Remington R51

[spec4]

Anybody get one yet? Eager to get feedback on it. Gotta say, looks nice, but like a woman, lot's more to it than looks.

 

[ru44mag]

There was a recent thread on INGO about this pistol....did not look good. Plagued with problems. The one that scared me the most was the swollen cases.

 

[jinks]

On 12 August I ordered the R51 from Vizards. It cost $354 with free shipping. I haven't fired the pistol yet. Initially the slide felt gritty, occasionally would stop half way back, and the trigger pull was heavy. After cleaning and lubricating the R51 felt much smoother but the trigger is still in the 6 pound range. Another thing is the grooves on the barrel makes a strange noise rubbing on the slide. I think this may be the grittiness I feel. Holding the trigger back and retracting the slide slowly it will click and the slide will hold half way open. You can continue and the slide will go completely to the rear. The disassembly / reassembly was difficult the first time but I expect it to be easier next time. The R51 is similar in size to Ruger LC9s with the finger rest magazine except it is a half inch longer at the front and rear of the slide. I think the pistol will probably be worth the cost and more information will be available as more people purchase them. On the 12th I only found a few places that listed the R51 in stock and by the end of the day I couldn't find any that listed the R51 in stock. The good news is a lot of accessories are already available for them.

 

[oldpink]

Check out Tim (a Hoosier, btw) at Military Arms Channel's review of it on YouTube.
It wasn't pretty.
Buy at your own peril.

 

[rob63]

Check out Tim (a Hoosier, btw) at Military Arms Channel's review of it on YouTube.
It wasn't pretty.
Buy at your own peril.

Is that video about the first version or the updated version?

 

[wesnellans]

Is that video about the first version or the updated version?

He reviewed the first generation.

 

[oldpink]

He reviewed the first generation.

Correct
One would hope that Big Green would have pulled their head out of their ass for the second generation version, but I would approach with extreme caution.

 

[TheJuggernaut]

I bought one last week. Something about the way it looked and felt kept nagging at me to buy one. I went out to Plainfield Shooting Supplies and Bob had them in stock for $359. Needless to say temptation got the better of me at that price. I hope to get out sometime this week to shoot it.

 

[Shift Zombie]

@Juggernaut
Update us when you do, please.

 

[AmmoManAaron]

Sad to say that the Gen 2 guns don't seem to be much better.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/08/17/remington-r51-gen-2-review/

 

[spec4]

Watched the video. Too bad. Wouldn't get something so unreliable.

 

[TheJuggernaut]

@Juggernaut
Update us when you do, please.

Will do!

 

[TheJuggernaut]

The way I see it, some folks are never going to even consider anything from Remington no matter what. Let's be honest, the company has suffered at a lot of bad business choices. And the quality that established them in the past suffered too with the change of hands. And this R51 is probably the crown jewel in blunders by the bean counters. But they did acknowledge the failings, ceased production and offered restitution to those who bought into the flop 2 years ago. The engineers had 2 years to go over it with a fine toothed comb and figure out what went wrong, how to fix it and how to make it better based on customer feedback. My guess is that few guns have undergone quite so much scrutiny by engineers before being released or re-released. From the fit, finish and feel I can tell that this Rev 2 is leaps and bounds better than the thing I saw at the NRA Show in Indianapolis. I took a gamble and I will see if it pays off.

These reviewers can say what they want. Not everyone is going to like the same thing. And I'm sure there are those who are biased against this gun and not going to give it a fair chance. If I listened to reviewers 100% of the time on everything, I'd be driving a $1 million coupe with a supercharged v12 to the grocery store.

 

[BluePig]

It is one thing to be able to design and produce an item that works, but it is a completely different beast to be able to go into production and do it on a consistent basis with variations in the components, equipment and personnel.
They really had no choice in the matter but to do what they did.
Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.
That is why you do your engineering homework up front and try to eliminate the gremlins in the process.
Waiting to see one up close and find out if I can get it to lock up the same way I did the one at the NRA Show.

 

[Hop]

These promote a strange sci-fi want in me. I handled one at Rural King but they wouldn't remove the trigger lock form me to dry fire it. The slide is very easy to operate. But... Rural King is now on my do not buy list due to that decision. "Oh no, we can't remove the lock. Someone loaded a weapon and shot themselves at a Walmart" the idiot said.

 

[oldpink]

The way I see it, some folks are never going to even consider anything from Remington no matter what. Let's be honest, the company has suffered at a lot of bad business choices. And the quality that established them in the past suffered too with the change of hands. And this R51 is probably the crown jewel in blunders by the bean counters. But they did acknowledge the failings, ceased production and offered restitution to those who bought into the flop 2 years ago. The engineers had 2 years to go over it with a fine toothed comb and figure out what went wrong, how to fix it and how to make it better based on customer feedback. My guess is that few guns have undergone quite so much scrutiny by engineers before being released or re-released. From the fit, finish and feel I can tell that this Rev 2 is leaps and bounds better than the thing I saw at the NRA Show in Indianapolis. I took a gamble and I will see if it pays off.

