Kaboom!

A friend of mine is thinking about selling a 454 Taurus revolver. It's an impressive weapon:

• four pounds of stainless steel,
• a ported barrel to minimize muzzle rise,
• double latch on the cylinder, and
• it holds only five rounds, not six, because the walls of the chambers needed to be thicker to handle the extra pressure of the 454 Casull round.

However, it has this gawd awful "Raging Bull" logo emblazoned on the side of the barrel. Actually I don't know whether it is having a big logo or the fact that the logo says "Raging Bull" that crosses me. Taurus is Latin for bull, so if you don't know anything about the movie, the words make a certain amount of sense. However, the movie was a crock, never mind that it won a bunch of awards. It was about a guy (Jake LaMotta) who was a real jerk. Okay, so Robert DeNiro did a good job of portraying this jerk. I was thoroughly sick of it half way through.

Since we are talking about big guns and movies, we have to mention Clint Eastwood ("Dirty Harry") and his 44 Magnum revolver, "the most powerful handgun in the world". I really enjoyed the "Dirty Harry" movies, even if they didn't win any snooty awards. Well, the 454 is a more powerful gun, but I don't think it was available when the "Dirty Harry" movies were made.

But back to the gun. This big logo, and the fact that ammo costs about a dollar a round has a certain negative impact on this thousand dollar revolver's value on the used market.

I spent a little time thinking about what it would take to remove that logo. I am sure it could be done, but it would take a certain amount of skill to make it look like it was never there. i.e., you would need to match the finish on the rest of the gun. I imagine a skilled gunsmith could do it, but it would be a tricky bit of work to make it look right without having to refinish the whole gun.

Taurus is a Brazilian company and has been through some changes in the fifty years they have been around.

Update March 2016 replace missing picture.