Just a short trip down memory lane...

I think I still have an R51 pin and some stickers from SHOT show back then. Maaaan, they pushed that thing haaard. Advertising budget must’ve been more than R&D for the pistol. Dont know anyone who was surprised by its failure though.

I would be seriously tempted to buy an Astra 600 and donate it to the guy in the video if I could really watch a video of him trying to manage a blowback 9mm.

I rented one at an indoor range.

Fired about twenty rounds and took it back to the counter. Thanks, but no, thanks.

The best thing about the R51 is it taught me about the Pederson action which led me to find and buy an original Model 51. That's a neat little gun.

I actually saw one of these at a local pawn store a couple of months ago. I didn’t even want to touch the thing and have some of it’s awful rub off on me. IIRC, the price was the same as new.

I have to admit I purchased one when they first came out. I had been reading about them and bought into the hype. Soon after they were released, I found one in my LGS and snatched it up immediately. It didn't take too long to realize what a mistake it was.

When Remington announced their voluntary recall, I sent mine back and they were supposed to replace it with a 2nd generation model. After a year of being told the 2nd gen was coming out next month, or next quarter, etc I gave up and took an R1 in replacement.

Somewhere in my gun room I still have a magazine for it. A friend is a table top FFL, and he has several of the 2nd generation models in various finishes for reasonable prices. Every time I start to think about grabbing one, I mentally slap myself.

I remember all the gun rags talking that pistol up. I actually like how the pistol looks, but that’s as far as that goes. It’s a shame what Remington is today.

That was such a metallic turd, thanks for sharing. This escaped my attention. Which is a good thing. I wonder if these things will actually become valuable to collectors if they are so bad that they become super scarce. Just curious.

From the video comments: " It’s made for practicing malfunction drills."

Remember how all the gun rags and YouTube shills praised it initially?

I did buy one of the vintage, hundred year old "Model 51" pistols. This was NOT the new R51.

I never ended up taking the "Model 51" to the range, but just playing around with it was interesting. Racking the slide empty, The gun felt like it wanted to jam. I suspect the problems with the R51 wer not simply Remington's poor execution, but the whole design of the recoil system was fundamentally flawed from the beginning and why it was abandoned a hundred years ago.

The R51 had styling that reminded me of a toy gun I had growing up.

Vintage 1960's Rayline STAR TREK Phaser Tracer Disc Pistol Gun

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Fenris, April 09, 2020 12:12 PM

They had one at the Peterson Air Force Base Exchange a few months ago. I think they dropped the price to $250. They almost got me but my reasoning won out in the end.

Yesterday was apparently R51 day. Two video reviews on the same day. This one went back and forth to Remington to be fixed.




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/MeqxPfqiw24

The first video is nothing short of hilarious.

Sometimes the best example one can set is to be an example of what not to be.......R51...”hold my beer I got this!”

I actually really like the lines of the gun and frankly would have likely bought one if they hadn’t been EPICALLY FLAWED AND EPICALLY MISMANAGED.

It was a really stupid decision to try and resurrect this design but why on earth did they push it into production? Early on into the R&D phase they must have known about all of its inherent problems and they certainly didn't fix any of them, so I just dont understand why they went ahead and produced it. Didn't someone say " Uh, guys there are solid, reliable, well established pistols out there that are much better than our pos. Let's just cut our losses and abandon it."
But no, Remington put it on the market and then doubled down on the failure with the RP9.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Remember how all the gun rags and YouTube shills praised it initially?

The term Access Media should be drilled into anybody thinking that reviews are objective and honest. Unless the reviewer can point-out shortcomings and provide perspective on the market place, most reviews are simply fluff.

I remember this paper weight when it came out. I've like the Walther/Makarov-style of design, its just nobody has been able to modernize into a reliable form...perhaps that's a sign.

R51? Oh, now I recall.

That's the $9.50 Remington pistol they were selling a few years ago for $200. Good value.

quote:

The R51 had styling that reminded me of a toy gun I had growing up.

Vintage 1960's Rayline STAR TREK Phaser Tracer Disc Pistol Gun

I had one of those disc shooting pistols. It was great!

That is one of the ugliest pistols I’ve ever layed eyes on IMHO.