Anyone buy a Remington R51 yesterday?

[cntrydawwwg]

1SOW, I think many on here have learned from your experience. I know I have. It's very disheartening how they treated you. IMO Remington customer service failed you. It should not have taken this long to make things right with you.
   I do wish the R51 luck, I had thought about getting one. For now though, I do not see myself getting a new Remington firearm anytime in the near future. I think a huge step in Remington regaining their name would be a revamping of their customer service.

[Meechy7648]

I've been following this thread from the beginning and I'm beyond amazed that it took almost 6 months for you to get final resolution, 1SOW!  I remember how optimistic you were that they'd fix it. That's a LOT of good will that they pissed away. Very disappointing.

[bobanddog]

Well I'm glad to learn you finally got the money back but sheesh, they sure took their time about it. 

Introducing a flawed design is one thing, compounding it with poor manufacturing quality is another, not responding promptly to dissatisfied customers is strike three.

Everything I have that says Remington on it came from another era and was handed down by my Father.  The only new item they put out that thought was worth getting was a calendar.

[Ross7]

I still think it's a shame how all this was handled (or not handled) by Remington.  This convinces me Remington could care less for the customer and/or their product reliability.

Sorry that you had to go through that deplorable saga, but glad to know about it. I've been looking at 1911s and a Remington R1 was on the semi-short list, now not so much...

[Calcz]

Has anyone heard if Remington will seek California approval?

[1SOW]

Maybe I'm just just nuts,  but that pistol was potentially a winner.  Wish it had turned out differently. 
Que sera sera.

[henehcuhp]

Is this pistol still a ghost? I haven't kept up with this thread since the revelation that Remington had totally removed it from their site, sales literature, ect...seemed like a 'just forget this gun ever happened' strategy.

Then I could SWEAR that I saw it in SHOT 2015 pictures.

[bubbadoc]

If they get good reviews after hitting the market I will definately be interested in one.  I was when they came out but before I could find one I started seeing too much bad on them.

I truly hope they get their act together, make it work, and never repeat the fiasco

[lklawson]

Is this pistol still a ghost?

They're re-releasing a Gen 2 this year.

I haven't kept up with this thread since the revelation that Remington had totally removed it from their site, sales literature, ect...seemed like a 'just forget this gun ever happened' strategy.

That was actually a myth.  It never happened despite such internet luminaries as "Nick Leghorn" claiming it.  What happened was that Remington took the R51 off of the highlighted product banner-crawl on their front page.  The newsblurb product releases were still there on the Remington front page.  The R51 "stub" page (which is all it ever was) still remained on "The Rock" web page (http://therock.remington.com/firearm_ModelR51.php#.VOt5Z3vw9hQ).  The R51 Youtube channel remained in place, and unaltered on youtube.com.  The R51 also remained in the 2014 Product catalog, both in the downloadable PDF and in the interactive flash-style catalog. 

I don't know what "Nick Leghorn" was smoking when he wrote that, but the stuff was still right there online when I went and checked on it the very day that he put up his blog post.  Nothing was "scrubbed" despite being widely reported.  It just sort of grew legs on the internet like the story about McDonald's requiring college degrees, but was still just as false.  Judging by the other things he's written about Remington and Freedom Group, it looks like he may have some sort of personal bias about the company.

Then I could SWEAR that I saw it in SHOT 2015 pictures.

You did.  They're claiming to be bringing out a new and improved model, being generally referred to on the net unofficially as "Gen 2."

I bought an R51 and immediately had problems.  I sent it back in and waited (and waited and waited and waited).  I turned down their offer of a cash refund because, well, I wanted the gun more than the money, which is why I traded money for the gun in the first place.    But when they offered a replacement gun with a MSRP of ~$300 more, how could I say no?

When the Gen 2 comes out, I'll buy one of those and try again. 

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[henehcuhp]

Awesome, thorough reply, thanks.

And I got a kick out of you mentioning Leghorn- I actually know EXACTLY who that is. He is, essentially, 'that guy on TTAG who is full of crap.' I gave up trying to read his articles, as it usually resulted in nothing but me feeling the need to destroy his silly opinions in the comments.

[eastman]

I haven't kept up with this thread since the revelation that Remington had totally removed it from their site, sales literature, ect...seemed like a 'just forget this gun ever happened' strategy.

