I'm with Sean, more shooting will smooth things out and even lighten the pull some. Mine started life with a 5-1/2 pound pull and, after more than a thousand rounds, has settled in at a tad over 5. I think that "bump" you're feeling at the break is the nose of the sear dragging slightly as it releases from the hammer. Below is a picture of a new sear. Take a look at the nose of the sear (red arrow) and you'll see that it's rough. I suppose the break-in process could be expedited by polishing the sear and hammer contact points but, range time and dry-firing will accomplish the same.

Quote from: Rog54 on October 02, 2018, 06:35:56 PM
Hi Todd,
I'm a little late, but...congratulations on the new R1S.  I also have one.  Is yours the enhanced version?  I agree, the first time I shot mine I was impressed. If it misses I'm convinced it's me not the gun.
Rog

Thanks Rog,

No, my R1S is just the standard version, but I do have an enhanced in 9mm and it is a fantastic pistol. I would love to have an enhanced in 45 but my short list says 10mm at the top. I'm not sure which 10mm I'd like so It'll be a while.

Just back from the range, and it was a great day. The R51 ate up the reloads well, and as accurate as any factory ammo I've shot. Only one stovepipe. That was on a fully loaded mag with one in the chamber (7+1) and after the first shot. All in all I was pretty stoked at the accuracy of my first reloads.

First pic is the target out to 10 yards. Left group was 4.4 grain of HP38, wearing gloves. Right group (1.5"), no gloves and was shooting 4.8 grain of the same powder.

Second pic I was shooting my R1, off hand, at 10 yards. Yes, that's a .750" 5 shot group.

Quote from: Rog54 on September 27, 2018, 07:40:41 PM
Fun,

About 3 weeks ago my grandson and I put about 300 reloads down range with only one nose dive.  I use 115gr RN plated bullets with a medium load of HP38.  Both my 51's ate-um up!
I agree with the plunk test.  I learned the hard way, with, I don't remember how many hundred 45acp that measured to spec but would not fully seat in the barrel! Just by a light 1/16 or so. Had to go back and adjust a bunch.  That was in my Remington R1.

Rog

Rog, I loaded up some 45 test rounds for my R1 and Shield which ran flawlessly through both. I used Bayou 230 LRN bullets and set the COL to 1.252, the same as some factory loads I checked. . As for the 9mm test loads I recently loaded, I'm going out today to test them. The Hodgdon load data showed to set the COL to 1.100, but I set them to 1.125, which is less than all the factory loads I measured. They pass the plunk test in 4 of my pistols, but the most critical is the R51 which has the tightest chamber so we'll see how they perform.

Quote from: Zenshot on September 29, 2018, 04:23:43 PM
I plunk tested Xtreme 115 grain heavy plate concave base bullets. They worked all the way to 1.165 OAL.  I use Bullseye powder and get best accuracy with longer OALs and generally set mine at 1.150.  Haven't had any problems running them in the R51.

Zen, I set some 115 LRN coated bullets to 1.150 initially, however they were just making contact with the rifling, so I dropped them to 1.125. Since I'm new to reloading I started with HP38 powder and, once I get enough data in all 3 different calibers, I'm going to try Bullseye as I've heard good reports on it from all the reloading forums. Waiting for all my free bullets from Hornady also, which will be more loads to test.

Going to get out tomorrow and test some of my first 9mm reloads. I separated all my Remington brass and am using that as it seems to feed smoother in all my pistols. I crimped these .0005" more than the factory rounds and they seem to plunk much better than any factory round. Might affect accuracy but we'll see tomorrow.

That makes sense as the manufacturing/machining processes didn't change, only the people doing the work. I think I'd be more leery about the early gen 2 frames marked "Huntsville" than the "Charlotte" ones because of the learning curve with workers new to the processes.

Glad to hear the bayou 95 grain work well, I have 500 of them to try, along with 500 115 grain RN for my 9mils.

As for the progressive press, here's how I started...nice and slow.

I deprimed on a single stage Lee press, then cleaned all the cases in dawn with a dash of lemi-shine. Very nice looking after they wet tumble a few hours and easy to inspect. I decided to hand-prime, then set up just the resizing and flaring dies, in the progressive, so there wouldn't be too much to think about at one time. Then I set up the powder dump, seating die and also a Lee factory crimp die to finish the process. This worked real well as I only had to think about setting the bullet after looking in the case for the proper(ish) powder load.

The Hornady press made it easy to take out the dies that I wasn't using and leave them set up for when I feel confident enough run the entire process at one time. For now I'll stick with hand priming as I like the feel of it compared to the press, and until I start reloading in quantity, it doesn't take very long at all.

Thanks guys,

Kirk, I have two barrels also. One has a chamber right at the minimum and the other was .0005" tight. I polished the tight one after noticing deeper extractor marks on the brass and erratic ejection. Haven't checked the lead on either, but haven't had any issues with factory ammo, both 115 and 124 grain. I ordered bayou bullets 115 RN and plan on reloading them to the same specs as factory so we'll see how it goes.

Matt, welcome to the forum. How have your 380 reloads performed, and which pistols do you reload for? I don't shoot my 357 much but might get the dies to reload them in the future.

Well I decided it was time to start reloading so I jumped in with both feet. Picked up a Hornady LNL AP press and all the bits and pieces to reload 45, 380 and 9mm. So far I've only reloaded 36 rounds of 45ACP just to get the feel for the press and to test different powder loads to see which my pistols prefer. All went bang and functioned perfectly. Next I think I'll load some 9mm and see if the R51 will function as well as it does with factory ammo. Out of all my 9s the R51 has the tightest chamber so if I have success with that one I'll be doing something right.

Who else reloads?

Welcome from Arizona. You've come to the right place. Lots of good folks to learn from here.

Welcome from Arizona.

Welcome from Arizona.

I thought he said they polished the "bolt". I assume that means they polished the Pedersen block? I'd be interested to see is it was just a polish or, if they removed material to relieve it somehow. Howard, please post some closeup pics of the block when you can. Anyway, glad to see it's running flawlessly now.

Better pull the spring and have a look. Maybe it got dorked up and is stacking under one side of the follower legs.

Quote from: R51Fan2017 on July 23, 2018, 08:47:06 AM
The magazines are the heart and soul of an automatic pistol. Also, I one hundred percent agree with you on capacity. What's the point of having a 7 round mag when you can only have 6 in it? I hope Big Green will get you fixed up this time. I can't believe there is such a difference in quality in comparison to the R1 and RM380 lines. You would figure since the 51 is a "heritage" pistol for them, they would have taken more pride and time in their work to make sure every aspect (especially the magazines for it) would be 100%. Best of luck to you!

Sean

Yep, and Remington even states 7+1 on their R51 page. Both my mags will feed 7+1 without fail but, only after trimming the bottom of the followers. One will still occasionally let go of, and stovepipe the last round. That mag has the widest (average)feed lips of the two, coincidence?

I looked at and measured all my other 9mm's, which are 100% reliable, and discovered something interesting. The R51 mags not only  have the widest feed lips, they have the shortest also. They're also the most inconsistent. Coincidence?

Howard, have you measured the feed lips of your most problematic mag? I'd sure like to know how wide the one is that lets loose of a live round during cycling. I watched your video again and did see the failure after you mentioned it. Here's a screen shot.