While no one outside the company can know for sure, the R51 feels like a gun that was rushed to market by the sales/marketing/accounting side of the company before engineering/production/quality assurance had a chance to perfect the design and processes needed to ensure a reliable pistol.
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Interesting vid. MAC got a bum gun, posted a vid about some problems, and then was contacted by Remington to get a replacement (a T&E gun). The replacement had some interesting problems, see this vid.
“Sorry about the flinch … I’m so nervous about this blowing up in my face.”
A little after midway through the vid, the author of the vid had to stop shooting, citing concerns that it would blow up in his face. FTF’s, firing out of battery, double feeds, light primer strikes, etc.
Saturday I was out and about and I saw one in the local gun store. The owner was playing with it and he said that he had someone order one sight unseen and then refuse it after he handled it.
He said that there was someone else that agreed to buy it so he was taking it out of the case to hold for the 2nd guy. He asked me if I wanted to play with it some.
So I said sure.
Wow. That gun felt “rough as a cob”.
It was extremely “hitchy” about 3/4 of an inch of slide retraction. Right about the time you exposed he end of the barrel that has the rings cut around it. The gun had some lube on it, “looked wet”, but man it felt really, really cheap.
The grip safety had a weird catch in it too. Like it was pivoting something up. Large amount of resistance then nothing. Like the feeling you get pulling back a compound bow.
I didn’t dry fire it. Not because there was any stipulation against it. I honestly was afraid that I would break it and I didn’t want to get stuck buying it. It felt that junky to me.
It reinforces my original thought that these are Turkish made guns that are being imported and rebranded as Remington because the price just seems too low for an all metal gun.
Really kind of sucks too because strangly enough I found the gun to be really attractive.
Like I said on Tim’s video, shame on Remington. This is a joke, a dangerous joke. Firing OOB, malfunction after malfunction, poor QA/QC. “All sorts of weird failures here…and with ball ammunition”. Kudos to Tim for bravely continuing to shoot this thing, I would have cleared it put it back in the box and immediately shipped it back with a nasty letter.
I, to my regret, did purchase one of these giant POS. I was never able to shoot it because the slide simply, did not slide! The trigger was a huge mess, gritty with no feel, was never able to feel a reset. It’s now back at Remington. I doubt that a repair is possible without a complete redesign. Who ever was responsible for this gun should find a different line of work.
This gun saw NO Quality Control, I doubt that it was ever test fired. I was never able to get it into any kind of condition where it could even chamber a cartridge. There was no spent casing included with the gun. I told them to either fix the gun so it functioned as their ads say or keep it and refund my money. (Fat chance).
So I will have a gun that I would never trust as an EDC pistol, and a gun that I cannot sell. No dealer in his right mind would want it, and my concern for others would keep me from trying to foist it off on someone else. Remington has truly lost its sense of pride and quality workmanship. What a shame!!
This mirrors my thoughts as well when I was able to check out the one my LGS had. The trigger was terribly gritty and had quite a bit of take up to me.
To the part about the grip safety, You can’t drop a mag without squeezing the grip safety and that is probably what you felt.
I was excited about this gun but after handling it I have lost any and all interest. Between this gun and Remington not releasing the ACR to the civilian market I may be done with the company entirely. I had been wanting their 1911 R1 but think I might spend my money elsewhere.
This may be somewhat of an “apples and oranges” comparison, but it’s interesting that, for roughly the same price point, Walther can market a gun (the PPX) that seems to be well made and garnering favorable reviews.
In the original thread on the R51, I and a few others posted that this gun looked very suspicious from the start. It’s from Remington, it’s all-metal, and the price point is super low. My prediction, along with that of the others, was that taking all these factors into account, the gun would be a QA/QC mess as that’s the only place left to cut cost. I got dogged for it. :rolleyes:
Glad to see I was right, but sad to see a once-great manufacturer go down the drains. Remington sure isn’t what it used to be.
Are they deliberately trying to prove Peter Lynch’s postulate that sooner or later, at least for a time, a successful company inevitably will be run by idiots?
Remington stopped building guns to a useful standard about 2 owners or more ago. Their new guns are a sad joke. Just a matter of time before they go tits up.
It’s not just the R51 though. All of their products have been declining in quality. I’m a big duck hunter and won’t go near Remington shotguns with a 10’ pole. Remington 11-87’s are one example, 887’s are another. Their flagship shotgun, the Versamax, was also plagued with issues pointing towards lack of quality control. Way to go Freedom Group…
