Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Remington's In-Depth Response to CNBC Under Fire

Not trying to sound condescending, but in my 40+ years of shooting and hunting, it never occurred to me to carry a rifle with safe on OR off with a round in front of the firing pin while in a sling upside down behind my back. That defies several safety procedures that I practice every time I even pick up a firearm.

Jorge,

I understand what you are saying about Remington trying to get rid of their legal liability, but on an engineered product, I expect some redundant safety equipment if possible, and on a firearm, it is feasible to put a mechanical safety. I don't know if you're an engineer, but as a naval aviator, you certainly have some knowledge of engineering from being knowledgeable about the planes you flew, and I'm sure you appreciated redundancy for safety even if you never had to rely on a redundant system for safety reasons. There is no good reason that Remington can't design and produce a trigger/safety mechanism that is safe and works as designed. They also should be able to set the triggers to a setting of 3 to 4 pounds when they leave the factory so people aren't tempted to mess with the trigger settings.

Maybe if Rick Jamison were the one to sue Remington, some people would change their mind about the merits of the case?

hey, I am the guilty party... and I agree with you a 100%... not one of the more intelligent things on my resume...

Meant no offence, it's not like I never did anything stupid...I only had one accidental discharge, thankfully. It was on a hair trigger TC Hawken. Dang sure learned not to touch the set trigger until actually aiming at the intended target. Scared the crap out of me AND my dog....Marty

Well, I'm not a Remington hater. I kind of like the feel of a 700 BDL. The Classic ain't bad either. Never had one discharge unless I commanded it to do so by pulling the trigger. I'm sure not gonna say it'll never happen. After all, triggers and safeties are mechanical things and mechnical things can fail.
My only involvement with the 700's trigger was when I lived in Nevada. My neigher brought ove a 700 ADL in .270 Win. and said that his couson was taking it out of the camper shell on his truck and it went off shooting his wife in both knees. I'm still figuring out how in the hell that happened but no matter. he asked me to see if there was anything wrong with the gun and to be honest I found nothing wrong. Never could make it go bang other than by the normal manner of pulling the trigger. I decided to try something and we set up the gun with a cartridge case loaded only with a primer. We had the guy show us how and where the rifle was in the truck and had him show us just how he removed the gun to unload it prior to putting it away. Sure as hell as he pulled the rifle from the case, he automatically removed the gun from safe and had his finger on the trigger. The very load snap of the primer going off was a surprise as we didn't tell him one was there. It does make me wonder about at least some of those ADs with Remingtons. I don't hate them but I much prefer 98 Mausers and Pre-FN winchesters of any type, be they push feed or controlled feed. I don't think I'll be seling off any of my Remingtons any time soon.
Paul B.

ST:

I didn't take it as any type of offense... you made a very good point...as I said, my old man taught me to carry one that way...as he said if one went off it could hit an aircraft...He was in the Air Force, but never really explained why he felt that way, or he had known of a bad experience...

of course being around AF Bases, there were lots of planes in the sky... where this happened in nothern MN, not so much..

Seafire, give it to the opposing attorney's as they can't seem to make any of the accused rifles fire in the safe position.

It's all operator error and internet stories until you see it happen on the firing line during a class at Camp Ripley with an unmodified rifle.

Then you quickly flush the kool-aid out of your system and the scales fall off of your eyes.

I have both knowledge and experience with this whoop te do.

I got a Remington M721 as my first rifle in the 50s, and it came with the Walker trigger. I only learned years later about who did the design and its handling at Remington. I learned that the split sear was developed and introduced so the Walker trigger design would not run afoul of another trigger patent. Mike Walker knew about the possibility of the trigger connector hanging up and allowing the rifle to fire on safety manipulation (usually safety release but not always). He came up with a fix, but Remington chose not to incorporate that 40 cent IIRC modification. The Walker trigger was also continued in the Model 700 when that design replaced the 721/722/725. A contemporaneous Remington internal memorandum documented that 1% of 700 rifles tested at the factory could be "tricked" into firing (Remington's term). Remington kept the Walker trigger in service until replaced by the XMarkPro "Fire Control Group" in the last few years. Remington also had a ferocious group of lawyers working for them.

I still had my M721, and bought a new M700 7mm RM BDL in 1972. I took it on an Idaho deer hunt and that rifle fired when I operated the safety. As a result of my training I had the muzzle in a safe direction. For the rest of the hunt I loaded only the magazine and loaded to fire only (I did shoot my first Rocky Mountain mule deer on that hunt).

