Rem 700 on CNN...BS?

B

Big Dog Dad

New member
I watched a CNN program on the Rem 700 last night about the number of people that have been killed or injured by the problem with the 700 safety and discharges. I only have one 700 in 308 with the sniper stock and barrel. Has anyone had any problems with discharges when the safety has been flicked off?

-=BDD=-
 
I have a 35 year old 700 and two that I bought in the last 7 or 8 years. Never had a problem with any of them other than shooting the barrel out on a 22-250.
 
This issue has been happening for a long time tho Remington denies a problem with 700 models.
There have been more than a few deaths attributed to the 700 safety & even the Remington employee that designed the safety wanted the system modified soon after the 700 was marketed in about 1961.
Currently there is a recall on later manufacture 700s concerning the safety.
Long ago I owned a 700 ADL in .222 Rem. mag & at the range, off the bench the rifle discharged when I flicked the safety to "off".
After that I carried the rifle uncocked, empty chamber, till ready to shoot.
It was a varmint rifle so that wasn't a problem.
I have a 700 tactical .308 that qualifies for the recall but I'm not going to send the rifle back. I'll replace the safety with a Timney aftr market unit.
Rem. 700s can indeed be very dangerous due to the design of the safety.
The military used the 700 as a sniper rifle & reports several A.D. when taking the safety off.
 
A common problem well known since the 1940's. Estimates range from 5000-10,000 rifles returned to Remington for this problem in the last 60 years. And yes, I have a rifle that has done it. Remington's own engineers discovered the problem in 1946 and drew up plans for a different trigger. Management chose not to make the change because it would have cost 5 cents more per rifle.

The problem is the unnecessary trigger connector between the trigger and sear. No other trigger has ever used this design. The connector will at times release the sear with no trigger pull. When that happens the safety is the only thing holding back the firing pin. When the safety is moved, the gun fires.

Remington redesigned the safety in 1982 after dozens of lawsuits in the 1970's to make it possible to unload the gun while still on safe. This eliminated a lot of the incidents, but did not address the real issue. The trigger proposed in 1946 to correct the problem was finally adopted in 2006.

Here is a good read explaining what is happening.

http://www.rifflawfirm.com/areas/pdf/remington4.pdf

To add, the current recall is something different, and only effects the new 2006-present trigger. The new trigger is not defective. It was discovered that during assembly some adhesive MAY have dripped into the trigger mechanism and could cause problems. Guns being recalled now are to have the triggers inspected and cleaned if necessary.

Remington refuses to acknowledge any issues with the 1946-2006 triggers.
 
I've seen it happen. Luckily the rifle was pointed the hell away from everyone, like it was supposed to be. Rifle was sent back to Remington and they fixed it.
 
Show on t-v recently where man & wife were hunting. Hubby drops rifle, shots wifie in guts, she dies.
Rem. M-700.
It's a real problem since the 700 was introduced in 1961.
 
I thought that all the guns which people had unintentional discharges were, upon inspection, found to have modified triggers (lightened, or otherwise).

With over 5million 700's produced, what is the actual instance of failure? Military and law enforcement use 700's. I've been around 700s my whole life, never had a family member have this happen, between my friends and I there is about another dozen rem700's that have never had this happen.

Of the people who have had this happen, how many had an untouched, factory trigger?


Edit-if you are worried about an accidental discharge hurting someone, please click on the "Firearm Safety" tab on the top bar of the forum page.
 
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Let’s take a look at some of the objections usually raised whenever this issue comes up:

"It’s an anti-gun conspiracy / CNBC is biased."

Yes, CNBC is biased, and their story contains slanted perspectives and misleading information. What did you expect? However, just because the presentation is biased doesn’t necessarily mean that the core issue isn’t true.

"It must be caused by people fiddling with their trigger adjustments."

No doubt some of the problems are indeed due to improper adjustments. However there are lots of rifles that have adjustable triggers that don’t have anywhere near as many complaints. Something else is going on.

So let's take a look at what it is:

Here's the Remington 700 trigger cocked:





The Remington 700 trigger is a bit unusual in that it uses an extra piece, the trigger connector, to refine the trigger pull. The tiny red area is the engagement between the connector and the sear.

When the trigger is pulled, the connector goes forward and returns to this position:


For this trigger to operate safely it is essential that when the rifle is cocked the trigger connector return 100% to the proper position, pushed there by only the light weight trigger spring.

