Remington R51

No, those aren't threads; they're simply a knurled area on the front of the barrel to facilitate disassembly -- the particular disassembly procedure for this pistol involves grasping that part of the barrel to remove the barrel and slide, once you've taken the slide release out. The original Model 51 had a similar disassembly procedure, and had the exact same knurling on the barrel.

Sam1911 said:

That's why they made disposable cameras, you know? Not everyone trusts themselves to put the film in right.

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Kind of off track, but can you still buy a disposable camera?? Or film, for that matter??

Wow, that video settles it; Nick really hates this gun . Anyone notice how ridiculously high he's holding it? I don't know how he's gripping it that way and still depressing the grip safety, but there's a 1/2" tail at the back end he's somehow filled up and is spilling over right behind the slide. Gotta see him shoot a Walther PP sometime

As to not being 'readily apparent' when the slide lock spring is in the wrong place; won't the slide stop simply not be sprung at all? As in, rack the slide back and see if there is any tension on the lever keeping it down with no magazine in? Doesn't seem that bad, frankly.

Fun fact: the infallible FNH Five-seven pistol originally had a far, far, far more fatal flaw that I never heard about in any reviews until my very first range trip. If a round was jutting too far forward when the mag was inserted (i.e. if you didn't tap the rounds all the way to the rear first) its tip would pop out the mag release spring inside the magwell, and causing the release to lose tension, and the spring and mag release would fall out of the gun (usually once the shooter dropped the first magazine). Field reassembly was nearly impossible. Until FNH changed the design, you never really knew whenever you pushed in a magazine, whether or not you would be able to lock in another afterward. That's a design flaw, and as such, FNH remedied the issue in short order (never did a recall, though).

"It's extremely easy to do when replacing the lever after takedown. If you don't insert it exactly right - if it's tilted upwards by say 1/16th of an inch - this happens. More worryingly, the improperly assembled firearm passes a function check" --Nick Leghorn in the video's comments
Bunk. His function check obviously doesn't examine the slide stop for being stuck up or down. Not installing any trigger-reset spring will have the same "undetectable" failure unless you check the trigger after reassembly. He says in the video the stop is "just barely" catching the slide and causing it to catch. Any reason you couldn't ride the slide stop if you were stupid enough to need to shoot the gun while it is assembled wrong?

TCB

R1 Availability

I called several local retailers this past week, re: when the R1 "might be available." I got a wide range of answers, from "It'll probably be several months." to "I don't know." The latter of which I expect to be more correct.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it ? Kind of like the answer to, "When do you expect to get some .22 Long Rifle ammo ?"

burley said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jBPshuxphY

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His thumb certainly looks long enough to at least be able to interfere with the slide release while cycling. Whether or not that's a matter of having to use a different grip, or that the gun might be too small for him, or a "Design Flaw" is another question.

OR, it has nothing to do with his grip.

A video on how the gun won't work if you don't put it together right? Is there a gun that does work if assembled incorrectly?

I should post one of how my Ruger Mark II "just won't function correctly" if that little bar doesn't go where it's supposed to when putting it back together. Sure enough, . . . you cannot cycle it! That's a poor design, Ruger!!

/sarcasm

It's funny that Nick was able to tell the sample he handled at SHOT was assembled incorrectly but not the one he had for a review.

R51 Trigger

Is it just me, or does the trigger look weird, or what?

I hope it's not Glock plastic. Also, I'd like a more solid, sturdy trigger. If it's metal, it appears to be stamped out, patchwork, etc. I don't know.

Anybody out there know?

Looks cast to me. I'd prefer a solid trigger. That cut-out one will collect dirt and dust and be a bear to clean. It's not a deal breaker, I'll just fill it with hot glue or JB.

I think these will be available sooner than most people think. Slickguns has had them up a few times already. I am afraid to jump in and buy one, "off the bat", would prefer to wait until the bugs get worked out.

