While I'm tossing out little updates, I've found out a bit more about the R51's disappearance and reappearance from Remington's product line. Evidently the first-generation ones, um... kind of didn't work, to such an extent that Remington opted to take it away, do a bunch of work on it, and then pretend they hadn't released the first version when they released the second version.

Unfortunately, every indication (and I mean every indication, usually there's some spread to these things, but) I'm seeing is that the second-generation R51 doesn't work either. Even reviewers who desperately want to like it just... can't. The most common factor blamed for this is that Remington decided to position it against the likes of the Glock 43 and Walther CCP in the "compact 9mm Para" category, and at that size, the Pedersen hesitation lock is... not really up to that. (The Model 53, which almost became the U.S. Navy's M1918 sidearm, was bigger and beefier, a full-size service handgun.) I'm sure it also doesn't help that 21st-century Remington's manufacturing QA, at least on the R51 production line, is reportedly appalling.

So, even at the pretty aggressive price point they're currently pushing, I probably won't get one. Not with my own money. I've got way too many other things I could spend it on.

It's such a shame. If they'd just put the Model 51 back into production in .380 and gone after that market segment, they might've had a chance, but no, they decided to modern it up. "Reimagine" it for Today's Tactical Shooter. Alas, that seems to have produced something as faithful to the original as the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie.

--G.
What? No, screw that, there wasn't more than one.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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