Academy has both of these on sale for $249 ea. right now. I've heard they are excellent conceal handguns for the money; what one would you choose and why?

Taurus = NO

Because the reliability for the $100 difference is not worth you or your families life. Don't play golf that one day and youre already into a better brand than Taurus.

Wow, I had heard nothing but good things about the Slim version. Are we talking about barrel blowing up or something? Curious.

Honestly its because of the brand and is straight opinion on my part. I would get a brand that is atleast proven for some branch of LE or military. Ive never heard of a Taurus being carried or approved by any agency. For the small one time fee I would move up to some of the other guns mentioned in your other 2 months of research.

So Springfield XD or XDM/XDS or S&W M/P.

On the Taurus today, I was just thinking pure pricepoint, $249 vs. $450-$550.

Neither. Taurus can be hit or miss (no pun intended) I've never had a problem with either a semi auto or revolver, but no plan's to purchase another one.

Other's here haven't had favorable results with their firearms.

Those would be great and
Check deals at buds and joe bobs

I like the xds or lc9

I have owned one Taurus pistol..it is a PT111 9mm. The plastic piece that connects the trigger to the striking pin broke and made it useless. Fortunately they fixed it under warranty.

I'm pretty sure you can find a SW Shield for around $400 if you look, possibly less. That's the route I would go.

I would go with the 709 of the ones you listed. 40 is a lot of recoil in a pistol that small.

I wouldn't listen too much to the Taurus-haters. They've gotta be able to justify burning $500+ on a pistol that does nothing better than a $300 Taurus I suppose. And haters gonna hate. Between my dad and I, we've got two semi-autos and one revolver that all function flawlessly. The revolver has a better trigger and better ergonomics than my Colt or S&W revolver. And the semi-auto I have has the best trigger I've ever felt in a striker-fired pistol. None of have ever given us a lick of trouble and cost a fraction of what the more expensive brands do.

Another pro Taurus guy. I have found that most of the hate is opinion and not based on experience. I have 16 Taurus handguns, both pistols and revolvers, and shoot the heck out of them to the tune of greater than 12,000 rounds a year. I have had four warranty claims during my time of ownership and all have been addressed by TaurusUSA to my satisfaction. I've also owned all the major makes of handguns and have experience warranty claims against them as well.

Some of the training I attend will involve at least 1K rounds through the pistol over a three day period and my Taurus' have not had issue with that. During this training, especially over the years, I've seen every type of handgun present and it would be foolish to think anything is trouble free. It is up to the shooter to keep it clean and in working order.

Honestly, my only critical comment of Taurus is the lack of online replacement parts. That was going very well for TaurusUSA the last couple of years but a corporate takeover in Brazil put a lot of the USA stuff on hold.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Taurus PT709, Slim 9MM, $100 off, 10% off for credit card, got 2 boxes of metal jackets and holster all for $285, new. Just breaking into the handgun crew so easy way to break in.

Taurus is good to go. We've sent back far more products from S&W and Remington than Taurus with much longer repair times. I've had several name brand products fail right out of the box. We've also sold far more Taurus products.

Sounds like a great deal! If you haven't found it yet, TaurusArmed.net is the go to place for the Taurus shooter.

Too good of a deal to turn down. The only other contender for me was the XD 3" 9MM. My hand seems to prefer the smaller frame pistols. This will be my ranch sidearm for snake protection and plinking around.