See the red area between the trigger shoe and the trigger connector when the rifle is uncocked? That's the problem area. Any tiny speck of dirt, rust, ice or other material that gets caught in there will prevent the connector from engaging the sear properly. This can result in the safety keeping the sear from falling instead of the trigger connector. When the safety is released, the gun fires.

With all this in mind, let's take a look at a couple more objections:

“I’ve owned a Remington 700 for forty years and fired thousands of rounds and never had a problem.”

Good for you. This problem doesn’t happen very often, simply because it’s fairly difficult for stuff to work its way into the proper area of the trigger. But this is not a question of a few defective guns; it’s a design weakness that could affect any of the millions of guns with this trigger. If you haven’t had a problem, it’s because nothing has worked its way into your trigger.

Yet.

"This only happens on dirty or neglected guns."

This is more likely to happen on a dirty or neglected gun. However, a tiny seed or a bit of pine needle could make this happen on an otherwise pristine gun.

"There wouldn't be any problem if they followed The Rules of Gun Safety."

True enough. You should always treat your gun as though it could go off at any moment. That doesn't excuse making a rifle that actually does it.
 
I've had this happen on some Remington rifles. I've caused it to happen on some Remington rifles, by turning the adjustment screws.

What bothers me is the assumption that a (or any) mechanism that can malfunction must be a defective design when/if under certain rare conditions, it does.

Hunter Safety has always taught things like "never trust a mechanical safety", something a great many of us took to heart.

perhaps its just the way I look at the language, but I don't necessarily see a mechanism that, when it was later found that it could be improved upon, as having been defective to begin with.

Less than perfect, sure. but defective?

I think a company knowing that there are issues with something not being as good as it could be, knowing there was a fix for that issue, and not doing anything about for decades, is NOT a gun design defect. Might be considered a management defect, though....

On the other side of the coin, GLock advertises it is perfection. If they fail to deliver, is their design defective? or just their advertising? :D
 
I've had this happen on some Remington rifles. I've caused it to happen on some Remington rifles, by turning the adjustment screws.
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You can cause unintended discharges in any adjustable trigger if you try hard enough. However it's happening in Remington's with the Walker trigger a lot more than with other rifles. See my post above.

What bothers me is the assumption that a (or any) mechanism that can malfunction must be a defective design when/if under certain rare conditions, it does.
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It's an interesting point. But the design of the Walker trigger will cause it to fail much more often than other triggers. Enough so that I would say, yes, it is a design defect.

What bothers me is the assumption held by many that somehow a gun manufacturer can't possibly design a defective part. It MUST be caused by the media or operator error.

Hunter Safety has always taught things like "never trust a mechanical safety", something a great many of us took to heart.
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As well you should. Nevertheless, the rifle shouldn't go off when the safety is released. Ever. Again, see my post above.

perhaps its just the way I look at the language, but I don't necessarily see a mechanism that, when it was later found that it could be improved upon, as having been defective to begin with.

Less than perfect, sure. but defective?
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A very good point, and I suspect it's one of the reasons Remington dragged their feet so long. Improving a design is sometimes looked upon as an admission of guilt that the previous design was defective rather than natural evolution of the design.

I think a company knowing that there are issues with something not being as good as it could be, knowing there was a fix for that issue, and not doing anything about for decades, is NOT a gun design defect. Might be considered a management defect, though....
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Couldn't agree more, except for the "might" part. People were talking about problems with the Walker trigger at least 30 years ago. Remington knew there was an issue with it from the start but refused to do anything about it until it blew up in their faces.
 
Improving a design is sometimes looked upon as an admission of guilt that the previous design was defective rather than natural evolution of the design.
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This is the essence of the problem. Particularly that in these days, lawyers don't sometimes look on it as an admission of guilt, they almost ALWAYS do!

A couple of decades (maybe more) ago, I was watching a show about airplane crashes. They interviewed a number of folks, including several in the companies that made planes and the things in them.

One guy they talked to, his company makes magnetos for the engines that go in light planes (Piper, Cessna, etc.).
He said, "whenever a plane with one of our parts in it crashes, we get sued. It doesn't matter why the plane crashed, we still get sued. One time they found a half empty bottle of Jack in the wreck, and the pilot's blood level was 3 times the legal driving limit. We still got sued."

He picked up a device off a shelf, and said, "this is an improved magneto design. Its better than the one we currently make. WE DON"T MAKE THIS! Our lawyers won't let us! They say that if we made the improved model, it would be a de facto admission that our previous product was defective.

And that we would be sued as being responsible for the crash, because our part was "defective". Rather than constantly having to face that in court, and defend against it, we simply do not make the better product."

