Remington 700 malfunction poll

[CountryBoy19]

The problem with the Remington 700 safety and adjustable trigger has been well known about for many years and the solution for the problem is equally well known. It is very simple...after adjusting the trigger you test it, if it fails you have made it too light and need to adjust it heavier till it passes. All the hub bub is simply because someone too stupid to own a gun had a booboo and a bottom sucking lawyer wants too make money off a lawsuit.

How do you explain the guns that do it with a 100% factory setup?

This is exactly what I meant in my op when I said that most people are of 2 main groups, #1 they're either blowing it out of proportion or #2 they're trying to sweep it under the rug as if there is no problem.

A whole lot of people seem to think that every case of this is because some fud has goofed with the gun and messed things up. They just dismiss the claims as if nothing is wrong.

I hold the opinion that there is definitely something wrong, and Remington needs to correct it, however, I'm not blowing it out of proportion. My uncle saw the NBC thing and sent me a text that he was afraid to even get his 700 out of the gun cabinet. Just use common sense and it's not a problem. The only people that it's truly a problem with are those that don't follow safety rules and people that are hunting etc when it happens (that is the sort of thing that could ruin an expensive hunting trip).

 

[gglass]

CountryBoy19
So far there are 6 people that have had it happen to them or they witnessed it vs. 20 that haven't. That is still greater than 20% of voters that say it happens. 20% is entirely too much to be "a few freak accidents" unless these things only happen to INGO members.

You really cannot be that daft as to think that your quick and open pole has any mathematical relevance at all. How many Remington owners just look at this pole and ignore it because they are tired of the Remington bashing or just don't care. How do you gauge the honesty factor of this pole? In all the official reports on potential Remington "Walker Trick Trigger" AD's, there has never been a suggestion of more than 1% Remington models have been affected. Estimated numbers are 30k to 50k out of more than 5 million Remington 700's sold since 1962.

I have watched several forums and their Remington 700 trigger threads, and the one thing they all have in common is the piling on of anecdotal stories.

This is an example of the many anecdotal stories from another forum, and demonstrates what a mess this issue is becoming:

I had a similar problems in 1972 on an XM-24 in Vietnam, but it turned out to be a defect in the trigger group. Fortunately, it raised it's ugly head during zeroing-in at the range. I Never trusted a XM-24 afterwards. Instead, I used an XM-40 short action which were worked on by Marine armorers.

Source: StoppingPower.net Forums

If you were to receive the above story, in this thread, you would add it to your mathematically perfect poll results. If on the other hand, you look into the facts of the story, you would see that it could not have been a Remington 700 that the OP remembers. Let's break it down - The M-24,based on the Remington 700, did not even exist in the military's arsenal until 1988. So the OP must be remembering either the M14 (Springfield) or M21 (Winchester). The OP states that he chose the more reliable M40, which did exist during Viet-Nam for a replacement, and is based on the Remington 700. So the OP claims that the Remington 700 is unreliable based on an inaccurate or faulty memory.

You, yourself have no idea what actually occurred with your cousin's Remington trigger. Even though you were there, you did not actually witness the mechanics of what happened... Not unless you had multiple slow-motion cameras recording the event from different angles. Even if your cousin does not think that his finger of clothing did not touch the trigger to cause the AD, that does not mean that this was not the case. You have not stated that any other AD's ever occurred again with your cousins rifle. This seems to be the case with most of these stories... The AD never seems to be reproduceable, even in court.

I have no doubt that there have been numerous AD's from Remington 700's, but the same can be said about every firearm manufacturer in existence. The worst part of this entire story line is that Remington could be driven into bankruptcy simply to satisfy CNBC's desire to bring more government control over the firearm industry.

 

[AJMD429]

It is very simple...after adjusting the trigger you test it, if it fails you have made it too light and need to adjust it heavier till it passes.

Not according to this article - the failure is due to a separate piece that is vulnerable to intermittently not returning to position along with the trigger.

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

I can see no reason for that separate piece, nor have I ever heard anyone try to explain a reason for it. Instead, they just either say "Mine never misfired", or "Remingtons are good guns", neither of which addresses the real issue.

 

[JohnP82]

While I do not personally own a Remmy700, my roomate does and I have put several rounds through his with no issues at all. He has never had an issue either.

