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Total Titanium Taurus

American Handgunner, Annual, 2000 by Carolee Boyles

Taurus masters a tough, lightweight metal to build revolutionary handguns.

In 1999, Taurus International Firearms grabbed the attention of the shooting world with the introduction of total-titanium revolvers. This year, they introduced the Titanium Millennium, a semi-auto pistol with a titanium slide atop a polymer frame.

But why titanium? Yes, it's lightweight. Yes, it is tough. But it's also a manufacturer's nightmare.

"Titanium is difficult to work with," said Gary Mehalik of Taurus. "It's used to cut and form steel, so it's expensive, in raw materials and tools. But the lure of an all-titanium firearm is like a search for the Holy Grail in the firearms industry."

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Titanium was first isolated as a metal in 1910. Since then, this very common element has been put to a lot of uses. In one form, it's a brilliant white pigment found in lead-free paints, linoleum, cosmetics, high-quality papers and sunscreens, and at times it's a food-grade pigment. It's used for whitening leather and in false teeth. Titanium bonds with bone but doesn't cause any reaction in the human body, making it very useful for prostheses such as artificial joint replacement.

After the end of World War II, the development of high-altitude missiles and modern aircraft that flew faster than the speed of sound created a need for new metals that could endure high temperature stress. Research turned to titanium. It's as strong as steel but 45 percent lighter, twice as strong as aluminum, has very low conductivity of heat and electricity, and resists corrosion.

Despite all its great properties, titanium isn't a perfect metal. Some of its characteristics make it difficult to work with. It's hard to refine and process, and in its raw form costs about 10 times as much as steel. It's also elastic and becomes brittle if it's hardened beyond a certain point.

As high-tech users have made advances in the development of titanium, so have down-to-earth companies. Today, titanium is used in racing bicycles, eyeglass frames, aircraft, the space shuttle and desalination plants. Despite efforts by a number of gun companies, however, the development of a fully titanium gun has eluded designers and engineers.

A number of years ago, Sturm, Ruger & Co. cast frames for a couple of revolvers using titanium.

"A real weight-saving factor was not found, compared to other alloys," says Syl Wiley of Ruger. "This, plus the demand placed upon us by the manufacturing of our current firearms, has made the project slow going. We will continue to look into the possibilities, but at this point have no plans to produce titanium firearms."

Smith & Wesson also has made a foray into titanium guns. In late 1998, S&W released a line of revolvers that have aluminum alloy frames and titanium cylinders with alloy barrel shrouds and steel liners.

"It's basically for the weight factor," says Ken Jorgensen of S&W. "Titanium is stronger and lighter than steel, so it makes sense to use it in the cylinder. But it didn't make sense to use titanium in the frame since the alloy we're using is lighter."

S&W calls their part-titanium revolvers, the AirLite Ti line, The company has no immediate plans to work on developing a full-titanium gun.

"You don't need titanium to handle the calibers we're working with, so for us, it doesn't make sense to go to full titanium," Jorgensen says. S&W's priority is to keep the gun's weight as light as possible and, according to Jorgensen, the revolvers the company is working with are lighter than full-titanium firearms.

Taurus's engineers, however, decided to take on the challenge of producing a full-titanium gun.

"We're a company with a long tradition of commercial experience in forging," Mehalik says. "That puts us in a unique position. The way we forge titanium contributes to making it stronger and more applicable to firearms. We use drop-hammer forging for our aluminum alloy and steel frames and forge the titanium frames in the same facility. That's an important part of the process that other companies haven't been able to master."

Taurus declines to reveal any details of their forging process but their success has resulted in a line of revolvers unlike any other in the world.

Taurus engineers overcome problems with both the elasticity of titanium and the tendency of the metal to fragment under conditions of high friction.

"We have a steel liner inside the bore," Mehalik says, "because titanium is elastic and wouldn't take rifling well. Firing lead or jacketed bullets through a titanium bore would erode it very quickly."

Also, titanium can adhere to other metals under some conditions. This can result in galling, which occurs when friction deteriorates metal and little, sometimes microscopic, pieces are shed.

"That was easy to handle," Mehalik says. "We just don't have mated titanium surfaces bearing on each other."

So why did Taurus undertake such a monumental challenge?

"Many engineers said it couldn't be done because of the peculiarities of working the metal, and for many years they were right. But the people at our forging facility felt that they understood enough about the forging process, and could learn what else they needed to know, to make it happen," Mehalik says.

Total Titanium Taurus

American Handgunner, Annual, 2000 by Carolee Boyles

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