What REMINGTON has to say about MSNBC's report on the Model 700...

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BusGunner007

New member
I went to the Remington Home Page and scrolled down to find the other links.
There were plenty, including the Military & Law Enforcement.
The one that caught my eye was Remington TV...
So, I clicked on it and watched the video countering the MSNBC account of the the 'dangerous 700'.
It was worth watching.
If it doesn't go against the COC here on TFL, the link is below.
Otherwise, you can find it on Remington's website.

http://www.remington700.tv/#/home

I'm looking forward to your comments and to me getting another Remington 700. :D
 
I do not believe that the model 700 has a A/D problem. My very first rifle was a model 700 ADL and through the years I have had probably 15 of them in various calibers with none of them having any problems at all. All of my 700's have been accurate, reliable and overall very good. I currently do not own a 700 but not because I am afraid of their quality, I would buy one in a minute and not have a second thought or concern over an A/D being the fault of the rifle.
 
You're more likely to be struck by lightning than have your Remington discharge without pulling the trigger. But you better believe that it could do it. I've seen it happen with an unloaded gun that was not modified and in perfect condition. I'd buy a NEW Remington with the redesigned trigger if I wanted a new rifle and if the Remington suited my needs.

Remington has known about the problem for decades and decided the chances of anything happening were so remote that it was better to save 5 cents per gun.

Remington has been lying about the problem for so long that to admit it now would open the floodgates for lawsuits and the company would be bankrupt in days. It is to their advantage to keep denying the problem exists and to blame the malfunctions on shooters. Which are to blame in many of the cases.

Remington keeps saying the problem is caused by shooters who adjust the trigger too light, or have dirty triggers. True enough in many cases, but shooters tinker with triggers on every other gun out there and you never hear about any other brand discharging when the safety is moved. The Remington trigger has all of the moving parts enclosed. How are you supposed to inspect and clean the trigger without taking the thing apart. Which would be even more dangerous in my opinion.

All they have to do is put some doubt in the minds of a few jurors to win. The problem is so rare it is almost impossible to prove that it the rifles fault.

Even though the problem is extremely rare, I still blame Remington for being aware of the potential problem and deciding not to correct the problem to save 5 cents per gun.

They tried to solve the problem in 1982 by redesigning the bolt so you could unload the chamber without moving the safety form the SAFE position. This probably prevented countless AD's, without Remington having to admit they had a problem. Knowing there was a problem they have been trying to get older rifles returned for 30 years to be modified.

Even when they redesigned the trigger in 2007 the only thing they did was correct the problem that existed since 1946. But instead of advertising it as a "safer" trigger they advertised it as a "better" trigger. Other than having the potential to fire when the safety was released the old trigger was already the best factory trigger available.
 
I have experienced this problem with a Rem 700.
I was a sniper on a SWAT team for 5 years.
My rifle was a Rem 700 in a H&S precision stock with an aftermarket bull barrel. I had never adjusted the trigger but I don't know if someone before me had adjusted it.
I was on a course shooting in a steady rain when I encountered this problem twice within a few minutes.
With a loaded chamber I moved the safety forward and squeezed the trigger. The trigger moved but did not feel normal. The trigger went back and stopped but the firing pin did not move forward. I called my instructor over and he suggested lifting the bolt handle a bit. I lifted it just a hair and bam, the rifle fired. This happened again within a few minutes.
We took the rifle off the line and he inspected it that night but found nothing wrong with the trigger. All we could come up with was that maybe some foreign object had gotten into the trigger mech. It was raining hard so maybe a sliver of brass or piece of primer sealant got washed down into it?
This experience left me unsettled. If that problem occurred on a callout it could be disastrous. I had the trigger mech's on our 4 rifles replaced with Timneys.
This wouldn't stop me from buying a 700. Any mechanical device can fail. This is why we have rules like not pointing a firearm at anything we don't wish to kill or destroy.
 
I posted that because...

...it's worth watching the Remington side of the argument.

I'm not arguing anybody on the forum here, but it is worth the time to look into that link, and I'm not here as an apologist for Remington.
Many have seen the MSNBC report on TV.
Not many have seen the report on Remington TV...

The internet is a great place to learn and play, but only if you take a look at the other side when it comes to 'fact finding'.

I had never adjusted the trigger but I don't know if someone before me had adjusted it.
Click to expand...
Quoting an above post, I thank you for doing what you did on the job, and for candidly stating that even though it has happened to you, you aren't positive as to 'who & why' it did.

That's the reason I posted that link and why it's worth the effort to see how MSNBC skewed the report.
Let me repeat that:
MSNBC SKEWED THE REPORT...
 
MSNBC skewed the report
Click to expand...

I have no doubt about that. They are pretty extreme in their anti views.

That being said, how does it change the fact that the man who invented the trigger in question, says it is flawed?
 
That was an excellent presentation. I have never owned a 700 but I have owned a 770 for a couple of years. My gunsmith adjusted the trigger on it for me because it was very heavy out of the box. I have never experienced any kind of AD with this or any other firearm I've ever owned.

CNBC is a decidedly liberal thinking and gunhating organization. They will do anything and everything to discredit the firearms industry.

So, I commend Remington on an excellent presentation and as far as CNBC, I can only say "consider the source"......
 