That attitude, and the legal system that fosters it is the root cause of the problem. We have heard, so many times, over and over how if something isn't as good as absolutely possible, right out of the gate, it is "defective" in design. Its not true (in most cases) but we hear it so much, we have come to accept the idea, and repeat it, without thinking.

There are actually differences between defects, flaws, inadequacies, failures, and malfunctions. The sad thing is how few people know what they are, and what terms are properly applied, when.

Are these people failing to use correct terminology? Or are these people defective?
:rolleyes:
 
Don't have much of a dog in this fight because I'm barely (or hardly) a rifle guy and to put it frankly, I'm absolutely not a Remington guy, no matter what Remington product we're talking about. But I do want to respond to one snippet posted here:
Management chose not to make the change because it would have cost 5 cents more per rifle.
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And I want to interject that I mean no ill-will to the poster that wrote this. I don't know if that's his take or a prepared knee-jerk from the original television news program.

What I want to say is that it both annoys & angers me when something gets reduced to a very tiny, raw number as a method of shocking the end viewer. In this example, it's "five cents more per rifle"

HBO ran a documentary back in the early 90s that was highly acclaimed and showed multiple tales of tragic gun deaths and they used the same tactic. The one I remember most obviously was a teenager who had a friend over and the two of them found Dad's handgun, removed the loaded magazine and one shot the other (or was it himself?) because neither thought to ensure the chamber was emptied. A very, very popular TV show at the time also killed off a secondary character in exactly the same manner in front of MILLIONS of shocked viewers.

The HBO documentary pointed the finger at the gun manufacturer for failing to design and install a magazine disconnector safety which "would have prevented the senseless death" and they whittled the whole thing down to the (almost completely irrelevant) cost of a couple small pieces of metal and a spring.

This kind of nonsense where the material cost of actual metal "five cents more per rifle" is about as accurate as saying that a 3-cent piece of chewed up bubblegum stuffed in to the ignition of my car would have been all that was needed in the world to entirely prevent me from driving in to the path of an oncoming train and getting killed. :rolleyes:

It's not accurate and exists only in the fantasy world where someone is trying to paint the manufacturer as a bloodthirsty organization that not only feeds on the outrageously death of it's human customers, but strives to save even pennies to do precisely that.

As far as I'm concerned, journalism such as that is a waving red flag.

A design change in a product that is built in the thousands, hundreds of thousands or MILLIONS is not going to be a "small five cent" change in any way. Changing the design, the tooling, the materials, the training, god knows what else... on a large scale, we're talking extreme piles of time and money.

I'm not saying that some changes aren't worth the investment, but it's a disservice to a productive conversation on any subject when this amateur yellow journalism tactic is employed.
 
I'm a little surprised this discussion has gone on so long.

The numbers and use of the 700 speak for themselves. The M24, M40, 700P/PSS, plus MILLIONS of privately owned 700's.

But, then again, you can probably believe the media. After all, they also said killer bees would overtake the continental US, Iraq had WMD's, and artificial sweeteners are safe!
 
The HBO documentary pointed the finger at the gun manufacturer for failing to design and install a magazine disconnector safety which "would have prevented the senseless death" and they whittled the whole thing down to the (almost completely irrelevant) cost of a couple small pieces of metal and a spring.
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I get your point, but the Walker trigger problems are not an abstract "coulda, woulda, shoulda" issue viewed with 20-20 hindsight such as the one you describe. Remington knew about the issue in the 40's and DID decide not to do anything about it then. A very different kettle of fish.
 
I was going to start a thread about the Remington recall of Model 700 triggers when I came across this one. I'm interested in how many have sent their rifle back to Remington and what the experience has been.

I saw the recall in one of the gun mags and, much to my dismay, my new Model 700 is one of them. I had worked up a satisfactory load, but now had to dismantle the scope, rings and bases, package it up and send it back. Remington supplied the packaging material and UPS cost. After it was shipped it occurred to me that I had included my home address for return, but an adult signature would be required. Since my wife and I are home only 8% of the workweek, UPS would have me make a 60-mile round trip to pick it up at the proper location. I e-mailed Remington and asked if they could contact the repair shop and change the address to my workplace. After 3 e-mails I was told it would have to be sent to a FFL dealer, and Remington agreed to make that change. I asked what the anticipated turn-around time was and the reply was a minimum of as much as 12 weeks!!!!

With the initial recall was an offer to compensate for the inconvenience by giving one a 40% discount in purchasing any item from the Remington shopping site. I can't give you the details because I tossed it as the available items ranged in the neighborhood of several hundred dollars to as much as $1,200 an item. I would have been happy with a box of 500 Remington Core-loks as one can't get that volume anymore.

