I have one.



Picked it up when they were closing them out, got it new for about $200 or 250 something like that...picked up all the bells and whistles for give away prices too....nite-sites, laser, wood grips.

Shooting wise the only real issue I've had is don't do the +1 thing and top off the mag....guaranteed to jam if I do. Leave the mag down one and it's fine. Rather picky about HPs but runs fine on most FMJ and some HPs like Gold-Dots work fine...hates that screwdriver head stuff. It doesn't like wimpy ammo either NATO or +P works 100%, WWB not so much

One of the absolute worst take-down and reassembly procedures I ever seen...but once you figure out the tricks it's doable...you already found out about the slide release spring.

I never got it to be an EDC....I had heard about them....more just a cool looking oddity that was selling for well below it's original pricing...and being a tinkerer it would be a challenge if it did act up. But really it hasn't been that bad actually...it's just a range toy/oddity so it gets mostly FMJ and works just fine with it.....just don't top off the mag.

 

thank you for your feedback. May i ask where you found those cool looking wood grips, mine are cheap plastic. As far as your +1 issues go apparently this is not an issue with mine as mine must be one of the latest ones but I watched a video where you can cure the problem by taking about 1/10 of an inch off the bottom of the mag follower... the issue is apparently the follower is too long and does not allow the slide to cycle back on full mag...

this video shows how to fix your issue...

 

Interesting I've got a bunch of mags I picked up for it...might try that on a couple.

The grips....and the nite-sites and laser....I got those on e-bay When the gun was discontinued a lot of places on there were clearing out their R51 stuff for ridiculously low prices....now if you can find anything for them it's usually at premium prices...the guys that probably never lowered their prices and still have it.

The Gen 2s do seem to have solved "most" of the earlier issues...but not all as the mag issue shows....but they weren't as bad. However the damage had already been done to it's reputation, and the Gen 2s still weren't flawless.....and that field strip nightmare is a hard selling point.

All-in-all though not a bad little pistol for the money....but if I'd paid top-dollar when they came out, I would have been seriously disappointed.

 

It seems on the Gen 2 they reinforced the bottom of the mag, and added a rib on top to ensure the rounds did not nose dive... they added about a tenth of an inch on the rib (seems this is how you can tell if its a Gen 2 mag or not) but initially they forgot that the total internal length of the mag was fixed and the addition of the additional height for the rib made the pistol impossible to cycle back on full mag... at some point they fixed this as my gun did not have this issue from the factory...

 

I checked ebay and was able to pick up two mags and a factory box for $42 shipped... they have a bunch of barrels for $60, and recoil springs... seems parts are still plentiful for them, which is great... mags I think will dry out soon...

 

A lot of those guys buy guns for cheap then make their money by parting them out. They can make a tidy little profit off of selling the pieces and parts.

Eventually the mags will dry up or be going for top dollar, so if you can find them for a good price get 'em while you can.

 

given how time intensive it is to part guns out, hard for me to see how they make money doing this... must be a passion for them but I am glad they provide this service so that we may purchase parts... what spare parts have you purchased? I picked up a spare recoil spring and two extra mags but that is it...

 

None actually other than mags and upgrade parts like the sites and grips...don't really shoot it all that much and I figure if something does break I can probably find it somewhere on line.

I've got other guns like Glocks and Sigs and such that I do most of my shooting with and are a lot easier to find parts for if something does break. The R51 isn't something I pour hundreds of rounds through...just an interesting little oddity in my collection.

The one part I have considered stocking up on is the little rubber or plastic piece they use for the extractor instead of a spring. To me that seems like a fail point and I have heard it can cause issues if the gun gets hot. I've even contemplated trying to replace it with an actual spring of some sort.

 

am thinking of getting a firing pin and a slide release spring... can't think of anything else that might break normally...

 

I would definitely also like to replace it with the spring as that rubber spring will surely get old...

 

You know that things gonna wear out or harden up, flatten out or start disintegrating at some point.

 

unfortunately could not find the extractor tension rubber on ebay... will keep looking...p.s. if you find them for sale somewhere please post the link

 

Numrich Gun Parts has them...they are an excellent place to get hard to find parts.

Extractor Button, Elastomer, New Factory Original R51 REMINGTON (gunpartscorp.com)

 

Thank you so much. I just ordered one.