Rem 700 issue

The only issues I had with a remington 700 BDL in .30-06 were that the safety got stuck on and i couldn't get it to come off to open the bolt. It took me a week and it sat with an empty in the chamber for 4 days. The other thing was after a couple of rounds the bolt wouldn't move. Again I had to wait a couple of days. (I had to work OT and didn't have the time to work on it) :confused:
 
I saw a sign at bass pro about the issue and couldn't help thinking about the collateral damage done over a false story.

Can Remington sue them?
 
What was false about the story. In the other thread, I asked several people to provide insights into how the story was wrong or inaccurate, but nobody did.

Sure Remington can sue. They won't because the story isn't false.

You say the story is false? What was false?

If there isn't a problem, then why does Remington keep losing lawsuits and settling out of court?

Remington's own testing from the 1970s had 1 out of 100 guns coming off the line that were prone to the failure that is the basis of the lawsuit, but they didn't fix the problem despite knowing they had a reported problem that was verified by their own testing.
 
I saw the sign at Bass Pro when the guy behind the counter showed it to me. I rolled my eyes and asked about both sides of the story before I made my mind up about the issue. He quickly changed the subject.
 
I've owned dozens of 700s over the years and probably modified every one of them in some way including trigger adjustments and never had a single problem.
A few years ago a good friend had bought a brand new 700 VLS in .308 and the trigger was around 9 pounds which I thought was unusually heavy. I did the proper adjustments and got it down to a crisp 3 pounds at his request.
We fired several hundred rounds without a problem then one day while hunting the gun fired while he was carrying it. I assumed he had hit the trigger even though he swore he hadn't and the safety was on. Couple weeks later the gun fired by itself again while sitting on a bench at the range. We sent the rifle back to Remington, they returned it with a new trigger assembly preset to about 3.5 pounds and shipped it in a nice hard case with no questions asked even though I had admitted to them that I adjusted the original trigger.
With the large amount of 700s made, there are bound to be a few flaws sneak through but overall they're great guns .....and yes, I would buy another 700 with no worries!
 
I bet you can buy a Remington now and be pretty much assured it won't malfunction.

:D

Remington site has good arguments. Bottom line. If you're unloading the rifle the barrel should be pointed in a safe direction AND never rely on the safety.
 
Hey Busgunner

What you failed to do was express your personal opinion of what you think.

That show you are referring to was good work and used legitimate documentation to show that Remington knew it had a problem and chose to deny it as a customer service sham. Remington even had employees who testified as to the level of lies Remington was willing to represent to customers filing accident reports.

Dupont dumped Remington because they saw the inherent liability brewing and they should be the deep pockets behind the inevitable class action lawsuits that are in the works. Any incident that happened during Dupont's ownership they should be on the hook for.

It's left up to corporations to do the right thing as far as intervention and fixing known problems, this makes the argument for regulating and forcing companies to acknowledge and recall problem liabilities.

I like Remingtons and have owned several through the years, but protect a company with management ate up with terminal stupidity, no way. They deserve to be put out of business so the company can be bought by someone with integrity. You'll still see Remington it will just be owned by someone else.

The only thing that matters here as far as the source is that they didn't put a hand wavy spin, they provided well sourced documentation and insider employees who had a problem with knowingly kicking out faulty products when they could easily and affordably been fixed. Remington more than anything didn't want to make a move that acknowledged a formerly denied problem.

Don't blame the network, there was no spin except on the part of Remington.

And you are right, I'd buy a new Remington in a heartbeat, I won't act like a biased fool and support that company's refusal to take care of a known problem decades ago. Better buy it quick because this is going to cost a lot of dinero, more than the company is worth.
 
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It's about the connector

Double Naught Spy said:
What was false about the story. In the other thread, I asked several people to provide insights into how the story was wrong or inaccurate, but nobody did.
Click to expand...

Agree.

And in the other thread I asked for anyone to give a specific explanation of how the connector cannot fail as described....again...no answer.

-This is not about how many Remington's someone has owned without problems. I am sure many owner's have never had the safety problem.

-This is not about the military and S.W.A.T teams using the 700....they do, and with good success.

*This is about a mechanical design that has a flaw. A flaw that was found by the original designer and starting in 1948 he even came up with a correction in the design to eliminate the connector safety issue.

*This is about the fact that there were several attempts by the original designer to get Remington to change the design.

*This is about the fact that there were several internal memo's in Remington that defined the problem.

Remington's PR campaign will help in the public arena. But in a court room I think the important issue will be (and has been) the design flaw that allows the connector not to always return to battery. You can talk all you want but nothing is going to change the original design....that's history. But it's history that's coming back to haunt Remington.

Bottom line, it's a bad business decision that Remington committed to years ago. Now the cost of recall might equal the price of the company.
 
An ex disgruntled Remington employee? That's your source? Hmmm... No agenda there.
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What are you talking about?? The retired original designer is the source.:confused:

BTW, he is not an ex employee, he retired in good stead and receives full retirement from Remington.
 
An ex disgruntled Remington employee? That's your source? Hmmm... No agenda there.
Click to expand...

Mike Walker wasn't exactly a disgruntled employee. He was a designer with a long history at Remington and has been honored by Remington for his years of excellent service. He retired more than 3 decades ago after working several decades at the company and receives a pension from Remington. At 98 years of age, I don't think he is trying to get anything new out of Remington. He simply told his story about the concerns of the fire control system he designed and that he noted turned out to have a flaw that could be easily corrected that Remington opted not to fix.
 
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