In 5 days my rifle will have been at the repair shop one month. With a hunt coming this fall, I'll be very unhappy if I don't get the rifle until September (at the earliest), when I'll have to re-scope it and see if my previously successful load still works.

Anyone else out there have to send their rifle back?
 
This happens. I saw it at a LEO range. The armorer was trying to tell someone about the problem and BOOM.
 
This kind of nonsense where the material cost of actual metal "five cents more per rifle" is about as accurate as saying that a 3-cent piece of chewed up bubblegum stuffed in to the ignition of my car would have been all that was needed in the world to entirely prevent me from driving in to the path of an oncoming train and getting killed.
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That could be relevant if you own a GM product.:D

What I see here is a failure of a large corporation taking a very cavalier attitude and failing to step up and take responsibility. It smells a lot like Ford's Pinto gas tank fiasco, and the recent GM escapade with defective ignition switches.
 
My brother had a .270 Rem 700 that discharged when the safety was disengaged. Of course we discovered that at 0500 on our first day of the hunting season. Imagine our surprise!
 
As with every incidence the anti-gun left can find, the issue is exaggerated, but it is an issue.

I have been a gunsmith for over 40 years now. I have had to deal with this exact problem about 15-18 times. Yes it’s a problem.

But the actual problem is bigger.
That problem is Remington’s policy of not doing anything about customer complaints about the design of their trigger. and other parts in many of their guns that are prone to fail with hard use.

If you are a professional as I am and I have been for over 4 decades, you will know that Remington’s main corporate office is not at all responsive to customer service in any way unless the lack of service is likely to be more costly than the service.

In other words, getting sued is a threat they take seriously, but up to that point they act as if they are doing the public a favor to accept their money and then give any satisfaction for the products they sell.

This started way back when DuPont owned them. That’s the same DuPont Corporation which is a major mover and shaker in the World Bank and the world market. The bottom line is the bottom line and nothing else takes precedence over that agenda for these bankers.

DuPont has divested themselves of Remington, but the way the service department is run has not changed much.

Also the idea that they could take a 1% to 2% loss in profits for 1-2 years to come out with stronger and better designs is never considered.

If they would come out with a “better mouse trap” they may take a small loss for a few years, but I am sure the sales would go through the roof if such products were to be offered and the profits would be back within a few years.
In fact, I believe they could be the leader of the pack if they would just make a "better mousetrap". There are several dozen improvements they could make on several of their guns that would require new machine processes and a few new and better parts, but the cost of such changes would be well worth it.

We can look at some of the old guns Remington made in the days before DuPont and see real quality. With modern machines and modern metal techniques such guns could be (and should be) made again.

Things like small frail extractors and stamped sheet metal parts don’t get them sued because people don’t die when they break. If a suit was to be leveled the only loss Remington would have to endure is a replacement part and a bit of labor.

But when a trigger fails and someone gets shot or a hole gets blown through a house or car----------That can get costly.

So Remington will pay more attention to the failures of the triggers than they will to breaking extractors, bolt handles coming off, lifters breaking and being timed wrong, ejectors sticking, and several other issues I have to deal with on a pretty regular basis.

I tell my customers that Remington with fix them for free (some day) if they want to get in line, ship the gun back, track it, insure it, and then deal with a nearly 100% lack of communication from Remington, and never get to talk to a real person, or get a letter back in a timely manor.

In most cases my customers just ask me to fix the problem so they don’t have to try to deal with Remington themselves.

Remington should go back to some of their old pre DuPond designs and make some super good guns again.

Yes, I know they will cost more, but at least that gives the buying public a choice within Remington’s line of offerings. At this point, most customers who have had a problem with a Remington will buy a Ruger, a Howa, a Winchester/FN, Mossburg, Savage, Weatherby CZ or Tica. How much moeny does Remington make when you buy someone elses gun?

Some may say that such old designs cannot be made at a reasonable cost these days, but I have to disagree. Ruger does a controlled feed bolt gun for a realistic price. There are many of the old Remington rifles that could be made emploing modern manufacturing techniques and would sell very well. Some of the old 22 rifles they made were very good. Maybe a good reproduction of the 1900 Side by Side shotgun.

If they wanted to break into the handgun market they should make a break top revolver of modern steel and heat treatment, in 327 mag 357 mag, 41 mag, 44 mag and 45 Colt. They would own that market the day they were introduced.

But I expect my ideas will fall on deaf ears or more likely, no ears at all.
 
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