These reviewers can say what they want. Not everyone is going to like the same thing. And I'm sure there are those who are biased against this gun and not going to give it a fair chance. If I listened to reviewers 100% of the time on everything, I'd be driving a $1 million coupe with a supercharged v12 to the grocery store.

.
That all may be very well and good for you, but the average shooter simply cannot afford to go to the time, trouble, and expense to evaluate and troubleshoot a new gun with hundreds of rounds fired.
The average shooter often has great difficulty scraping together even $400 for a proven gun, say the Ruger LCR.
I pity that average shooter of such modest means who gets an R51 and doesn't have a chance to range test it to find out all the problems that Remington failed to resolve after over two bleeping years to get it right, winding up attempting to use it in a defense situation, only to have it fail when that moment of truth arrived.
Shooters aren't supposed to be beta testers, damnit.

 

[TheJuggernaut]

When I refer to "reviewers" I mean sites or people who regularly post reviews and/or videos online. I can find good and bad reviews for just about any gun out there. I've noticed videos in August tend to rate more favorably than earlier ones with the R51 Rev 2. Remember the Rev 2 was not available for retail sale until August 12. So some of them earlier reviews might not have been full retail releases. And I distinctly heard a couple reviewers say the gun they received had obviously already had several rounds put through it.

I'm hoping to get to the range either Friday or Saturday to try it out. I've already set aside 4 boxes of FMJ ammo from different manufacturers to give it a fair shakedown. And I might even pack some JHP's from a couple manufacturers too for good measure.

 

[oldpink]

When I refer to "reviewers" I mean sites or people who regularly post reviews and/or videos online. I can find good and bad reviews for just about any gun out there. I've noticed videos in August tend to rate more favorably than earlier ones with the R51 Rev 2. Remember the Rev 2 was not available for retail sale until August 12. So some of them earlier reviews might not have been full retail releases. And I distinctly heard a couple reviewers say the gun they received had obviously already had several rounds put through it.

I'm hoping to get to the range either Friday or Saturday to try it out. I've already set aside 4 boxes of FMJ ammo from different manufacturers to give it a fair shakedown. And I might even pack some JHP's from a couple manufacturers too for good measure.

Good luck to you.
I should also mention that people like you still deserve a big thanks for taking the plunge by buying and evaluating new guns and spurring the manufacturers to correct anything you find wrong.

 

[russc2542]

I gave in to temptation and got one last week. Took it to the range, then took it to a CC class the next day for about 300-ish assorted rounds through it

For those that don't know, it's all-metal and uses the Pederson block action (there are youtube videos that will explain it far better than I can describe it in words), and trigger's SAO (internal hammer).

Ergo's are fair to good. The grip's long front to rear and flat-sided. Less thick than a double stack obviously but on the thick side for single stack. They advertise it as a sub-compact, to which I call BS! It's a large compact or a small mid-size gun. 3.5" barrel and I can get all my none-too-small fingers on the grip. The size of my hands leads to my biggest gripe: it does bite if you have big hands. Seems like it's from friction rather than the edge cutting, it took a good 100+ rounds before I noticed. The sharp edge under the beavertail was a non-issue for me unlike some reviews. As for the reliability...




drumroll...








I didn't have any gun-related mechanical issues at all. I had 5 failures of any kind, two were reloaded ammo-related, 3 were from the trigger not resetting which could easily be short-stroking the trigger getting used to it or break in related since issues were in the 1st 25 rounds.

My gripe's are the slide bite and loosey-goosey reset-less trigger. You can see on youtube how the trigger flops around side to side. There's a slight bit of real light take-up, crisp break, fair bit of overtravel, then you have to let the trigger fully forward to reset it and oh by the way, there's zero tactile or audible reset. none. zilch.

It ate all the ammo I tried (except the 2 under-powered reloads it cycled but didn't have enough slide energy to fully-chamber the next round.) which consisted of below-min load 115gr to just over max load 115gr, min-max load 100gr, 115gr of: speer gold dot, blazer brass, S&B, and Remington UMC. There was some variation between them but nothing felt that harsh (no harsher than my full-size P30), even the hot reloads.

It's a blast to shoot (other than the bite if you shoot long enough). Very little muzzle rise, near zero with normal loads and a good grip with me to anchor it. Heavier loads are pretty manageable for it's size. Seems to shoot a little low but that's probably me, not the gun.

Verdict: I'd buy it again. I'll probably run a few more boxes through it to be sure (out of paranoia from the gen1) before carrying but no red flags like the gen1 stories.

 

[ryknoll3]

From everything I read/see, I really see no reason to buy this pistol other than curiosity. There are so many good handguns out there these days where you don't have to say, "I like it, except for these three things." that I just don't get the appeal.