R 51

RM380 is fantastic. Considering they were ~$1k previous to Remington buying the company and Remington actually improving the design . . . and now you can get one for less than $200. I paid ~$315 wholesale for my RM380 a couple of years ago and love it. I feel better feeding it a steady diet of .380ACP Black Hills Honey Badgers than my original Remington 51's.
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Ok, due to the rebates I decided to give Remington's R51 a try. So wanted to shoot it today and watched the excellent Remington video on taking it down and putting it back together. And after two hours of attempting to get the slide stop pin back in, I'm giving up. I'm pretty much done with Remington and this baby is going on the market as soon as I get it back together, another day. Anybody have a trick? I know the rest of the assembly is right and the barrel is aligned but can't get that pin to seat.


Update: got it back in, don't know how but finally in. Pushing down on the barrel from the ejection port seemed to jiggle something just right.
 
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Once Freedom Group purchased Remington, I was done with the brand. Freedom group has ruined every company they have purchased.


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Disassembly and re-Assembly of the R51 and RM380 are different, but no big deal. If you can't field strip and re-assemble either with ease after a couple of times you are just not trying.
 
Cocknbama, So solly hope you have the opportunity to shoot the R 51 soon, mine is a pleasure. As far as takedown and reassembly it is no big deal unless you have arthritic hands such as i do then reassembly requires additional effort but not impossible. Over all i like the way the pistol shoots, certainly accurate enough for personal defense. Looks are a bit different but it is very anti snag in design...i will keep mine and continue to purchase Remington products as long as they make them of the quallity of my R1, RM 380 and R51 pistols.
 
Well so much for Remington and customer service. Tried for over 30 mins and could not get anyone to pick up the phone!
 
Chrisp51, I read another article (don't have link, sorry) that Remington was likely to have furlough days for its workers. Maybe the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend was just such a day.

In other words, there might not have been anybody there to actually pick up the phone.

A buddy just bought the RM380 from CDNN to take advantage of the rebate. While I didn't fire it, I did examine and did dry-fire it. I am impressed. Kinda wish I had done the same.

Bart Noir
 
Following this thread got me to take mine out yesterday to run a couple of boxes to check accuracy. I found that if I covered the bullseye with the front sight instead of my normal 6 oclock hold, the point of impact was pretty much dead on at 20ft. I also decided to use some pliers with padded jaws to hold the barrel when field stripping instead of relying on my fingers. Much easier to strip and reassemble. Ran fine with a box of 147 Bayou coated bullets and another box of 124 JHP's from Precision. It's not my favorite 9, which is my P7, but it will do for carry and much more easily sacrificed if something unexpected happens.
 
I have a new friend. May become a regular buddy.

Last night I finally got to a range with the R 51, and was pleased with it. There were hiccups. The first time I charged it, using a full seven-round mag, the top cartridge hung up on the ramp. Cleared the stoppage, reloaded full mag and used the slide release instead of pulling the slide back, and the pistol functioned perfectly for the next 80 or so rounds.

Those 80 rds included roughly 30 rds of the Browning 115 gr ammo, then a full box of 50 Federal RTP 115 gr. I then started back on the remaining ammo in the Browning box, and had one additional failure to feed, again with the first round of a full magazine. I don't know whether these failures were in the same mag, or not. Last two mag loads worked fine.

Accuracy at 7 yards was 2", so I moved out to 15 yards and stayed in 4" groups except when I clearly goofed up. It was the first time with any pistol in about three months.

I'm happy, and convinced the little Rem is a keeper.
 
There were hiccups.
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And that's why, as much as I'd like to, I just can't get on board with the R51 (or really any Remington products at this point).

It's easy to say that any pistol can have problems, or need a break-in period, but the fact is that I've had so many pistols over the years that have just run flawlessly out-of-the-box. Walthers, Glocks, SIGs, S&Ws, Colts, Rugers, and even Kahrs (whose manual claims they need a break-in, but have always run great for me).

I wanted an R51 because it was unique and interesting, but I can buy surplus pistols that are interesting and still operate flawlessly (Makarovs, CZ82s, etc.).

And yet almost every user review you read of R51s involves "hiccups" or "bobbles."

I just don't have time for that anymore.
 
^ if there was a like button I’d use it. I don’t care how much of a rebate comes with a firearm, if that firearm is unreliable then it is essentially a very expensive paperweight to me when I knowingly have firearms that work. Too many reviews of these pistols that I’ve read essentially have asterisks when it comes to performance ratings.


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Finally got to talk with Remington and told them the story. They are sending me a return authorization packet. I will let you know how things turn out.
 
Not arguing with you folks. Not trying to convince anyone to like my pistol.

But I like it.

I've had hiccups with a Gold Cup, a Dan Wesson Pointman and several AR's, and every one of those became, over time, weapons I was glad to carry.

Y'all make your decisions. I'll make mine. We all will probably be as happy as we choose to be.
 
Never tried to insinuate that you weren’t allowed to like it or make your own decisions. Was simply sharing my own thoughts.


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Have I said this before? I like my R 51 it shoots well and allows me to talk about it with all sorts of folks who are down on the pistol or Remington but have never owned or fired one. CockNBama, I love your comment on making your own decisions, so often these posts begin with persons asking responders to make decisions for them....are we not all adults?
 
I love your comment on making your own decisions, so often these posts begin with persons asking responders to make decisions for them....are we not all adults?
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Absolutely. We have more firearm choices than ever before, and all of us in free states are (for the moment) able to make (most of) our own decisions.

I just choose to hand over my hard-earned money to companies who have a track record for producing reliable and well-made products rather than to those who are clearly not willing to put the required R&D and manufacturing QC/QA into their products before dumping them onto the market. Personally, I feel that companies like these are only marketing to the folks who see something in an big box store and buy it without doing any prior research.

It's just a personal risk assessment of my own. Others are welcome to do as they please.
 
Got the package from Remington to return the R51. It did not come with a prepaid label I have to call Remington to schedule a pick-up. The address it will be sent to is a gunsmith in Huntsville Alabama by the name of Heinrich. Kinda disappointed that it is not going back to the factory. I know they have this huge facility in Huntsville (saw it on one of Tom Gresham's shows) so why is it going to a local gunshop? Story keeps getting stranger. The letter they sent with the package did not accurately describe the problems I told them about so I added my own comments to the material going to the gunsmith. Will let you know what happens.
 
We had a member on here post about sending his R1 back for service and it too went to a local gunsmith rather than the factory. I believe Remington told him at the time that they didn't have the capacity to fix it in house, but I'd have to find and check the thread to be sure.
 
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