 

I got mine basically for free when I renewed my membership at a local indoor range years ago, it’s a mechanically interesting pistol and it shoots nice

Taking it apart has helped to expand my vocabulary in new and interesting ways however

 

Watching this thread with interest. I too got a Gen2 when they were being dumped, have not yet fired it… didnt want to ruin the collector value. 🤔

it seems like the perfect EDC format - slim, concealable, cool as all get-out. I would nominate it as a Bond gun.

 

I also have one. Probably around 400 rounds ish. Got it for around $150. It hasn't jammed for me.

 

Took mine to the range yesterday and fired it with PPU and Rem JHPs with no failures, also tried various forms of ball 115 and 124 grain with no issues. Nice little pistol for the money. I also had my CZ 82 with me and the R51 definitely has less recoil than CZ with +4lbs spring, I was running 19 lbs new spring on CZ and still recoils way more than R51...

 

I saw one at the local Cabela's for 250 not that long ago. It got snapped up. It would probably be a good spare gun if proven reliable.

 

A guy here has one. It has been reliable except for the time he fed it ammo of excess OAL. He did use his FBI badge to get in to see the manager of the Huntsville operation and display its faults, though.

 

I bought a Gen 2 at a discount and later heard that if it broke and Remington couldn’t fix it they would replace it with one of their 1911’s.
So I went through all of my reloading manuals and found the hottest +P 9mm. Then I added 0.1 grain to that and loaded 2,000 rounds and promptly went to the range to punish that pistol.

It took it like a champ. After putting a few hundred rounds through it it stopped jamming. My magazine springs were way to strong and needed to be broken in. Mine is a fine pistol.

 

To be honest, after owning Glocks, I just don't have the patience for complicated field stripping. Even my 1911 is annoying that way. Otherwise I was very interested when they first came out and almost bought one. Dodged a bullet. . .

 

I had one some time ago, but I don't know if it was a 1st or 2nd gen. It shot just fine, and never malfunctioned, but I tried to field srip it one time, and one time only. After I fianlly got it back together, I got rid of it. If there is a trick to it, I never figured it out. Sort of a shame really. Other than that, I liked the gun.

I saw one at the LGS recently and thought about it, but then my hands started to hurt, so I passed.

 

The easiest way to tell them apart is the location of the R51 on the right side of the slide.

The 2nd gen has it right directly behind the ejection port on the indentation. 1st gen it's lower down and farther back on the flat of the slide.

 

My slide stays back after each shot; a single-shot in effect. Any ideas?

 

My slide stays back after each shot; a single-shot in effect. Any ideas?

I think I know why the previous owner sold it cheap to my local store... the slide release was not installed correctly with spring catch going under the notch rather than over it and the slide would have stopped open with every shot but I caught this when I was inspecting the gun at the store and bought it.

A common problem brought to us by the brilliant engineering minds that designed the R51.

 

@springfield art - did you get the slide issue resolved? I got bit by that one time and remembered reading about it on line. A brief search and I found the solution. Let me know if you need further details about the proper orientation of the slide release spring.

 

I have a Gen 2 pistol. I paid $300 for it and received a $100 rebate from Remington. I had feeding problems with the original mags and the replacements Remington sent me. Then I realized that loading the 7th round was actually pushing some of the previous rounds out of alignment, which caused the top round and random additional rounds to catch on the feed ramp or lip of the magazine. I read about removing a small amount of material on the bottom of the magazine follower so I disassembled one of the magazines and tried that by sanding it with a piece of fine emery cloth. While apart, I also performed the glock magazine cleaning procedure with brush and dry lube and that magazine ran perfectly with 7 rounds. I have since modified 5 more magazines and it is not only much easier to load the 7th round but I haven't had any malfunctions over several hundred rounds.

The only thing that bugs me a little is that you have to have a pretty perfect, high grip to ensure the grip safety releases. IDK if this is normally the case because I can't recall shooting another pistol with a grip safety.

Another modification I made is to replace the sights with remington fiber optics, then later the front sight with a taller Dawson Precision front sight to get away from the combat hold. I would love to put a RDS on it at some point it's a sweet shooter.

 

My R51 did have problems initially but it was random. Turned out it was the springs were too strong and after a few hundred rounds throwing the mags that stopped.