Its Baaaa..ck - R51 2d Gen

[graycrait]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/08/foghorn/gun-review-remington-r51-2016/

About this time next year I might get one of these if they are holding up.

 

[gregintenn]

Still looks like a ray gun. They totally bastardized a classic.

[Garufa]

Is it time to start stocking up on little discs  for ammo?

[Moped]

Well... I guess I am still underwhelmed.  I love my Springfield XDs 3.3 and it's in my favorite caliber, .45acp.  Reckon I will stay with it. 

 

[musicman]

I still think it's a terrible gun.  It's clunky, chunky, and it's impossible for me to get a normal grip on it AND engage the grip safety.  I have to consciously rotate my grip a little, as I can't get enough leverage on the safety due to how tight the beavertail is.  The slide release is nigh on unusable.  They should have just done like the Nano and not bothered putting one on the gun.  The best thing I can say about it is that the trigger was mostly acceptable.

I've talked to about a dozen people who have played with it now, and two had positive impressions.  Of course, if they sold one of them to 16% of all the gun owners in America they would have a best seller on their hands, haha!

Anywho, I'm sure this heap will blow someone's skirt up, but not me.  I personally have a PC Shield but would choose an LC9S, 43, XDs, PF9, or even a (cough cough) PT111G2 (cough cough) over the R51.

[graycrait]

musicman, you're so harsh.  I just want one to take apart and tweak it if I can.  But if major components have catastrophic structural failures I am not much interested.  I was looking at it like a Ruger or even a Keltec.  Out of the box either works well enough, but with some TLC members of both brands can really sing a nice song.

[musicman]

Call me harsh if you want, no worries.  I worked at Gibson USA making guitars for a few years and watched them do a lot of the same dumb stuff Freedom group has done.  Gibson has a gold mine in quality Les Pauls and SGs.  They are both (especially the LP) fantastic designs that have stood the test of time and newcomers.  Even today a Les Paul is just as useful and desirable as some whizbang Ibanez shred machine... maybe more so.  I watched Henry and whoever else is at the helm that day push out some ridiculously crazy, poorly designed and executed garbage out the back of the plant, while reducing focus on their bread and butter.  Like the R51, many were pushed out only to be found wanting and recalled.  On some models we made entire production runs... literally thousands.  Then scrapped every one. (Except the ones the midlevel managers snuck out the door)

They also made some stupid decisions with the core products that really hurt LP sales for awhile (robotuners and stupid wide brass nuts, anyone?) but thankfully they saw the error of their ways (read million$ in lo$$e$) and for the most part have gotten back to doing what they do best.

Freedom seems to be doing a lot of the same.  The 870 is NOTHING like it used to be.  I don't know much about the 700 because I never really liked them anyways (and I prefer to know WHEN my guns are going to go off) but I know it is an industry standard that still has appeal to many.  I think they HAVE done a good job with their 1911s, and I hope they build on that.  I feel like the R51, though, is a poorly done pistol (even the second time) that is a drain on resources for the company that could be better invested elsewhere.

This is all my opinion, and worth exactly diddlysquat to anyone.

[felinesNfreedom]

I am going to be even harsher than Musicman. The R51 feels TERRIBLE. I never got a chance to try the 1st gen so I can't speak on the difference. The new one just feels like crap. The grip safety is very gritty when squeezed and just kind of sounds like metal scraping on metal. The trigger is meh. There is no sound or feel of the reset on the trigger after it's pulled. if this is the second gen, God forgive who ever designed the 1st gen.

I have also noticed what musicman mentioned too. We see 870's with rust on them straight out of the box, not surface rust but rust under the finish. One of the guys in the store purchased a 770 chambered in 270 and said that it struggles with ejecting the empty brass. He had to resort to slamming the rifles butt down while pulling on the bolt to get it to eject the brass the other day.

[NotYetGecko45]

Still looks like it badly wants to be in the next Bond knock-off movie.

I had some time with the 1st Gen, with the idea of a BUG you can keep in your dash or in a boot, or a jacket pocket - I don't care about looks in a pistol, a HiPoint will kill you just as much as a Dan Wesson will.

The 1st Gen trigger and grip safety weren't very cool - no reset, wobble, and the grip safety felt like the baby springfield guns with added grit in it. 

I will definitely pass - I like my G43 just fine.

 

[felinesNfreedom]

16 minutes ago, NotYetGecko45 said:

The 1st Gen trigger and grip safety weren't very cool - no reset, wobble, and the grip safety felt like the baby springfield guns with added grit in it.

Sounds like there was nothing done to change it in the Gen 2's.

[NotYetGecko45]

Just now, XxthejuicexX said:

Sounds like there was nothing done to change it in the Gen 2's.

Nonsense! Gen 2 (or equivalent naming conventions, i.e. Mod 2, Mk4, E7, whatever) automatically give you innate shooting abilities and the gun "runs nicer"

Seriously, you are right - reading that write-up I got a serious sense of dejavu, my opinion is that the G42/43, the Shield and some of the baby XD guns (Not a SA guy myself) have the market cornered on BUGs as well as some of the baby wheel guns - Remington needs to stop ruining classic designs *cough* R1911 *cough*

[felinesNfreedom]

2 minutes ago, NotYetGecko45 said:

 - Remington needs to stop ruining classic designs *cough* R1911 *cough*

Yep. handled one of those also. Not impressed at all. Trigger wobbles and has a good bit of slop.

[NotYetGecko45]

Just now, XxthejuicexX said:

Yep. handled one of those also. Not impressed at all. Trigger wobbles and has a good bit of slop.