I have to imagine a trigger is one of the lowest stressed parts on a gun, so I'm not too worried. I do think it's hyper-modern-race-gun design is unneeded on a swoopy/classy/streamlined form, but I'm also not sure if a spur, blade, or tapered trigger would look tons better or worse. Mainly I think it just needs to be the same color as the gun

It had a solid plastic-looking trigger in the early CAD shots:

Looks cheaper, so I guess the fancy one is better? I'm still pretty confident the first thing I will do with an R51 is blast/polish/blue the slide and polish/anodize the frame (maybe); the shiny renderings look so much better than what they ended up going with. Hard to imagine Bond pulling out a drab, dull, PPK with a shark-skin finish (not that the R51 should be nickled, either). The shiny rendering looks almost tuxedo worthy (as it is, it's only good as an "underwear gun" )

TCB

I just noticed it has an internal extractor?

C0untZer0 said:

I just noticed it has an internal extractor?

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It has to because the breech block moves within the slide.

barnbwt said:

I have to imagine a trigger is one of the lowest stressed parts on a gun, so I'm not too worried. I do think it's hyper-modern-race-gun design is unneeded on a swoopy/classy/streamlined form, but I'm also not sure if a spur, blade, or tapered trigger would look tons better or worse. Mainly I think it just needs to be the same color as the gun

It had a solid plastic-looking trigger in the early CAD shots:

Looks cheaper, so I guess the fancy one is better? I'm still pretty confident the first thing I will do with an R51 is blast/polish/blue the slide and polish/anodize the frame (maybe); the shiny renderings look so much better than what they ended up going with. Hard to imagine Bond pulling out a drab, dull, PPK with a shark-skin finish (not that the R51 should be nickled, either). The shiny rendering looks almost tuxedo worthy (as it is, it's only good as an "underwear gun" )

TCB

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Ha! Underwear gun...now I'm going to watch Archer.

I actually like the look, but am worried about the operation. It has more happening than a normal striker fired gun, and usually more parts and more stuff going on, means more to go wrong. Maybe after the first year or two, when I see no problems with them I will pick one up.
If they do what they did with the R1, there will be plenty of variations in a year.

It has more happening than a normal striker fired gun, and usually more parts and more stuff going on, means more to go wrong.

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By that rationale, the M1 Garand rifle should have never worked.

If it were a small pistol, it probably wouldn't. With all of the recalls on guns that are pretty straightforward in their development, I am sure there will be new problems with the design in the beginning. Why hurry and buy one?

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The design is from 1917 and those old ones still work well today for those lucky to own them so what not to think it would be any different from any other new gun to come along. Most all of us have more than a few hand guns to rely on so if there some new gun growing pains it should no bigger a deal than glock , sig, shield and xds and a few others that had new gun issues . But with this handgun being only an up dated almost 100 years old design it just might work well out of the box.

Ain't no use in worry'n about it , right. Buy it or don't.

I talked to my general store gun shop owner today . He has 8 of them coming to him and said if he had 50 coming he could sell all of them in that day. He's had that many calls for them but that's it for his allotment on the first order of r51's .

The biggest complaint against the original Remington 51 was that the breech blocks occasionally cracked, and there were no replacements.

It's cheap enough, for those who rely on it as their only weapon, or possibly back up gun, I would wait anyway. It's just the fact that if something does go bad in the beginning, your gun will be laid up for months. After just getting back my xds, I would not be in the mood for another separation. A 2 or 3 month wait would be the smart move. I would like to see the gun and shoot it before buying it, otherwise a I could have snagged one last week on slick guns. On top of which, how many small 9mm pistols does one really want? Perhaps if it were a 40 or 45. I know that it's going to have to be pretty special for me to buy another small 9.
As far as old designs go, there is usually a reason they aren't made anymore, we will see if this one is any different. It's cheap enough.

Seems like we have gotten some fluff pieces and a hit piece or two so far.

I'll wait until some folks on the forum have them and see what they think.

The design looks good, we'll just have to wait and see how Remington executes.

I'm mostly curious how Remington goes about deploying a sought-after hot-ticket item; it's been a while since they've had one of those

TCB

I found this on YouTube.

Jeff Quinn finally got a sample to play with for a couple of days.

http://youtu.be/2IQEAKGXKt8