After that happening I started paying attention to the Remington trigger story, and replaced my Walker triggers with a Canjar in the M721 and a Neil Jones modified trigger in a subsequent M700 that I swapped to a friend who wanted the action for its magnum head size for a target rifle he was building. He swapped me a .30-'06 head size rifle that is now a 6.5-'06 with the Neil Jones trigger. I still have the original Walker trigger in my collection.

Along the years I have met a few of the principals involved, and even interviewed Jack Belk. Remington sent me one of their XMark triggers when they introduced it, and I do like this trigger (better materials, no split sear, etc.). I didn't do any unauthorized maintenance or modification on my rifles and kept them up. I know several of the experts in this video too. I guess I could be an expert too, I own a briefcase and am from more than 50 miles away.

Ramblin': no issues with what you wrote whatsoever. Given the continuing stories here about Remingtons, I can assure you, I'll never own another. Yes mechanical things fail and one should always practice safety, but I see nothing wrong with hunting with a hot chamber. Hell with a double you are forced to hunt that way unless you own one of the new Blasers or Krieghoffs. I've never had an issue or for that matter read about any other rifle with issues like Remington's. Add the brazed bolt handles and flimsy sheet metal extractors and well, there's just no way I'll own one/ jorge

Oh, now come on SU35, you been drinking that koolaid that I am accused of drinking? LOL

At age 59, guess I have just been lucky.

I only have one issue, no one has ever repeated it in court, and did you see the lousy condition those rifles were in?

Well put goalie, now how does good information and fact get through to those who make up their minds based on unfounded beliefs that this is all hogwash? People who arrive at and defend positions like this do it on everything in their lives, especially politics. They make up their minds something is bull and that's that, you will never change their minds.

as a species we would be extinct if we had to rely on this type of collective mentality's instinct, because to say it is faulty is being really nice.

The list of arguments used by those who defend Remington looks like the moron's list of lamest excuses and BS. One of my favorites, "the experts couldn't get one to misfire on the stand", so it can't happen?

So as I've posted I saw it firsthand and didn't really think that much until this controversy came up, I like Remingtons and have had a slew of them. Try arguing that it's real with someone who says it isn't, it's an argument that will never go anywhere against someone who has made up their mind.

Any given political argument is the same exact thing, you can be well versed and chock full of supporting facts and documentation but that matters not to someone who makes up his mind based on a different set of beliefs not based on any tangible facts. All facts and reality are part of the collective BS in this person's minds, they lost the ability to distinguish between fact and unsupported rhetorical positions.

People who can't sort fact from fiction on a simple issue like this, those who are prone to picking a side of the argument and believing it's some sort of conspiracy to bring down an arms manufacturer, are the problem that has this country in such a mess. They are prone to backing the wrong side for all the wrong reasons on most everything.

That's just the way it is, one issue is the same as another, why would this type of person be any more likely to be right about anything else as they were about this?

Heck, half the people responding to this topic are still in the Remington camp and think they are right, they have no personal experience with a misfire yest they are going to denounce everyone else who did.

What do you call this, give it a name.

I'm in the Remington camp, and have LOTs of experience with their misfires. They all had one thing in common, an idiot... either behind the trigger or behind the screwdriver.

Yep....never had one do it to me with a factory set trigger. Have owned several from the early 70's on....

Have had the same thing with a Mini MkX Mauser that was set too light by a "smith"....

So, when an officer shows up with their new duty-issued rifle, and the instructors have to mount the scope, bore sight it, and show the guy how it works, I am to believe that, while he didn't even put the scope on himself due to inexperience, he not only messed with the trigger, but then lied about it when it had (repeatable) issues with firing upon manipulation of the safety?

I'm not buying it. Sorry.

And I did drink the Remington kool-aid in the Corps. The M40 was allegedly the best thing since sliced bread, and who was I to tell the STA guys that it wasn't????

I posted my experiences. That's where an opinion comes from. That some believe otherwise doesn't hurt my feelings in the least.

Actually, you posted a lack of experience. You have never experienced a factory stock trigger going "BANG" when the safety was manipulated. IMO, that is a good thing.
Some other people have. I am, unfortunately, one of them.

I personally don't have any idea what it takes to make that specific trigger do that, and I don't know how common it is. I don't know whether or not just shooting the rifle and not cleaning it can do it, or whether it has to do with the moon's cycle and the tides. I just know it scared the [bleep] out of me.


FWIW, my feelings are not hurt either.

I never said that an idiot couldn't adjust them at Remington either. Even so, that's a human error, not mechanical.

Hell everyone knows guns kill people, people don't kill people.....