It was shame, I had a R1 Enhanced for a few weeks and the trigger was sloppy, the mainspring housing was full of rust and the grips were coming a little loose

To Remington's credit the replaced the gun and did give me 2 extras mags but the sloppy trigger and the general loose feeling to the gun was enough to turn me off. I'm not a snob who insists all of my pistols be as tight as an Infinity or a Dan Wesson, but my RIA1911 was better construction for 300 dollars less 

[felinesNfreedom]

It was shame, I had a R1 Enhanced for a few weeks and the trigger was sloppy, the mainspring housing was full of rust and the grips were coming a little loose

To Remington's credit the replaced the gun and did give me 2 extras mags but the sloppy trigger and the general loose feeling to the gun was enough to turn me off. I'm not a snob who insists all of my pistols be as tight as an Infinity or a Dan Wesson, but my RIA1911 was better construction for 300 dollars less 

I'm right there with you. I do expect a pistol of that price to feel better and tighter than it did. I've wanted a RIA for a while now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gregintenn]

If you ever get a chance to handle and shoot an original model 51, the new ones will just make you sad. The old ones point like one's finger, and were an engineering marvel of their time, as well as a working, finely crafted piece of art.

[Grayfox54]

I had a chance to look at and handle on of the early R51s. Nope, not for me. Just didn't like the way it felt in my hand. 

But even if Remington has all the bugs worked out and the gun is now perfect, I fear the damage has already been done. I doubt they will sell well. 

[graycrait]

If I ever stumble on a Mdl 51 in .32acp for a decent price... nah, that ain't gonna happen. 

[MacGyver]

2 hours ago, gregintenn said:

If you ever get a chance to handle and shoot an original model 51, the new ones will just make you sad. The old ones point like one's finger, and were an engineering marvel of their time, as well as a working, finely crafted piece of art.

How they took this classic piece of engineering and came up with this plastic monstrosity is beyond me...

[TrickyNicky]

6 hours ago, musicman said:

Call me harsh if you want, no worries.  I worked at Gibson USA making guitars for a few years and watched them do a lot of the same dumb stuff Freedom group has done.  Gibson has a gold mine in quality Les Pauls and SGs.  They are both (especially the LP) fantastic designs that have stood the test of time and newcomers.  Even today a Les Paul is just as useful and desirable as some whizbang Ibanez shred machine... maybe more so.  I watched Henry and whoever else is at the helm that day push out some ridiculously crazy, poorly designed and executed garbage out the back of the plant, while reducing focus on their bread and butter.  Like the R51, many were pushed out only to be found wanting and recalled.  On some models we made entire production runs... literally thousands.  Then scrapped every one. (Except the ones the midlevel managers snuck out the door)

They also made some stupid decisions with the core products that really hurt LP sales for awhile (robotuners and stupid wide brass nuts, anyone?) but thankfully they saw the error of their ways (read million$ in lo$$e$) and for the most part have gotten back to doing what they do best.

Freedom seems to be doing a lot of the same.  The 870 is NOTHING like it used to be.  I don't know much about the 700 because I never really liked them anyways (and I prefer to know WHEN my guns are going to go off) but I know it is an industry standard that still has appeal to many.  I think they HAVE done a good job with their 1911s, and I hope they build on that.  I feel like the R51, though, is a poorly done pistol (even the second time) that is a drain on resources for the company that could be better invested elsewhere.

This is all my opinion, and worth exactly diddlysquat to anyone.

How many firebird X's were floating around when you left? 

 

I already know, ALL of them  

 

I'm still waiting for the revolution, Henry smashed a guitar and everything.

 

 

Guitar of the week was the best idea (IMO) that came out of there in some time. Still some stinkers there, but the reverse V was awesome and a few others were pretty sweet as well. I'm a recovering gibsaholic, I WANT to relapse into addiction, but I've started building and painting my own through parts or kits and am thinking about tooling up to just make my own from scratch. I just made an "R4" out of a precision guitar kit that is absolutely fantastic, PLUS I got better hardware and pickups, POI caps that are really POI and not ceramic in a fake bumblebee housing. //End rant.

 

 I think the people at Remington, like the people at Gibson are able to put out a better product than they currently do if management would just let them do their jobs.

[nightrunner]

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

How they took this classic piece of engineering and came up with this plastic monstrosity is beyond me...

Because our gun culture as a whole has conditioned the market as a whole that we need a 9mm minimum caliber in our pocket guns. And that we need it to be as light as a toddlers squirt gun. We have forgotten that a firearm can be both a useful tool and a finely crafted work of art.

 

Used to be that your concealed carry gun and the pistol you took to battle were two different things.

[musicman]

I might agree, except I don't see that this gun is either lighter or smaller than its 9mm competitors.  It's simply poorly designed and badly executed. 

[nightrunner]

Im not saying they did anything at all right about this gun. Market wants a polymer single stack 9mm right now. Remington tried and failed miserably, IMO.

[musicman]

Gotcha. Agreed!

[NoBanStan]

On 8/23/2016 at 10:01 PM, musicman said:

I still think it's a terrible gun.  It's clunky, chunky, and it's impossible for me to get a normal grip on it AND engage the grip safety.  I have to consciously rotate my grip a little, as I can't get enough leverage on the safety due to how tight the beavertail is.  

I remember this exactly. I also recall that the slide had a really strange hitch. It wasn't smooth at all.

[Oh Shoot]

On 8/23/2016 at 3:59 PM, gregintenn said:

Still looks like a ray gun. They totally bastardized a classic.

I don't find it all that beyond the pale aesthetically -- but then I have a NEOS too.

- OS