"I just wonder where people wanting locked breech Pocket Hammerless Colts think the extra machinery is supposed to go and still keep the look and feel."
Precisely. I think this is actually the root cause of why the original 51 didn't find more acclaim. Even after all the press the R51 has gotten, you still get guys saying "it's like a PPK" even though it is neither DA nor straight blowback. People look at it, and think it'll be a straight blowback Spanish thing, meaning a cheap and uncomfortable gun.
They look at a much beefier SIG setup with a very tall bore axis, and
know they're getting more for their buck with that imposing profile rather than a svelt layout with few external controls. Bigger Gun Syndrome, applied to small(er) guns.
If Remington were smart (if);
-They would never use or allow the term "blowback" anywhere near the gun; most people don't care about the details, but know that equates to "cheap" whether the term is accurate or not for the design. "Fixed Barrel Recoil-Op" sounds much more legit, with Pedersen System/Hesitation Lock as a shorthand after initial explanation
-They would have been very forthcoming about the dimensions, weight, and schedule; the shear amount of response to the initial announcement should have convinced their marketing boneheads that initial sales weren't going to be an issue, and that they should instead focus on meeting customer expectations. Delays/vaporware are nothing new and kind of expected of new products at this point, but being unprepared for SHOT so soon after their announcement should really result in a reprimand or two, if not more.
-They would have kissed the rears of internet reviewers harder; this goes in hand with the extreme level of demand --the reviewers feel it too, and seem extremely slighted when they aren't chosen for shooting reviews. As it drags on, they and their readers are growing increasingly skeptical of the rollout schedule since the demo pistols seem to have very limited availability.
-They would have done whatever it took to make a real promotional video; They had a static pistol in a camera-shy guy's hands while he mumbled for a few minutes, followed by at best 5 seconds of shooting footage. No depiction of takedown, no close ups of the gun (only glossy/rendered still shots), just pure, rampant speculation on the part of salivating internet enthusiasts. Maybe it was because it appeared to be freezing in AZ that day (speaker had a puffy jacket and the man-bear his gloved hands in pockets), but that video was ridiculously amateurish for what was essentially a product rollout. Obviously Remington's R&D hadn't even spoken to Marketing at this point.
-They would make every last one of these early guns a "Special Retro Edition" with much nicer finish and initial tuning/testing than they ever do; catering to the monied/impulsive crowd that will buy up every initial offering regardless of price. The presence of these nice guns circulating online and in print will build a good rep for a very unfamiliar operating system, and a company in dire need of a cleaner image. Once the most influential (and loudest) early adopters are taken care of, then start banging out the "volks-pistol" version with the boring finish/sights/grips at a competitive price offered as an initial pre-order during the first luxury run. After that second rounds' kinks are worked out (people will be more accepting/dismissive of them since they
are the 'cheap version'), Remington can then ask whatever price it needs for a then-established product to be market-competitive.
And all this from an Engineer who's never taken a single marketing or business-economics class. I really wonder who was asleep at the switch over there, since this seems as lousy a rollout as the Steyr GB (hey, let's get these other idiots to make the first run; if it sucks,
we won't get the blame when we go to sell our identical-looking pistol :banghead
. I wonder if the R&D team had their schedule bumped ahead by, oh, I dunno,
six months!
It's as though they are trying to meet the one expectation that customers are rightly incredulous about (that a radically new secret pistol line can be unveiled and distributed within 2 months), at the expense of all the other expectations that had them excited in the first place. "Who cares if they've been waiting 10 years for a 1911-killer; we need it tomorrow even if that means it won't hold a candle to one!"
Could Freedom Group be trying to make a quick cash-grab off the R51 before moving on?
TCB
