Sheldon, you have some valid points, and there is no right or wrong answer to trusting your own guts when it comes to protecting your life. There are people on this sight like me who have never had a problem with their taurus guns, and there are others here who even though they many Tauri they have a couple guns they had to send back for one reason or another. Sometimes that is they way they come off the assembly line. While it is unfortunate, you got a gun with a defect, but you know what? You are at least twenty steps ahead of the other people who buys a gun brand new, loads it and sticks in a nitestand and expects it to work at 3:00 A.M.. You tested the gun and your found that it had a defect. Now comes the hard decision. You can either invest more time and effort into making this gun reliable enough to trust your life with it, or you can switch systems. Now I'm not going to tell you what to do because it's your life on the line whatever route you choose. I will tell you that I own guns that I have carried that were at one time a work in progress, and I can honestly tell you that once I understood how every aspect of that firearm and got to know intimately how it could fail and in what situation, I felt more comfortable carrying it. Also I carry guns that have never, ever failed me at any time, and I am still around to write this. What I want to tell you is, that lump of metal in your hand is nothing more than a tool. Tools break, which is why it is wisest to have a spare in the toolbox.