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The Taurus C45 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 in .45 Long Colt, it feeds from a 10-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.
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 market in the 2000s.