New R51 range report, not so good

[funflyer]

First range trip today, the good and bad.

First the good

-Fired 264 rounds of various ammo (see pic) with only one FTFeed. The one FTF, Blazer Brass 115gr, was the last round from the magazine. It stovepiped but did feed and fire when fed from the mag again. All others fed, fired and ejected without issue.

-Very accurate and easy to keep on target with low recoil. The 6" target in the pic below was from the first 84 rounds (2 mags of each brand) fired at 10 yards. The first mag or two I fired slowly to get my POA vs POI but the rest I let rip when I could (see the bad). Only one round off the target, the one you can see in the middle of the trigger guard.

Now the bad

-The trigger would intermittently fail to reset. Sometimes it would reset after all 7 fired rounds but this was maybe one in five mags. Most always would fail to reset once and as many as 3 times per magazine.

-Initially one mag would only accept 6 rounds. No matter what I tried, #7 would just not go. I found that mag spring was slightly tweaked causing it to stack and bind under one side of the follower. I managed to fix it and the mag worked fine but I will call Remington and see if they will send me a new spring.

[1911SHOOTER]

[ollower. I managed to fix it and the mag worked fine but I will call Remington and see if they will send me a new spring.


More than likely, they will send you a new magazine.   I called about mine and they sent me two more.   Then I experimented with
my old ones and now they work fine.   I numbered my mags q thru 5 to keep them separate.
Don't know what to say about the trigger reset.   Never had that problem.   I just let the trigger go completely forward
after each shot.
Blackie

[R51Fan2017]

Smoke-silver R51!!!!!!  Very nice!! How did you get yours?? I seem to be having trouble locating were they are hiding. Anyway, the mags seem to be giving everyone trouble. Mine are very difficult at best to load at seven, but somehow, I always manage.

[1911SHOOTER]

Smoke-silver R51!!!!!!  Very nice!! How did you get yours?? I seem to be having trouble locating were they are hiding. Anyway, the mags seem to be giving everyone trouble. Mine are very difficult at best to load at seven, but somehow, I always manage.

R51Fan,
     Take out the magazine followers and trim 3/16" off the legs.   That is what I and a bunch of others have done.  Eases the last round in the mag.
Lock the slide back, insert the mag, and sling shot the slide.   Works every time.
Blackie

[funflyer]

Smoke-silver R51!!!!!!  Very nice!! How did you get yours?? I seem to be having trouble locating were they are hiding.

Sportsman's Warehouse in Flagstaff Arizona had 3 when I bought mine. They're on line so maybe they'll ship.

[R51Fan2017]

R51Fan,
     Take out the magazine followers and trim 3/16" off the legs.   That is what I and a bunch of others have done.  Eases the last round in the mag.
Lock the slide back, insert the mag, and sling shot the slide.   Works every time.
Blackie

Thanks Blackie! Just got a hold of Remington today, and they are sending me a replacement mag for free anyway. So as soon as it comes in, I will modify it and see how it does. Thanks!

Sean

[R51Fan2017]

Sportsman's Warehouse in Flagstaff Arizona had 3 when I bought mine. They're on line so maybe they'll ship.

Thanks funflyer!

[funflyer]

Okay, so today I discovered why the trigger was not resetting reliably and corrected it.

As it turns out the trigger reset is just a matter of the trigger bar returning to the forward side of the sear, which in the case of my pistol's function was happening every time as it should. Where the problem came from was that the disconnector was not pulling the trigger bar up high enough on one side to reliably engage the sear.

The fix was to simply reduce the excessive gap on the trigger bar where it hooks around the disconnector on the right (loose) side. A picture is worth a thousand words, see pics below.

[FlatEarther]

Nice pictures thanks.
So did you adjust the disconnector down or the trigger bar up?... Joe

[gunnut1]

What sight picture were you using? Mine shoots low with a 6:00 hold.I am being to use something called a military hold wiich will totally cover the bulls eye on the target. Not accpetiable in my book. It is hard to shoot the target if you can't see it.

[R51Fan2017]

Great pics funflyer! Thanks for sharing. That makes me want to investigate mine now.

[lklawson]

What sight picture were you using? Mine shoots low with a 6:00 hold.I am being to use something called a military hold wiich will totally cover the bulls eye on the target. Not accpetiable in my book. It is hard to shoot the target if you can't see it.

This is a standard sighting option now.  It began gaining acceptance sometime around Korean War, iirc.  The idea for it is "combat" or "self defense" sighting when you want to quickly cover the target with your front sight and press the trigger.

Get target hits fast, not necessarily bulls-eye.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[funflyer]

Nice pictures thanks.
So did you adjust the disconnector down or the trigger bar up?... Joe

The trigger bar's tab where it hooks to the disconnector on the right side was what I had to adjust (close the gap) to match the left side.

What sight picture were you using? Mine shoots low with a 6:00 hold.I am being to use something called a military hold wiich will totally cover the bulls eye on the target. Not accpetiable in my book. It is hard to shoot the target if you can't see it.

That's exactly what I've been doing and I agree that it is unacceptable. All my S&W defense pistols are dead on using a 6'oclock hold. Unless there are some aftermarket sights available for the R51 soon I will have to machine my own front sight to correct this so I won't have to rethink my aim from pistol to pistol.

Great pics funflyer! Thanks for sharing. That makes me want to investigate mine now.

It's very easy to tell if things are askew with the stamped steel trigger bar and disconnector. They should be symmetrical and level from right to left. The backstrap (grip safety) is easily removed to inspect those parts. There's videos on youtube showing how.

I have read about two other forum members having this problem. I only wonder how many R51s are on the verge of having the same problem and with just a little wear between those two parts they will start to fail also. You can see where the two parts make contact from within the magazine well and from there it's easy to brush some gun grease on them to help prevent this.

[funflyer]

Nice pictures thanks.
So did you adjust the disconnector down or the trigger bar up?... Joe

Here's a better pic of the trigger bar (TB) tabs which allow the disconnector to pull up on it. You can clearly see the difference on each side and how much more the disconnector would have to move before making contact with the TB on the right side. I'm actually holding up on the disconnector in this pic with a screwdriver for a better look but normally the TB would be hanging on the disconnector by it's tabs.

[russc2542]

odd, I can't see your pics. not even placeholders.

lot more than 2 ppl have had the no-reset bug. my fix was to add a little lube down there under the hammer. wasn't even dirty just dry and the trigger bar wasn't dropping back in place.