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Remington model 700

5 axis Fidia guy

Stainless
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Location
Wisconsin
Hi guys, I walked into a conversation at work a few weeks ago about an issue with the model 700 trigger assembly. They were saying there have been allot of accidental discharges and many lawsuits "covered" up by Remington. Well over the weekend I was surfing channels and I believe it was on msnbc channel, there was a long story about this topic. They say there is indeed an issue, and Remington will not issue a recall, there were a bunch of people saying that when the saftey is flipped off the gun will discharge. There was a stack of paperwork of complaints and Remington will not give an opinion on this. When I was on my way back home from deer hunting I stopped at my local gunsmith and he was aware of the program on tv and he pretty much laughed me out of the store, he claims there is nothing wrong, and all but said I am an idiot for believing in the bias news channels. Now I am a little concerned what is true, have you guys any opinions on this or first have knowledge of this potential issue.. I have had a model 700 in a .270 caliber that has been my whitetail rig for over 20 years and it has performed flawlessly.
 
I visit Sniper's Hide regularly and this has a lenghtly thread there (as well as the Remi vs Savage thing). Some seem to feel that the problem is mostly limited to triggers that have been improperly modified by a "Gunsmith". There are also some posting stating that the original designer of the trigger group is on record as being critical of the design. Most of the posters feel that despite the cause (and they DO AD on video of SWAT and military OPs) muzzle disicipline should ALWAYS be exercised and have little sympathy for injury excuses. My only long range rifle is a Savage 10 FCP (.308, Choate stock, US Optics 3.2-17 Ergo, Ken Farrel rings and his G-Force mount, etc...) that has the Accu-Trigger. Looks a little weird (called the "Lawyer Trigger" by some), yet is smooth and crisp. Best Regards !! Joe
 
The "Accu-Trigger" is considered one of the best out there from my understanding. My trigger was lightened up a bit when I first purchaced the gun by a "gunsmith". I will only assume it was done properly because I have not had any issues with it in all the shooting I have done over the years. I would like to get to the bottom of all the claims about this issue thats for sure.
 
I watched the 1hr show on it a few days ago, I was going to post about it here but now see you did. It was the first time I heard of this, but I never used a rem700.

They visited the designer of the action, he still has a nice little shop at home(they say he's 98 if I heard it right) anyway, they showed that soon after he had first designed the action in the mid 40's, he also submitted a modification to the design to make it safer as he realized it was gonna be problematic, sounded like it was mostly because of manufacturing accuracy required for it to work right/safe, then cleaning and such of course. Remington rejected the modification because it would add 5.5cent per rifle. But it has of course cost millions in law suits since then.

They showed a fair bit of different footage of the rifles firing without pulling the trigger. They also mentioned it fired in a court room (not loaded) during a trial and it was a remington guy handling it at the time to show it was safe...
Remington says there's no issue. In court they normally seemed to say it was a used/cleaning issue. In the footage they showed military snipers showing the rifle firing by itself, I kinda doubt the military lets their guns get dirty.... isn't cleaning the first step in gun training ??? they said 2 out of 20 shot would fire on them own taking the safety off, but that average would likely vary for each rifle and how accurately it happened to be manufactured, and some are likely fine and will never have that problem?

I also found it interesting that your government can't force a manufacturer to recall firearms, but they force any other sort of company to recall all kinds of useless crap to "keep people safe " often without ever having 1 accident reported. There's thousands of reports on the 700's, but that's fine. Just weird...
 
I watched part of the documentary that was just on TV about the 700 just the other night. I know nothing about guns, but they interviewed the Remington engineer that designed that assembly. He said it was a bad design and that he had been pushing Remington to change it for years. The program showed the internal correspondence from Remington that acknowledged the problem. I would think if the engineer that developed any mechanism admits it has a problem it likely does.
 
As an addition to my above post; Have read a few claims that shooters were able to produce an AD by pulling hard on the trigger with the safety engaged and having it fire when the safety was later released. I did not see the TV piece, but have read that most considered it suprisingly unbiased considering the hoplophobic nature of most "Journalists" these days.
 
In one of the bits of video of it firing, it appeared like the shooter only lightly touched the bolt, and I think they did mentioned that they also had report of it firing when going to open it to unload, not just when the safety was turned off.
 
In the footage they showed military snipers showing the rifle firing by itself, I kinda doubt the military lets their guns get dirty.... isn't cleaning the first step in gun training ??? they said 2 out of 20 shot would fire on them own taking the safety off, but that average would likely vary for each rifle and how accurately it happened to be manufactured, and some are likely fine and will never have that problem?

are you sure you saw what you think you saw? i don't remember seeing them fire all by themselves. the operator was handling the rifle and DID pull the trigger before mussing with the bolt causing it to fire. did the story ever once mention if the trigger had been adjusted after it left remington? there is no way in hell any branch of the us military or any law enforcement agency would allow a rifle that had a real, proven problem of firing on it's own 10% of the time.


I also found it interesting that your government can't force a manufacturer to recall firearms, but they force any other sort of company to recall all kinds of useless crap to "keep people safe " often without ever having 1 accident reported. There's thousands of reports on the 700's, but that's fine. Just weird...

maybe the government can't force them to recall the rifles because there is not a real problem with them.




just because an anti-gun news source created a totally biased story in an attempt to destroy the reputation of a major firearm manufacture, doesn't make the story true.


edit: remington's rebuttal to the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_KVS1hIbQg
 
Doesn't make the story false either... mostly when the engineer that designed the thing says himself it was a problem and he had a fix and it never got put into production...