That was actually a myth.  It never happened despite such internet luminaries as "Nick Leghorn" claiming it.  What happened was that Remington took the R51 off of the highlighted product banner-crawl on their front page.  The newsblurb product releases were still there on the Remington front page.  The R51 "stub" page (which is all it ever was) still remained on "The Rock" web page (http://therock.remington.com/firearm_ModelR51.php#.VOt5Z3vw9hQ).  The R51 Youtube channel remained in place, and unaltered on youtube.com.  The R51 also remained in the 2014 Product catalog, both in the downloadable PDF and in the interactive flash-style catalog. 

I don't know what "Nick Leghorn" was smoking when he wrote that, but the stuff was still right there online when I went and checked on it the very day that he put up his blog post.  Nothing was "scrubbed" despite being widely reported.  It just sort of grew legs on the internet like the story about McDonald's requiring college degrees, but was still just as false.  Judging by the other things he's written about Remington and Freedom Group, it looks like he may have some sort of personal bias about the company.

[/quote]

When it was still being offered, you could go on the Remington website and select PRODUCTS --> Handguns and that would go to a page that had a column of Firearm listings on the left side. The R51 was listed there, under all of the 1911 R1 models. It isn't anymore and hasn't been for quite a while.

The rest of the story may be true, but they did remove it from the product list.

[lklawson]

When it was still being offered, you could go on the Remington website and select PRODUCTS --> Handguns and that would go to a page that had a column of Firearm listings on the left side. The R51 was listed there, under all of the 1911 R1 models. It isn't anymore and hasn't been for quite a while.

The rest of the story may be true, but they did remove it from the product list.

Not quite.  They removed it from the ranks of the 1911 offerings on the Remington owned website www.1911r1.com, which (surprisingly) focuses on the Remington R1 1911 series handguns, and, instead, moved it to the the Remington owned website TheRock.remington.com, which focuses on most of the other Remington products, such as their rifles and shotguns.

Remington moved it from this link (now dead):
http://www.1911r1.com/pages/Support/model-r51-video
To this link:
http://therock.remington.com/firearm_ModelR51.php#.VOxyNXvw9hQ

Frankly, it's one of the few things that Remington did with the whole thing that makes sense.  My suspicion is that the web team just decided "hey, the R51 is a handgun so it should get stuck with all the other handguns, right?"  So they did.  At least until someone else went, "uh... the R51 isn't a 1911, dude."  But, yes, when the web team did the move, it appears that, at the time, they took the one link out of the dropdown and forgot to replace it with the new link.

I'm not entirely satisfied with Remington's web team performance or Remington's internal communication system. Even after its release, after I bought one NIB but before any negative reviews started coming out, Remington still hadn't posted a PDF of the User Manual. I put in a Help Ticket with Remington asking about that. The response I got back is, "When we release the R51, we'll put up a PDF of the Users Manual." Umm... "I'm holding an R51 in my hand right now, dumb***." To the best of my knowledge, the only PDF of the manual to date is the one which I scanned in and published myself. If you find a PDF of the R51 User Manual online, it's mine.

And somehow a number of (ahem) "bloggers" decided that Remington had "scrubbed all trace" of the R51.  <sigh>

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[lklawson]

Awesome, thorough reply, thanks.

And I got a kick out of you mentioning Leghorn- I actually know EXACTLY who that is. He is, essentially, 'that guy on TTAG who is full of crap.' I gave up trying to read his articles, as it usually resulted in nothing but me feeling the need to destroy his silly opinions in the comments.

I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy.   Probably fun to go shooting with.  But his "Journalistic Standards" simply are non-existent.  He reports unsubstantiated rumor as fact, makes wild speculations, and encourages outlandish implications, while at the same time has managed to insult and impugn the Journalistic Integrity of several long established and well respected writers.

While I don't wish any particular ill on him, he has become a seriously liability to TTAG.  He's either going to have to work darn hard to mend fences or TTAG is going to have to release him from their staff.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[Dtech]

I'd also like to get a chance to handle the R51 to see what the fit, finish, and function is like.  Definitely a unique looking and interesting pistol.

[Wahoo1 again]

I hope Remington has fixed the problems and get them back on the market. I'd really like to try one out. The design has a huge visual appeal to me.