The Expedition: Taurus Ventures into the Hunting Market

The Taurus Expedition is a family of rifles built on Remington 700 action architecture and is available in .308 Winchester and 6.5 Creedmoor. All come with a hammer forged barrel, a 3 lug bolt and diamond like coating for excellent corrosion protection. Our example was the 308 Win version with and 18 inch barrel and topped off with a Crimson Trace Brushline scope and Nosler SR-30K silencer. Accuracy was good with select ammunition but the Expedition is picky. With Federal Center Strike we did se Sub-MOA groups of .9 inches at 100 yards and with Federal 180gr Fusion it was holding at 1.4 inches and Federal Premium Barnes TSX was 1.6 inches. The 6.5 will perform well for thin skinned game like antelope, white tail and mule deer and the .308 will deal with elk handily. The stock has clear influences from precision rifles but this is not a bench rifles by any means. Extended string of fire with a hot barrel did see some thermal stringing. This is built around hunting and is a handy long gun coming in at only 7 lbs. The use of the AICS pattern magazine is a great feature that will make the life of those who hunt from side-by-sides and ATVs easier. The fore-end has M-LOK and spartan bipod attachments as well as a standard sling swivel. The optic mounts are a Remington 700 style but some mounts protrude to deep into the action and will prevent full travel of the bolt. A Leopold single piece base was a perfect fit and the extra windage adjustment was appreciated as the scope was almost out of windage adjustment with other mounts. The trigger breaks at 4.25-4.75 pounds and is clean. Over all this is a very competent entry into an already daunting market filled with offerings from Bergara, CVA, Winchester and many other but with the feature that are on the Expedition at the price point its coming at you can do worse. Taurus might not be innovating much with this, but they are certainly pulling a lot of features into one platform with this.