 

[CountryBoy19]

You really cannot be that daft as to think that your quick and open pole has any mathematical relevance at all. How many Remington owners just look at this pole and ignore it because they are tired of the Remington bashing or just don't care. How do you gauge the honesty factor of this pole? In all the official reports on potential Remington "Walker Trick Trigger" AD's, there has never been a suggestion of more than 1% Remington models have been affected. Estimated numbers are 30k to 50k out of more than 5 million Remington 700's sold since 1962.

Relevance? Do you really think that the number aren't relevant? Surely you cannot be so daft as to think the number aren't relevant. Thanks for the personal attacks, you'll be justly rewarded.

On to the point, I realize that the numbers in the pole? wait, what? Pole? That is a long slender stick, surely you cannot be so daft as to think that pole and poll are the same word.

Moving on, I realize that the numbers in the poll do not accurately reflect the number of R700s that have had problems vs. those that haven't. But what the numbers do reflect is the number of people that have had problems vs those that haven't. And that tells a whole lot more than you think. That shows just how much more common this problem is than most of the "Remington defenders" are letting on to.

I have watched several forums and their Remington 700 trigger threads, and the one thing they all have in common is the piling on of anecdotal stories.

This is an example of the many anecdotal stories from another forum, and demonstrates what a mess this issue is becoming:

Source: StoppingPower.net Forums

If you were to receive the above story, in this thread, you would add it to your mathematically perfect poll results. If on the other hand, you look into the facts of the story, you would see that it could not have been a Remington 700 that the OP remembers. Let's break it down - The M-24,based on the Remington 700, did not even exist in the military's arsenal until 1988. So the OP must be remembering either the M14 (Springfield) or M21 (Winchester). The OP states that he chose the more reliable M40, which did exist during Viet-Nam for a replacement, and is based on the Remington 700. So the OP claims that the Remington 700 is unreliable based on an inaccurate or faulty memory.

Every poll is going to have inaccuracies. Never, not once, did I lead anyone to believe that this was a 100% accurate poll. That is also why I made the poll public; so we can see which user voted for what. We can sift through the results if you want and weed things out.

I suppose you didn't even think of the possibility that there could be multiple votes for one occurrence as well huh? You should have attacked me on that one too while you were at it. I know that there is already at least one occurrence of that in the poll with whiskeytangofoxtrot's AD. He voted that it happened to him and another voted that they heard about it from him. Both stories are credible, but they're both about the same thing.

I supposed you also didn't think about the obvious inaccuracy of the poll regarding that if somebody has experience a single incident then they vote for that option vs. all their good experiences. So the polls reflect an unusually high number of occurrences of AD's vs. no problems. Maybe you should have attacked me on that too huh? Because that seems to be what you came here for. You didn't want to actually discuss the matter at hand, you just wanted to defend Remington and your beloved R700's.

This is exactly what I don't understand. Why defend a company that has a known safety problem but continues to sweep it under the rug?

You, yourself have no idea what actually occurred with your cousin's Remington trigger. Even though you were there, you did not actually witness the mechanics of what happened... Not unless you had multiple slow-motion cameras recording the event from different angles. Even if your cousin does not think that his finger of clothing did not touch the trigger to cause the AD, that does not mean that this was not the case. You have not stated that any other AD's ever occurred again with your cousins rifle. This seems to be the case with most of these stories... The AD never seems to be reproduceable, even in court.

I have no doubt that there have been numerous AD's from Remington 700's, but the same can be said about every firearm manufacturer in existence. The worst part of this entire story line is that Remington could be driven into bankruptcy simply to satisfy CNBC's desire to bring more government control over the firearm industry.

That is besides the point. You still don't get it do you? Malfunctions occur, I admit that. But most reputable companies would fix the problem and move on. Remington, OTOH, has denied that there was a problem for decades and continues to sweep it under the rug.

Let me pass this little hypothetical along to you regarding malfunctions because I think more than once is too often for it to happen. You seem to think that malfunctions are part of everyday normal shooting and that they're excusable even if the manufacturer had the ability to correct the problem. So lets say that these guns were malfunctioning when you close the bolt (some of them are) but instead of firing when you get the bolt handle locked, they fire as soon as the lugs start to engage. The lugs aren't yet engaged enough to with-stand the pressure, and bolt is eject at a very high rate of speed from the rear of the breech. The bolt drives itself deeply into your cheek area, and into your brain cavity. This causes you to endure permanent brain injuries, disfiguration, and millions of dollars in health care expenses.

