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The Craptacular Remington R51

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April 24, 2020, 08:50 AM
m.p.driver
The Craptacular Remington R51
Made a mistake of buying one when they hit the market,man what a pile of junk,every malfunction know to man.Fortunately Bud's took it back for full purchase and i bought another Sig.Remington has really dropped the ball on pistols.
April 24, 2020, 09:19 AM
ZSMICHAEL
The problems with this gun have gotten quite a bit of publicity.
April 24, 2020, 10:17 AM
BlackAgnes
I sent my R51 back to the Factory for all the reasons stated above. Not at all a finished product.
That said, I have an RM380 that is a very fine pistol and completely reliable.
Of course, it wasn't a Remington design...


"Dead Midgets Handled With No Questions Asked"
April 24, 2020, 11:08 AM
Dwill104
That was an epic fail. Got me thinking, what are some other guns made by a well known gun brand that were so heavily hyped and turned out to be horrible, such that they were quickly discontinued?
April 24, 2020, 11:25 AM
BennerP220
Yeah, my RM380 has been great. I really enjoy that little pistol.

quote:
Originally posted by BlackAgnes:
I sent my R51 back to the Factory for all the reasons stated above. Not at all a finished product.
That said, I have an RM380 that is a very fine pistol and completely reliable.
Of course, it wasn't a Remington design...

April 24, 2020, 11:38 AM
BBMW
This might be a bit of a threadjack, but wasn't the RM380 the descendant of the Rohrbaugh, which was 9mm. Remington should bring back the 9mm version. That they'd sell more than a few of.

quote:
Originally posted by BlackAgnes:
I sent my R51 back to the Factory for all the reasons stated above. Not at all a finished product.
That said, I have an RM380 that is a very fine pistol and completely reliable.
Of course, it wasn't a Remington design...

April 24, 2020, 11:38 AM
RogueJSK
quote:
Originally posted by Dwill104:
That was an epic fail. Got me thinking, what are some other guns made by a well known gun brand that were so heavily hyped and turned out to be horrible, such that they were quickly discontinued?


The Colt All American 2000 comes to mind.


April 24, 2020, 11:40 AM
monoblok
quote:
Originally posted by Dwill104:
That was an epic fail. Got me thinking, what are some other guns made by a well known gun brand that were so heavily hyped and turned out to be horrible, such that they were quickly discontinued?

The Colt 2000 was a rather pathetic piece. Only around for 2, maybe 3 yrs before Colt pulled the plug.

edit: I see someone beat me to it.

-MG


-MG
April 24, 2020, 01:01 PM
Il Cattivo
^^^ And to this day the gun show sellers don't know whether it's a collectible worth $600 or more, or just a piece of trash that they're eager to get rid of. Then again, you don't even see R51s around here.
April 24, 2020, 01:09 PM
WaterburyBob
quote:
Originally posted by Dwill104:
That was an epic fail. Got me thinking, what are some other guns made by a well known gun brand that were so heavily hyped and turned out to be horrible, such that they were quickly discontinued?

The S&W Sigma wasn't too much of a success.



"If Gun Control worked, Chicago would look like Mayberry, not Thunderdome" - Cam Edwards
April 24, 2020, 02:13 PM
parabellum
Oh, the Sigma. The kindest thing I can say is that the later ones are less crappy than the earlier ones.

Our intrepid shooter is more magnanimous towards the Smegma, proclaiming it a real value, if you can get used to that trigger.


June 18, 2022, 04:01 PM
BBMW
Why am I reanimating a dead thread about a dead turd of a gun? Because someone bought one and tested it. I thought someone might get some entertainment value out of this. And, yes, it's still a turd. It seems like the shell of Remington that went through bankruptcy had nearly entirely gotten out of the handgun business (they still have one 1911 model on the website.) I guess we don't have to wonder why.


June 18, 2022, 04:28 PM
cas
Well they absorbed Para USA and killed the brand. Can't say that was a great loss to the shooting world. They have the tooling and the people, might as well make a couple 1911's if someone will buy them. I sure wouldn't.

Though I said that about Para, and against my better judgment bought one anyway, with my fingers crossed and praying the tales of how much better they were now were true. It was pretty. And reliable!! And extremely inaccurate. And shot itself loose in about 450 rounds. Sold it with full disclosure and about a $650 loss.

It's a shame what the once great company with once great products became, but it's kind of a step by step history guide of failure in american manufacturing in general.
June 18, 2022, 05:53 PM
Fredward
Guys, the Remington responsible for that crap gun and the poor quality that went with that era is gone. I've seen a number of 870's out now, and the fit and finish is very good, and I'm told they function like the originals. AFAIK, that shotgun is the first but they're going slowly to maintain quality. And I've had several boxes of their new ammunition that works well. It looks like they may be coming around.
June 20, 2022, 11:56 AM
reloader-1
quote:
Originally posted by Fredward:
Guys, the Remington responsible for that crap gun and the poor quality that went with that era is gone. I've seen a number of 870's out now, and the fit and finish is very good, and I'm told they function like the originals. AFAIK, that shotgun is the first but they're going slowly to maintain quality. And I've had several boxes of their new ammunition that works well. It looks like they may be coming around.


Two very separate companies, Fredward.

Vista Outdoors (CCI/Federal/Speer) bought the Remington ammunition business, and Roundhill, an investment group, bought Remington Arms.

Great to hear the ammo is good, but given the manufacturer that makes sense. It has no bearing on the firearms labeled “Remington”.
June 21, 2022, 07:10 AM
monoblok
Yup. Split up identities. Multiple personalities. The ammo side is financially solid. The arms side is still TBD. The post rebirth 870s that have come through the shop have so far been a mixed bag when it comes to fit and finish. The walnut stock variants have to date shown that New Remington needs to work on their woodworking and butt joining eyeballing skill. The actions are still relatively smooth-operating compared to their comparable Texas nemesis Mossberg's pump shotguns, but so were the Freedom Grope 870s, and more than a scant few of those didn't operate and function quite so well as historic 870s.

As for the R51, New Remington (supposedly) isn't making those anymore, or any of the pistol designs that were developed during the Cerberus Capital years both during and after the Freedom Group lunacy. What we ARE waiting for is the venerable Model 700 to finally make a return. As good as the alternatives are, it would be properly nice to be able to buy a new production, actual Remington action instead of a Howa, Christensen or any of the many boutique 700 receivers out in the wild.


-MG
June 22, 2022, 02:56 AM
lechiffre
quote:
Originally posted by Fenris:
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


I had a few different colored ones of those, and a rifle version.

I also had one that actually resembled the Star Trek Phaser, and one styled after the Space 1999 dart gun.




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June 26, 2022, 11:13 AM
VictorLouis
I know of at least three LGS here in Phoenix right now with an R51 in the case. Shameful.
June 26, 2022, 11:23 AM
Lefty Sig
^^^^ I got the Star Trek phaser looking set for Christmas around 1977. I was 5 years old. The little flying discs ended up all over the place.
June 28, 2022, 04:24 PM
wrightd
I shot my sister in the thigh with one of those. She turned me over to mom, mom told dad, dad delt with me, and she certainly enjoyed me paying the price. She knew how to stay out of trouble while constantly setting me up on charges. It didn't matter if I was guilty or not, if she said it, I got it. So the lesson here is don't shoot wimmins with toy projectiles.




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