A safety is not a safety if it has the potential to fire under any circumstance the moment you take it off, like if you happen to have touched the trigger for any reason while it was on, mostly with such an apparently sensitive trigger. Or something like bad cleaning, or a random manufacturing accuracy issue.

True or not, doesn't bother me. And its worth saying some of the accidents even mentioned in the documentary were indeed preventable. Like don't run around hunting with a loaded rifle in the first place safety on or not, whatever the brand is. Load it when there's something to shoot at, if you're too slow and it runs off because of the 2 seconds it took, better luck next time at least nobody got shot. Don't have a loaded rifle in your house when you're showing it off to friends, of course some of you will say you can do whatever you want in your house... perhaps, but sometimes it has a consequence.
 
Well, finding this discussion to be disturbing, I just gave mine about 50 tries and could not cause it to fire. Add my one data point to the conversation.
 
Remington 700

Hello All
Currently watching the show on the Remington 700. Yes Mike Walker who designed the 700 does acknowledge the fact there is a problem. He has tried to get Remington to change the design he states it was a issue from the beginning even offered another design to fix the issue. Back in the day would have cost Remington a nickle/rifle to fix.(all supported by memo) Money makes the world go round.

Oh it was at the trial of a oil field worker where the Remington 700 discharged on the stand at trial. The $ 17 million dollars awarded by the jury to the oil field worker, Remington could have replaced many if not all the triggers in a recall to fix the issue.( Leaping over dollars to save dimes.)

My current Remington 700 has a Jewel trigger. I like Remington 700 rifles however they need to fix the triggers.

Again as ALWAYS MAKE SURE WHERE THE MUZZLE IS POINTING.

However if your around someone else with a Stock Remington 700 especially pre 1982 circa make sure your not in front of their muzzle.
:eek::eek::eek:

Remington needs to step up and fix the issue.

Best way to affect change is not to purchase Remington 700.

They will fix the issue if their market share begins to shrink.
Do you clean your trigger on your Remington if you do clean at that level you most likely would have been considered to have tampered with the trigger.

PS That is why if your a gunsmith don't adjust much less do trigger jobs on Remington triggers because if something does happen it could or would come back to you as your problem. Because if you adjust the trigger you have tempered with the seal on the trigger adjustment screws. Your problem not theirs now.
 
Well, finding this discussion to be disturbing, I just gave mine about 50 tries and could not cause it to fire. Add my one data point to the conversation.

I believe the issue is caused by debris collected over time.

Here's a pretty thorough discussion:

After many years of forced silence-- - Topic Powered by Social Strata

Disclaimer: I haven't read through the entire thread, and I do have a Rem 700 of my own that I consider to be properly cleaned and maintained so that I don't have to worry about it anyway.
 
My current Remington 700 has a Jewel trigger. I like Remington 700 rifles however they need to fix the triggers.

so in you opinion, is the jewel trigger a safer, more reliable and foolproof trigger than an unmolested remington? i bet you find many people that disagree with you on that.
 
After each hunting season I remove my stock and give everything I can reach a good cleaning, some hunts are spend sitting in the rain and snow and I really don't like to have that moisture sit under the barrel for too long. However for those guys that say the clean their gun good,, do you actually take your trigger assembly apart? or do you just spray and clean what you can reach. My trigger screws are all lock tighted and looks like the guys don't want to tamper inside there.
 
I watched parts of it again last night, mostly the part they talked with Mr.Walker.
It is pretty clear from his talk that it is more of an issue with manufacturing accuracy/quality/inspection. Essentially its probably too picky a trigger system to successfully mass produce with what sounds like a cost cutting attitude, after all they are owned by share holders and that means increasing profit returns need to be made somehow. The majority may very well be fine as they are from the factory, but it only takes 1/100,000 to really cause problems when you're selling millions of them... now the plain fact of choosing to save 5.5cents and to not go with the different and safe trigger design that had a properly working safety that locked the trigger, is like he said, "stupidity".
 
Muley,
You don't have to take the trigger apart to clean it. If it is real dirty clean it with brake cleaner and blow it out with compressed air. Then flood it with cigarette lighter fluid. Do not use any oil!! It does nothing to void any warranty.
Butch
 
I am a gunsmith and have the tools and equipment to work on the 700.
that said I have seen both good trigger jobs and bad trigger jobs, There are a lot of reasons that a trigger group can go bad.

Worn metal, build up of GSR, even bad or untempered parts from the factory.

For years we have had great success from the Remington 700 with very few issues until very recently but just as major car manufacturers can have a bad group of parts, so can a firearm dealer.

Remington will rely on warranty rather than a recall to repair their guns, a recall could bankrupt any company in todays economy, Can you immagine making 60 million new triggers for anyone wanting to upgrade their guns?
 
The Remington 700 in ALL it's alphabet suffixed variations and factory built in probably every commercially available caliber is THE most prolific bolt action center-fire rifle available in the US (and maybe the world). Savage owners complain about the lack of after-market support (especially Tactical type accessories) as compared to the 700. The Rem 700 has a more "Romantic" image than the Winchester 70 or Savage (Remi guys ALWAYS say "Look at that UGLY Barrel Nut"). Everyone wants to build a clone of the Viet Nam era M40 sniper rifle. The Military and most LEO's purchase Rem 700s for snipers, most likely because they are the lowest bidder always. It's a brand loyalty kind of thing that will keep a discussion like this going on forever on the forums (I'm not complaining). Kind of like the feeling you get driving your new Chevy truck and seeing the Ford truck next to you with the decal of the little kid pi**ing on the word "CHEVY" on the back window. :angry: Bottom line for those concerned is if you've fired hundreds of rounds through your particular rifle without incident, you will probably fire 1000s more trouble free with sensible maintenance. YMMV Joe :cheers:
 








 
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