I'm interested in the much maligned Remington R51. So I thought I would follow along here to listen to some active users.

Basic question, buy one or avoid them?

 I own two, one of Charlotte vintage, the second from Huntsville. The Charlotte gun needed tweaking, the other worked as delivered. My opinion they are excellent weapons.

Welcome Rick!  I say the R51 is a buy with one caveat.  Anyone who has lost too much strength and dexterity in their hands might struggle with field stripping and reassembly.  However there is a member here who makes a tool to solve that issue.

I recommend buying one. It makes for a great carry gun. Just keep in mind that you may or may not have to do some tweaking to it to get it 100%. If you don't want to take the time to fiddle with it, I would advise not getting one. However, if want to take a chance on it, now is most certainly the time as prices seem to have gone down significantly from when some of us initially bought them. Me personally, I would buy up every last one if I had the money right now.