Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Well, it turns out Remington's new R51 is a gigantic turd.

Just horrible reviews coming in - the worst I can remember for a big name gun from a major manufacturer. They're having pretty much every problem you can have with a pistol. It's too bad, I was going to buy one and give it a shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzS4sQfn4U

I never liked the looks of the old ones and the new ones look worse. I didn't think it was a good idea. Looks like I was right.

and you expected what from Ram it in....

From what I've seen from Remington over the last ten years or so I cannot help but wonder WTH is goin' on in that company?? Are the bean-counters in such control that quality is pushed to the bottom of the list of goals?

It's really too bad. For decades, Remington was producing very good firearms.

Took that guy 30 minutes to say something was a POS.


Travis

What a piece of junk.

Now I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but to me it's not a Pederson gun.

It's not all steel. It's made out of space age materials which is probably a major reason for the problems.

It fires a cartridge it was never designed to fire.

And last but not least there's little to no hand fitting. All designs of the first fifty years of the 1900's require proper hand fitting to work. Even brand new 1911's made on CNC machines still need hand fitting to work properly. That's just the way it is with early 1900 designs.

have always been a fan of the Pederson design, almost bought one of the 51's, glad I held up!

Retail is $450 ???? WTF !!
My CZ 82 only ran $150 and has been perfect.

It's owned by a leveraged investment company...........worst of all worlds as far as managing a business goes.

MM

The newest 700 I have seen shot sub-MOA to 500+ yards.

So they must still be doing something right.



Travis

That maybe more of the problem than anything.

yep, I have a 700P thats about 4 yrs old now. Never had a rifle that's as consistently accurate as that piece o' junk recent manufacture remington.

"Well, it turns out Remington's new R51 is a gigantic turd"

I suppose I'd refer to it as a compact and ergonomically pleasing turd. You can't have it all.....

Like Travis said, at least they have the 700. Could probably lump the 870 in there too.

I just got a chance to see it and all I can say is YIKES! Take a look at 7:20 seconds in, when shooting it there is an issue with bulged cases???? Issues with double-feeding and the slide not coming all the way forward?

That is not waht I expect from Big Green. Lorcin or Ho-Point maybe, but not Big Green

I have no complaints with any of my 700's either & 2 of those were made since the current owners took over.

Remington was historically run by a lot of genuine, hands on gun people, like Mike Walker, for example...........all that is gone now for the most part & the owners are investment bankers with a different view of the business.

I'm sure there are still lots of good, dedicated holdover workers & technical people from when Remington was the old company, not owned by Cerberus, but I guarantee you from experience, that when investment people buy a business that the view of the goals & performance of that business changes.

It also tends to have a major impact of how capital is invested & how R&D is done; also the view of the people doing the marketing usually changes from "what used to be" to "how it will be from now on".

The goal with most investment banker / group owned companies is to attempt to buy low, increase short term sales & flip the business at a significant profit.........sometimes the businesses are made better by the process, but, unfortunately, most times it is not.

MM

+1

I have two old Remington firearms. Got both of them new about 30 years ago. M700 / 30-06 and M870 / 12 ga. Both guns have seen a lot of use over the years and never had one problem.

DFE - thanks for posting the link. That was about the most professional and unbiased test report I've seen on anything. I'll have to check out some of his other videos.

So - that's pretty disappointing. I think I disagree with the reviewer on his point that the Pederson action was a bad choice, based on this test. It looks to me like the design may be fine, but the execution is lacking. It may all come down to QC and spring rate choices. I do think Remington made a bad call in trying to focus on "easier manipulation" - they should have just gone for reliability and simple operation.

I still think it might be a great gun with some refinement and good QC - IF it doesn't turn out that 9mm pressures are too much for the Pederson action of that size in the long term. I hope Remington puts their collective nose to the grindstone and quickly rectifies the problems. If doing so (successfully) bumps the price up a bit, it would still be worth it.

Wow. What a piece of crap!

look what they have done with marlin. is it any wonder this thing is a POS? and from what i heard their 1911 is a POS too. the 700/870 line is probably mature so its safe but the new stuff is apparently crap.