Is that malfunction excusable? How would you feel if you were the 4th or 5th, or even 100th person that happened to and Remington still denied that there was ever a problem?

BTW, I know of a similar incident that has happened before; although the injuries weren't so severe for 2 simple reasons. The guy had on those over-sized safety glasses that actually go over your normal glasses, that helped to deflect the bolt down and to the side. The scope was mounted on a higher than usual base/ring combo and therefore the majority of the shooters face was above the line of the bolt. The result was a 3" long, "V-shaped" tear in his cheek in which you could see muscles, teeth, gums etc all through the tear. I personally witnessed this incident happen, and luckily I can say that it was operator error vs. manufacturer defects, but the scenario is still valid. Would such a malfunction be excusable to you?

 

[jsn_mooney]

I always looked down my nose at people who claimed a gun "just went off"- yeah right.......
Until, about 3 years ago I bought a used BDL "Varmint Master" in .243 that was made in '74. It had the old style safety that you had to flip from safe to fire to work the action to remove a round from the chamber. I was unloading it after coyote hunting one afternoon in my garage before going into the house- dropped the floorplate, set it up on the workbench on the bipod with the muzzle towards the back wall, reached across it from the left side and flipped the selector from safe to fire with my right hand and KA-POW. Finger was no where close to the trigger. Scared the $*it out of me, luckily there were no casualties.
After I surveyed the damage and regained my composure, I went in the house and googled 700 Remington Discharge, or something like that and found it wasn't uncommon on the old ones.
Called Remington and somewhere around 1980 there was a "Safety Modification Order" from the factory- not to be confused with a recall- when I called it that, the lady got super-pissed. I guess back then you just sent your gun back to the factory and they corrected the problem for free, but not anymore.
I sent that rifle, and a 1965 BDL in .22-250 I have, back to remington and for about $60 a piece they put the new X-Pro or whatever they are calling that new trigger in them.
Whenever you pick up an older 700, look and see if you can work the action with the weapon on safe- if not, it's suspect and should be replaced. Do it before you have to learn the hard way, like me.

 

[tenring]

Unloading a rifle in the garage after coyote hunting? Someone forget to unload it before putting it in your vehicle? Tsk, tsk, when you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. Yeah, it shouldn't have gone off, but in reality it should not have gone off "in your garage."

 

[E5RANGER375]

I had a weatherby that cost a lot more than a 700 that fired everytime I closed the bolt.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Whenever you pick up an older 700, look and see if you can work the action with the weapon on safe- if not, it's suspect and should be replaced. Do it before you have to learn the hard way, like me.

It's not just the older ones though. I witnessed it on one less than a year old.

 

[jsn_mooney]

Yeah, Yeah- There was no vehicle involved, I was calling the edge of a field I could walk to on my place.

 

[Walter Zoomie]

So...is the new Remington trigger a fix for this thing which may or may not need to be fixed?

X-Mark Pro Trigger - X-Mark Pro - Model 700 Trigger

 

[yotewacker]

I always leave the safety off on my 700's. I turn the bolt handle up next to the scope. This disengages the firing mechanism completely. Then simply turn bolt down when ready to shoot. I look at the bolt as a giant safety switch. I have had both of the failures happen to me. I shoot mine more than most. Approximately 300-500 times a year.

 

[Walter Zoomie]

yotewacker:

Why did you not replace the trigger?

If your method works for you, then that's cool, but I prefer to have all my weapons' systems function as they were meant to...

 

[42769vette]

Unloading a rifle in the garage after coyote hunting? Someone forget to unload it before putting it in your vehicle? Tsk, tsk, when you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. Yeah, it shouldn't have gone off, but in reality it should not have gone off "in your garage."

how do you know he didn't walk to his hunting spot from his house and go to the garage first? when im walking back from hunting im still hunting until i get to the garage

 

[jsn_mooney]

Thanks 'vette, I tried to edit that last post to say there was no vehicle involved, that I walked from the house, to the edge of the field I was calling, and back to the garage when I was finished.
Didn't think it mattered that much either way- at least me and you are on the same page.

