Taurus C45 Thunderbolt

About the Taurus C45 Thunderbolt

The Taurus C45 Thunderbolt is a pump-action centerfire rifle introduced at the 2005 SHOT Show as a modern reproduction of the Colt Lightning slide-action rifle of 1884. Chambered primarily in .45 Colt with a secondary .357 Magnum offering, it feeds from a 14-round tubular magazine beneath the 26-inch button-rifled barrel and uses a side-mounted loading gate in the case-hardened receiver. The action stroke is unusually short - only about two inches straight back and forward - making the rifle one of the fastest pump guns to cycle. A hand-fitted hardwood stock with checkered forend, crescent steel buttplate, drift-adjustable front sight, and adjustable buckhorn rear sight complete the period-correct cowboy-action aesthetic. Production was discontinued after roughly five years on the U.S. market.

The Thunderbolt is a near-direct copy of the Colt Lightning Magazine Rifle of 1884, a slide-action repeater John Pemberton's contemporaries marketed as a faster alternative to the lever-action Winchester. Taurus revived the design more than a century later with modern steel and CNC tolerances, making the Thunderbolt one of the few new-production pump-action centerfire rifles to hit the U.S. market in the 2000s.

Taurus C45 Thunderbolt specifications

The Thunderbolt was Taurus's entry into the cowboy-action and lever/pump rifle revival market dominated by Marlin, Henry, and Uberti repro lever guns. The .45 Colt version is the most common; .357 Magnum was offered later in the production run. Includes Taurus's key-activated Security System integrated into the receiver.