Care and Feeding of a Taurus 738TCP

When taking a new gun out of the box, you don't expect it to not work AT ALL, but that's what we discovered when tried to put a brand new Taurus 738TCP into service for a customer.

At Patriot Aims, we do a basic QC check on every semi-automatic pistol, which at a minimum consists of racking the slide to check for any resistance, checking the operation of any manual safeties, and chambering and ejecting a round from the magazine (we use snap-caps in the store).

While these basic pre-sale checks don't tell us anything about the accuracy or long-term reliability of the gun, they do indicate whether the gun can actually be used as a gun and is more than just a bunch of metal and plastic parts.

When we performed this check on a new Taurus 738TCP, this is what we found:

1). The magazines (2) locked into the handle, but the base plate would not fully seat against the base of the grip.

See the picture. 

 This caused the top of the magazine to be fully 1/16" lower in the chamber. Because everything was lowered in the receiver, when the slide was released and the cartridge was stripped off and pushed forward, the bullet "dead-headed" into the ramp.

2). The slide spring was so tight, the slide release button could not be depressed. You had to loosen the tension by pulling back on the slide (two handed operation), before the slide button could be disengaged. This issue would probably have gotten better with successive firings (breaking in) but the magazine issue forced us to reject this gun as a usable weapon.

In other words, what we found was this gun was totally unusable in its current state. Luckily, we were able to verify the problem by substituting a magazine from another 738TCP.  With the magazine firmly seated in the handle, the bullets chambered and ejected as designed. This one is going back to the manufacturer.

Store your water in Bricks

Of the 3 necessities for survival - 1. shelter, 2. food and water, and 3. protection, water is perhaps the most important.  A person could survive for days and weeks without food.  You can only survive for a few days without water.

To complicate matters, the average person needs a minimum of 1 gallon of water per day for drinking and basic cleanliness.  When you do the math, a family of three would require over 20 gallons of clean, potable water a week.

The issue then becomes, where do you store that volume of water?  There are all kinds of ideas, milk jugs, 2 liter drink bottles, waterbed mattresses... All these choices have some serious downsides. 

Consider this option - the WaterBrick.  

Think of the WaterBrick as a lego you can fill with water - 3 1/2 gallons per brick. Then they can be stacked, stored in closets, under beds, in the garage...

They are designed to be stacked, they have carry handles, and they have pass-through holes that allow them to be lashed to ATV's, trailers, etc. 

In addition to holding water, they can also be used for bulk food storage, dog food, and even ammunition (the bricks are watertight). 

Check out this link to see some innovative ways to use WaterBricks in your setting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=im1mFUXiGiw