Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Remington trigger lawsuits still happening

A major problem is that people fail to realize big companies look at lawsuits very pragmatically... if they MIGHT lose they are willing to pay something to reduce that POTENTIAL loss. Paying to limit their liability is a good business decision, though often a horrible publicity problem.

The triggers are a prime example. Here we have shooters that claim a high degree of understanding, yet they bought into ridiculously cheap ploys, like the military issues with failures... they did not happen, yet idiots bought into a horribly biased TV special without bothering to check any facts!

Those idiots are a MAJOR problem to gun owners everywhere! They claim expertise while lacking any real deductive ability whatsoever. They buy into propaganda and easily convince less-informed individuals of their expertise.

Divide and conquer has only worked for millennia.

I personally ran a number of tests in extreme cold weather with most brands of rifle triggers several years ago. Remarkably, all responded very similarly to water spray tests in cold weather. As they did when subjected to high humidity and cycling temps.

After a while I got the idea the designers probably spent a bunch of time thinking up better tests and I was simply trailing them.

But I had some classes in math and statistics... Any gambler would lay big money that Physics trumps question marks. No disrespect intended and I fully appreciate your bias, but I also have to look at things from a very basic perspective and eliminate all static and noise until I can determine it is not just static and noise.

The odds of no trigger involvement in two issues is extremely narrow. It goes to far more than an order of magnitude to assume two events. Using Rock Chuck's claim of less than one in a thousand, which is generous by the results of Jack Belk, means your odds of two such events run to far less than one in a million.

Look at all of the 700s out there and the small number of claims... and the number of times each 700 was cycled without an issue...

Tilting at windmills would be better odds.

Yup, junk and jokes...

And why virtually every aftermarket manufacturer makes interchangeable parts for the 700.

As I mentioned a post or two ago... I tested a bunch of different action/trigger combos a couple years ago... None acted particularly different under conditions as nearly identical as I could make them... Model 70s of every era froze just as solidly as 700s... as did 77s and several others. It was so boringly "the same" I did not bother to write anything about it. I had no model to point out as horrible and none to claim as "the best."

All I can add is in over 40 years of owning the model 700 model rifle it has yet to fail and I even lightened the trigger pull and in not only 47 or so years of range using and hunting with friends I have never had, seen nor heard anyone tell me of having any issues with the trigger.
So who knows, maybe in all that time I have been lucky.

The older Remington triggers did lock the bolt down and you had to take the safety off to work the bolt. It was changed on the later ones but I do not have a date. miles

Sitka,

FWIW both times the guns had been put on safe and had the triggers pulled to confirm they were on safe. My dad did this as a rule, and I got the habit from him. Neither gun had been altered in any way; the triggers were untouched after leaving the factory. There were no fingers in contact with the triggers when the safeties were moved off.

I realize the odds, but Ive been around odds and statistics all my life. Sometimes the monkeys do end up writing King Lear.

I don't hate 700s, and they are a great platform. I've been spooked personally, however.

about 1983 IIRC

Bruce
Ain't nothing worse than being forced to run something you have no faith in...

And as I have probably proven, I have no issues with you and I not agreeing, and have absolutely no issue with agreeing to disagree.

If you said something against my father I would have already paid the hitman to take you out!

Rock on!
art

News flash...people are still slipping, and falling, at Walmart too.

There are about 5,000,000 model 700's, 7's 721's etc out there with the flawed trigger design. By Remington's own estimates roughly 1% have the potential to do this. That leaves 50,000 rifles that may discharge on their own. There have been somewhere between 5000-10,000 documented incidents. That means somewhere between 99.999% and 99.998% of all of these guns have never discharged on their own, or if they did there was no documentation.

It is no wonder that most shooters have not experienced this and have a difficult time accepting it is real. But 10,000 incidents over 60 years is not something to dismiss. If the airline industry only had 99.999% of its flights not crash we would have 1-2 major airlines crashing each day and after a couple of days no one would fly. But those odds seem perfectly acceptable to some gun owners.

Any gun with an improperly adjusted trigger could discharge unintentionally. But no other gun company is being accused of having brand new, perfectly clean, unmodified guns discharge with no pull of the trigger. That has happened to an awful lot of Remingtons. There is either a Remington problem, or Remington owners are the dumbest gun owners on the planet. I don't believe it is the latter.

That was in the 70`s.

[quote=luv2safari]Sitka,

FWIW both times the guns had been put on safe and had the triggers pulled to confirm they were on safe. My dad did this as a rule, and I got the habit from him.






DUH.You better unlearn that bad habit.What if there was a round in the chamber and it was not on safe???Hows about storing them with the bolt out.No confirmation needed.