 

[billt]

If the Remington 700 is so bad, ask yourself why the government just gave them a $28,000,000.00, ($28 MILLION), contract for the next generation of sniper rifles? I'm not saying that a few of these guns have not malfunctioned, they proved that with video, and the sheer numbers of customer complaints. They all can't be lying. But what we don't know is what it curtailed up to the point of malfunction. I have a total of 4 Remington 700's and a Remington XP-100 pistol, all purchased from April of 1972 to early 1985. The last one I bought was a heavy barreled Varmint model in .22-250. The first was a BDL sporter in .300 Win. Mag.

When this was first reported back in the late 70's and early 80's I was concerned. I proceeded to try and screw with my guns in an attempt to make them malfunction at the range. I repeatedly engaged the safety, and disengaged it. Lifted the bolt, reengaging and disengaging the safety on all of them with the rifle sitting on a rest on a "hot" firing line with a live round in the chamber. I could never create a malfunction of any kind with any of my rifles. After that I dismissed the entire matter because I never use a safety on any of my firearms to begin with.

In a great many of these cases people were loading and unloading guns inside residences with people sitting in other rooms. (Woman was shot in the head and killed). There was the case of the Texas boar hunter who blew his own foot off. There was another cited in the program where a father almost shot off his sons hand. If you go back to the original accident that involved the mother killing her 9 year old son who she lost track of, every single one of these incidents could have been prevented if all of these people would have had their muzzles pointed straight up into the air instead of not paying attention to them and allowing them to wander.

I see poor gun handling all of the time. It is the main reason I stopped shooting at indoor ranges here in the Summertime. I've been muzzle swept too many times by idiots. I'm beginning to think this kind of thing is on the rise. Proper gun handling isn't stressed as much as it used to be. Just because a person "grew up around guns", or "hunted all of their lives", doesn't necessarily mean they know and practice safe gun handling. These accidents documented with the Remington 700 prove that. All it takes is one single slip, and the results can be tragic and have a profound effect on people for the rest of their lives.

When you look at this in that regard, is a recall of these rifles going to change the way people handle their firearms? I'm not trying to use this as a cop out in defense of Remington, but the fact remains if any and all of these people would have paid attention to their muzzle when manipulating the moving parts on a loaded firearm regardless of the situation, none of these accidents would have happened, even if the gun had discharged just the same. Bill T.

 

[wag1911]

It's pretty obvious there's a problem with some of these rifles.

When mine (an unmolested example) went off sooner than I wanted it to, I was following all the rules, so no harm was done.

However, who the hell would want a rifle that fires when you take it off safe? I sure as hell wouldn't, and anybody that would is an idiot.

I'm not going to get rid of mine, but I'll get it fixed by a qualified gunsmith before I ever touch it again...

Why not send it in to Remington and have them fix the issue if it is inherent in the design?

 

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

This happens hardly ever, it is sad if anyone has been hurt, but you should only chamber a round when behind the rifle, ready to shoot. A safety is nothing but something to feel good about. It's either loaded, or unloaded. I never use the safety on any of the rifle I own unless I am in a class, then I usually have chamber open as piece of mind.

Follow the safety rules, keep your bolts open when not in use, even in pause. Remington makes fine rifles, wild things happen, use common sense and all will be well. I still don't understand why we are talking about this.

 

[gglass]

Instead of continuing a senseless pissing match with someone who has already drowned in a sea of yellow-journalism Kool-Aid, I will instead let Remington's rebuttal speak for itself.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_KVS1hIbQg&feature=sub]YouTube - Remington's Response to CNBC Under Fire[/ame]

If you gave time to hear CNBC's report, you owe it to yourself to hear the other side of story. If you still wonder why CNBC would sensationalize a story like this, you don't have to look any further than the conclusion at the end of their transcript...

Conclusion

"If you or a loved one has been injured by a defective Remington Model 700 or 710 rifle, contact an experienced attorney today. Without federal protections to keep consumers safe from defective firearms, it is up to the legal system to fulfill this important role and provide this protection."

 

[davidparrish60]

i had an old remi 700 in 22-250 that fired on its own, it was bought new and set in the safe until i got it. i was doing some pest control one day out of my back window and pulled the trigger and nothing happened. i continued to look down my scope in disbelief and the thing went off.... no gunk or anything in the way of the pin... it just happened..