .357 Magnum JSP
- 158-grain Sellier & Bellot .357 Magnum FMJ
We’ve since run some 120-grain Federal Premium Punch .38 Special +P JHP rounds. Other than the initial 50-round break-in, we’ve experienced no reliability issues. I should note that revolver performance degrades noticeably as the gun gets dirty. Residue fouls up the crane and cylinder. Cleaning the gun fixed that right up whenever we noticed it. That’s just a revolver thing and does not reflect on the gun’s reliability.
Control-wise, the cylinder catch is responsive, and the ejector rod dumps the empties reliably. There are no problems there. However, as we got further into our tests, we noticed some wear on the finish. A line tracks the cylinder movement, and the crane shows some light wear. But it appears to all be finish-related.
Revolvers and Optics
I admit that mounting an optic on a revolver seemed strange to me at first. It still does to a certain degree. But I noticed while shooting the Taurus that revolver-mounted optics don’t seem to take quite the punishment that semi-auto-mounted optics do. Or maybe it’s just different. Revolvers don’t have a reciprocating slide, so the optic doesn’t travel. I can’t say whether the energy transferred to a revolver optic is less than that of a slide-mounted optic, but it seems like it would be.
I will say that reacquiring the dot was perhaps a little easier since the optic never moves, except with the gun’s recoil. But that was mainly with .38 Special rounds. The .357 loads knocked this little gun around pretty well. But the optic was still in the same place for those of you who are more accomplished revolver shooters than I am. I can attest that I was more accurate using the red dot than I have been with optic-free revolvers in the past.
The Verdict
My son and I both liked the Defender 605 TORO. It’s fun to shoot and comfortable—with .38 Special ammo, anyway. It ran very well once we broke it in. The optic grew on us. It looked unnatural at first, but the more we shot it, the better we liked it. We finished the testing over a month ago, and the Holosun 407K is still on the gun. I don’t anticipate taking it off. I shoot it more accurately, so why would I?
And did I mention the price? You can buy this gun for around 400 bucks. I think it’s a good value. Taurus has come a long way from their down period. They’ve made a real effort to improve from top to bottom. Their firearm designs and, more importantly, performance, shows that effort. The gun’s long-term durability remains to be seen. But 500 rounds in, things look good. We’ll see where we are after a couple of thousand rounds. Maybe we’ll report back then. But for now, this looks like a great little revolver for an even better price. We think Taurus has a winner here.