Don't know how much of it is "space age" - but if any part of the camming action is being handled by aluminum, I think that may be a problem.

I would have preferred to see an all-steel pistol - but in today's market, that seems to be viewed as unacceptable by most.

Egads and here I am considering a DPMS!

Guess I won't be trading in my under-powered Walther .380 any time soon. It is completely reliable.

A few more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TSZmkJMBBk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEAr9TJ51M

It's crazy to me how many different issues this thing is having. Front site. Rear site. Grips. Springs. Double feeds. Firing out of battery. Misfires. Bulging cases. Slide stop issues. Triggers failing.

How does a company like Remington put out such a pile of crap? I don't know that there's any part of this gun that is working correctly.

Interesting. I wonder if Remington will redesign the R51. It is interesting they chose a high power round for a gun that originally was designed for low power rounds.

I don't see the point of the pistol, ITS TOO FREAKING HEAVY!!!! its heavier than a glock 26 and the shield, I really just don't see the point of the gun.

Being heavy compared to a Glock is only a problem for some people. Misfires, misfeeds, and other malfunctions are a problem for everybody.

Does anybody know if these pistols are actually produced by Remington - or if they are contracted to some other maker?

Tag

They are made by Para Ordinance now a part of the Remington consortium.

It appears to be a poorly designed and finished pistol.

I wouldn't

DPMS & Bushmaster used to make really nice guns, they have both gone downhill since Remington took them over

Quality improved immensely when Cerberus took over. The crap Remington was putting out in the 2003-2006 time frame was deplorable.

They may indeed have backslid again, it is a bunch of Union New Yorker's after all, but they did make some positive changes when they first took over.

I just watched the video.....seems the majority of the issues are the gun not going into battery fully, possibly firing out of battery, and light primer strikes....maybe it just needs stiffer springs to fix the majority of the problems.....still Remingtons are pieces of schitt

Definitely not ready for prime time.

Too bad Sig doesn't beef up the P230 design a bit and make it 9mm. That would be everything the new R51 was intended to be.

I can't get past how ugly it is.

Sounds about right coming from Remington. Actually, wouldn't expect anything less.

That is a nice gun as I've had a chance to handle one although not shoot one.

I'm not mechanical engineer nor do I play one on TV but from what I understand that type of design does not lend itself to high power or high performance rounds.

Not necessarily:

X-Mark Pro trigger problem prompts major recall of Remington Model 700 and Model 7 rifles

http://blogs.militarytimes.com/gear...-remington-model-700-and-model-7-rifles/

Due to its being a simple blow back action. They would need to address that.

He was very thorough in demonstrating Remington has effectively managed to chamber a turd for the 9mm Luger cartridge

That appears to be the major problem with R51 it's a simple blow back trying to handle a high powered round. One of those earlier videos explained that.

It's not a simple blow-back. It's the Pederson action. There is a mechanical delay in the unlock, but it's done differently than the Browning design. The only delay with a blow-back is from the case expanding against the chamber. Big difference.

For the Sig 230 to run well with 9mm, it would have to look more like a Hi-Point.

Sig P230 is my small carry pistol. Even in wimpy 380 comfiguration I love mine and will not part with it. Even my old FEG PA-63 is an pure slice of awesomeness compared to the R51.

I bought a new Rem. 700 budget model in .308 two years ago, shoots well. What is weird about it is that the chamber has some burrs that scratch the case, I had a late war Jap rifle that did that, and it went away after some use. So I am just waiting to shoot the Remi enough for the scratching to stop. The tag on the Rem. 700 said it was a X-Mark trigger, but it was one of the older types in reality. I took the action off of the stock to lighten the trigger as it was too heavy from the factory.

Surprised that Remington would come out with a new semi-auto pistol as the market is pretty well saturated.

Thanks for clearing that up Free Me.

I bought an R5 the highly touted target rifle that would not shoot 6" groups at 100 yds. With any ammo, any shooter, any scope. Turns out the barrel was bent and the dealer refunded me my money.