Remington R51 (second go around)

[SA Friday]

Review of the Remington R51 pistol

AWFUL! In a nutshell, one of the worst pistols I've ever shot. I find Hi-Points to be more comfortable to shoot. The beavertail has a cut out on the bottom, next to the webbing of the shooters hand to accommodate the grip safety. The grip safety floats in the cut out. Every round shot slaps the grip safety part in the beavertail into the top of the shooter's hands webbing. After six rounds, the shooter has a big red area here. I suspect more than 20 rounds would result in bruising. This occurred with myself, my wife and another professional firearms instructor while test firing the firearm. It's physically painful to shoot this gun.

Other than that... it's on the large side for a single stack carry gun, it's as heavy as a Walther PPK, and the trigger is miserable. The trigger can pinch your trigger finger between the bottom of the shoe and the trigger guard at the back of the pull. The trigger pull averages around 6 lbs, but varied wildly from 6-8 lbs. There is a concise break and absolutely no reset feedback. The rear sight is located at the front of the pressed in sight and not the back. This takes away about an inch of sight radius. The magazines will jam if the loaded cartridges are pressed down on their bullets. It could use another 1/16 of an inch clearance to stop this. This occurred with both Independence and Winchester White Box. Lastly, take-down and reassembly were not as difficult as a Ruger Mark II, but are far from instinctive and have more than one quirk or you have a malfunctioning gun.

The R51 didn't malfunction during the 25 rounds we could tolerate shooting. It did appear to shoot low with factory target ammo.

So, to sum up the review. This gun fucking sucks. I just don't know how else to put it.

[ray1970]

Sounds like you need tougher hands.




Seriously, thanks for the review.

[brutal]

Nice review.

Now tell us what you really think.

[Irving]

I'm not going to take this review seriously until you shoot a USPSA match with this pistol.

[Jer]

So.... 10/10? Would smash?

[SA Friday]

6 rounds did this...

[SAnd]

I still haven't decided if I am going to send my Generation 1 R51 in for replacement. My biggest concern is what appears to be excessive wear on the breach block. I have it on my Gen 1. I've seen pictures on the internet from another guy that has the same wear problem on a Gen 2 after only a couple hundred rounds. I hate to give up my Gen 1. I haven't had any problems with it. I'm just worried about the wear I mentioned.

I don't have the problem you folks had with the hand web. I wonder if the Gen 2 is different in that area compared to the Gen 1.

[thedave1164]

6 rounds did this...

WOW! My hand didn't look that bad after a box of .454 casull