8:44 this morning - I was just called by a person at Remington that is in the know and I am once again excited about the R51. The last person I emailed yesterday, sent my email up the chain to someone that truly cares about the image of the company for which he works. That person told me the testing that has been going on has been extremely successful and the R51 WILL be going back into production. There is one single part that was holding up the final acceptance, but the final tweaking was done in December so that it would comply with the requirements. Had it not been acceptable, they would have had to redesign the tooling for the frame. Those requirements are based off of a maximum amount of rounds that it is designed to handle for the expected life of the pistol before any part has to be replaced. All of the production line new R51 pistols are being shot each day and then evaluated, then put through the same testing again and again until they have been tested to meet those maximum amount of rounds.
Being as frustrated as all of us who are still hanging on to the possibility that the R51 will be corrected and re released, I felt much better after the conversation. I was told the decision as to the actual release date will only be made after all of the testing is completed, and the testing is much more strenuous than ever before on any model. Similarly, the new RM380 also was supposed to be released several months prior to its actual release date, but was delayed because of the additional QC that done in the tooling tolerances and testing that had to meet the approval of the engineers first. We discussed some of the posts being published on the forums about several conspiracy theories: "Remington has been leading people on to reduce the financial impact of having to reimburse its consumers all at the same time"…"The new pistols in design will be issued to replace the R51"…etc., etc. We discussed several of the issues I have posted on this forum. I had run over 800 rounds through the one that I returned and it was functioning fine. My biggest issue was it was showing some minor wear on the Disconnector. I was told the design of the final part that was accepted in December 2015, before the new R51 was approved by their engineers to comply with the design requirements. The new version of the R51 with all of its approved parts functioning the way it is supposed to, (and I assume with the new improved parts shown during the Shot Show 2015) is in the final firing testing and WILL BE GOING INTO PRODUCTION as soon as these tests are completed. Doing some "cipherin" on my own…at 65 rounds a day, if they are shooting a total of 5000 rounds, that would equal 77 days of shooting, (without including any days for tolerance evaluation, checking for wear on the barrel, slide, trigger, disconnector, ejector, etc.) and at 21 working days in a month, that is three and a half months. Since the redesign of the final part was approved in December, then that pushes the testing completion at least into April or May at a minimum.
I explained there are a lot of diehard Remington R51 loyal consumers that have still been waiting, (either patiently optimistic because we are smart enough to know that when something is rushed, mistakes are caused; or pretty darn stupid, because why would any smart person remain optimistic after being patient so long) but their frustration level is reaching its peak and even some of them are already changing their brand. If what I was told is factual, (and I believe it is) we will have our replacements this year (hopefully this summer). The conversation also included talk about several other launches that are in the works…but will not be released until the engineers testing is completed on the production line pieces first. We spoke for 18 minutes and 44 seconds. Later this morning, I noticed I had received a reply at 9:12 from the engineer fellow that I emailed as my last ditch effort yesterday:
"I am sorry to hear that you are still unable to resolve your customer service issue regarding your R51. I have forwarded your entire message to my boss who will do what can be done to obtain additional information; when I receive a reply, I will pass it on to you."
Still hoping to be a future R51, Gen 2 Beta Tester,
T3