Correct, and WHY did they discontinue the locking bolt issue with the safety on ? To reduce the chances of the faulty safety design of going "off safe" in order to unlock the bolt and remove a round from the chamber. That is why ONLY on Remingtons can one open the bolt with the safety fully engaged. Except of course in the Model 70 where they have the THREE position safety which is what I prefer. There's a reason as to why there is an entire cottage industry built around 700s. Safeties, extractors, triggers, etc. I really like my 22-250 heavy barreled SS Varmint 700, but the safety might as well be window dressing. I don't trust it so I don't use it.

About 10 years ago, my dad had this failure occur with his late 1970's vintage BDL. There was no AD involved. He was getting a rifle out of the back of the safe and had to remove multiple guns to get to it. Prior to returning his 700 back to the gun safe, he cycled the bolt a couple of times, whereupon the firing pin was dropping each time he closed the bolt. This had never happened to him before out in the field. The rifle was unloaded, so again, no AD. Obviously alarmed, he called to tell me about the problem, since I was always the official "gun guy" in the family. I initially thought he had to be touching the trigger for this to happen, but he told me it was happening each time the bolt was closed, and he was always a very safety-conscious shooter.

I inspected the rifle, and sure enough, the firing pin was indeed dropping into fired position as the bolt was closed, though it wasn't happening every time for me; I was able to get it to remain cocked about half the time. My dad had never tampered with the trigger. In fact, I doubt he'd ever removed the action from the stock, as he was not a tinkerer and didn't know how to adjust the trigger. When I removed the action from the stock and inspected the trigger, I saw the cause of the problem. Years of old oil residue and gunk had built up between the trigger assy side plates and the sear lever. As a result, the sear spring barely had enough force to return the sear lever back up into reset position, so the cocking piece would ride the cocking cam down as the bolt closed. I fixed the problem by simply flushing all the crud out of the trigger assy with lighter fluid. Even though I demonstrated to my dad that it worked again, he didn't trust the old trigger anymore, so I replaced it with a newer take-off trigger from one of my 700s where I'd replaced with a Jewell unit. There hasn't been a problem since.

My dad was the type of guy who for years sprayed down his guns liberally with WD-40. The 700 trigger, and any similar fully enclosed unit has very little clearance between the trigger and sear levers and the side plates. Oil can easily run down into the assembly and remain to collect sand and other debris, or to solidify over time. If oil varnish, debris collected by the oil, or corrosion builds up between the moving parts and the side plates, the sludge can slow down the movement of the sear back into cocked position or prevent reset altogether, with or without the dreaded connector. With any fully enclosed trigger assy, it's a good idea not to squirt lots of thick oil inside the works. Jewell warns against this in their instructions, in fact.

I don't believe this is a "design flaw" or a problem unique to the Remington trigger. I can see this same issue happen with any fully enclosed trigger where the parts move closely against the housing. You gotta keep it clean and free from crud buildup.

I believe "open" trigger designs like the previous generation M70 are slightly more reliable for this reason. Gunk simply cannot gum up the works of an open design, because there's nowhere for gunk to get trapped. I still prefer the Rem 700 trigger design, however.

Whether or not this is viewed as a "flaw," whether the source of the problem is operator error or legit mechanical failure, and regardless of the rarity of occurrence, as long as one always practices safe muzzle control, a tragedy can never result.

and getting burned by HOT COFFEE at McDonalds......

IF you followed this at all it was back in 1967, and I was a young guy. You might learn some manners. No confirmation needed. DUH...

The guns were put on safe, then the safety was checked. There was some logic to this as a safety factor. The guns were always pointed in a safe direction. It was the case that my dad didn't completely trust safeties. He had a very old double shotgun as a kid that had a bad safety.

Also, how the hell does anyone hunt with the bolt removed and stored somewhere else? Where did BOLTS enter into this?

OK...grab at straws now.

If one don't trust safeties, why would one use/depend on one? Meaning, why would one hunt with one in the chamber?

I have had 1 of the 700 rem rifles,got in 1977.
It has never done anything like this and it got cleaned before it was ever fired.
The trigger group was flushed out with cleaner to get any/all of the lube out.
It has been put up for about 15 years and it will be cleaned again before it is put out in the field.
When it was put up the firing pin was let down to rest on an empty chamber and i had removed the bolt block from the safety.

I like it even thou it is chambered in 270!

It's all about lawyers and easy money. Same ole [bleep] different day.

Oh ,all the way back to 1967.I always have manners for my elders and you aint one of them.All that proves is you were stupid far longer than I can imagine.What Jorge says is true ,I do not use a safety as I do not chamber a round until I see game and am ready to shoot.If I do not shoot I pull the round.I hope I am never hunting within 100 miles from you!!!