With my short attention span, extreme aloofness, and thousands of guns at my disposal daily, Shot Show 2024 seems like a lifetime ago. While a lot of the products that perked my ears up this year have already come across my desk, there’s one that I was very excited about, that didn’t make it through the doors until this week, the Taurus Expedition Rifle.
When it comes to bolt guns, I consider myself an “enthusiast.” Sure, I’ve heard the word “snob” thrown around once or twice, but I simply like what I like. Like most “enthusiasts,” what I like, and what is prohibitively expensive seem to have a large overlap on the Venn diagram of firearms, but maybe not this time.
The Expedition was announced at a modest MSRP, under $1000. I’m positive that you just thought of two or three other established and well-loved rifle lines that fall into that category, but what sets the Expedition apart is the way that it’s built, or maybe “how it’s ready to be built.”
Rifle “builds” are something that shooters are well familiar with in regards to AR pattern rifles. Part of the appeal is to take a rifle and be able to tailor fit it to be exactly what you need. Far less shooters are familiar with this concept when it comes to bolt actions. Building up a bolt action has been a thing for a loooong time, but it’s historically been more time consuming and expensive, since most of the work required actual machining and lathe work. However, in the past few years, the advent of chassis, bedding blocks, barrel nut attachment systems, and a few other helpful features appearing in popular bolt action guns has made the concept of a garage-built, precision/ hunting rifle attainable.
Even still, being able to complete the build process at your home bench, didn’t make it any less pricey. Ordering an action, barrel, stock, and trigger could easily rack up a bill that could take home a Barrett M107, and even though there have been a few factory bolt rifles that offer some sort of customization options, the industry was definitely lacking a rifle that was already feature-rich and ready to accept all the most popular and common aftermarket parts.
Not the Expedition rifle, but a rifle that was built entirely with R700 parts that are interchangable with the platform
Enter the Expedition, and also the reason I was so excited about it at its announcement. It’s an R700 pattern action, meaning that there is already an entire aftermarket of stocks and triggers out there for the rifle. Your favorite stock or chassis is offered for an R700 action, the best triggers in the world are made for R700 actions. Sure, they’re probably available for other rifles, but I can guarantee you that, far and away, an R700 action is the easiest rifle platform to find parts for. The expedition also runs Savage style pre-fit barrels, headspaced with a barrel nut, meaning that there’s already aftermarket and custom-order barrels out there that you can install onto this action with a few tools at your work bench. Think the gun would look good with carbon fiber? Want something in .22 Creedmoor? The Expedition is ready for it. It also runs AICS pattern magazines, which has become the bolt-action magazine of choice and are available everywhere.
So yes, I’m clearly excited about being able to tinker with my new toy. I like that I could have already had this thing looking like a rifle that would be featured at Shot Show 2027 before it even came out of the box. But what if you’re not that guy? What if you’re just looking to pick up a rifle, throw a scope on it, and shoot? What are you getting out of the box? Well, to be honest, the answer to that question has blown me away about as much as the concept. It’s hard to judge how a rifle will feel by looking at pictures of a Shot Show booth, but now that I finally have my hands on one, lets run down my first quickfire thoughts.
The stock was advertised as a sort of “hunting/target hybrid” stock, and that’s exactly what it is. To me, it lands right in the middle of the road of being a well made and full featured stock, without being so feature-rich and modular that you don’t feel like you overpaid for what you didn’t want. It features a bag rider, raised, non-adjustable comb, nearly vertical wrist, and a broad, flat forend, with… all of the attachment points. Seriously, they have a sling stud, integrated M-lok sections, and an integrated Spartan Precision socket for their QD tripods and bipods, all underneath a flattened portion that was designed to clamp into a vice-style saddle on a tripod or bag.
The barrel is just cool. It’s a mid-weight, hammer forged, ⅝ by 24 threaded, 18” barrel, DLC coated, barrel secured with a barrel nut. Taurus claims that the spiral pattern that runs down the barrel is a result of their hammer-forging process that they left as a feature and not a flaw. Regardless, I think it looks good, and I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of groups I can get out of this rifle.
The action is an open-top, three lug, R700 pattern action. The three lug bolt-throw is short and the lugs lock and unlock assertively. I hate talking about how “smooth” an action is out of the box, as that’s all subject to change within the first couple hundred rounds, but yes, the bolt travel feels “smooth” along the bolt-race, and the DLC coating seems to be doing its job.
The trigger is surprisingly good. It’s crisp, and a bit stout, around 4ish pounds (measured by my trigger finger and a bit of SWAG). It hits squarely in the middle of being a “good hunting trigger.” Furthermore, your favorite Timney or Triggertech is already out there somewhere waiting for you to install it, if you prefer.
The bolt handle, recoil pad, and bottom metal are all perfectly serviceable. As far as I can tell right now, there’s nothing on this rifle that would keep me from heading out on a hunt with it the way it stands, although if I had to bet on the first thing I would break, I would say the trigger guard or magazine release. My plan is to slap an optic and a suppressor on this rifle and stretch its legs and its limits as far as I can go. I’m going to spend a lot of time with this one, so be on the lookout for a video down the road, although I genuinely feel like the Expedition has delivered what it promised in terms of quality, and short of the bullets coming out backwards or the barrel flying downrange, there won’t be much about it that I won’t like.
I like the Expedition because its exciting. I like the Expedition because it has a story. I like the Expedition because its a company’s first entry into a new market. I like the Expedition because its a passion-project. Taurus CEO, Bret Vorhees, is a hunting enthusiast and the Expedition was designed in house, to be conceptually, an extremely versatile hunting rifle that was ready for anything, and can be tinkered with and upgraded through its life to accomplish any goal. Time will tell, but as far as a first impression, it looks to me like that’s exactly what I’m holding in my hand.
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