I just received an email from Remington announcing a new settlement.

I got rid of all my Remington rifles a while ago after one fired on its own as the bolt was lowered.

But for those who still own these rifles, read about it and submit a claim here: http://remingtonfirearmsclassactionsettlement.com

quote:

Who is Covered?

Current owners of Remington Model 700, Seven, Sportsman 78, 673, 710, 715, 770, 600, 660, XP-100, 721, 722, and 725 firearms containing a Remington trigger mechanism that utilizes a trigger connector;

Current owners of Remington Model 700 and Model Seven rifles containing an X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism manufactured from May 1, 2006 to April 9, 2014 who did not participate in the voluntary X-Mark Pro product recall prior to April 14, 2015; and

Current and former owners of Remington Model 700 and Model Seven rifles who replaced their rifle’s original Walker trigger mechanism with an X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism.

What are you entitled to?

Settlement Class Members may be entitled to:
(1) have their trigger mechanism retrofitted with a new X-Mark Pro or other connectorless trigger mechanism at no cost to the class members;
(2) receive a voucher code for Remington products redeemable at Remington’s online store; and/or
(3) be refunded the money they spent to replace their Model 700 or Seven’s original Walker trigger mechanism with an X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism.

I guess my first question would be: How do I know if I have the trigger described as "containing a Remington trigger mechanism that utilizes a trigger connector?"

I believe if your rifle was manufactured before May 1, 2006 that's what you've got.

Thanks for the heads up.

I too had sold all my Remingtons years ago but sent to my brothers who still own them.

It appears the oldest was produced in 1993. The other 2 checked out as I thought they would, current production. I purchased them from a 3d party as actions so there were no barrel codes to look up but I found a reference to the "RR" serial number prefix being current so that is that.

Thanks.

Someones gonna ask ! The letters carry on chronologically. 2013 is H, 2014 is I and so on.

blackpowderx1 by Rod Henrickson, on Flickr

blackpowderx2 by Rod Henrickson, on Flickr

Good post, Rod.

People in foreign countries have to be sort of careful with the date codes. Back in the 1980s Fred Emhof, who was the warranty chief, undertook to establish Remington proof houses in foreign countries to cut back on the hassles of crossing borders with firearms that ITAR had created. In that way firearms requiring new bolts or barrels (provable parts) could be serviced without all of the paperwork and headache of sending the guns back to the plant in Ilion. Out of country gunsmiths could then purchase provable parts from the plant in Ilion and proof loads from the ammunitions plant in Lonoke Arkansas. The problem was that after re-proving they had us stamp our issued proof marks over the date code on the barrels and on the underside of the bolt handles. No one thought about it at the time, but stamping our proof makes so close to the barrel codes often confused people who were trying to date their firearms. If memory serves, The Custom Gun Shop in Edmonton was issued the letter (C). Dave Dinsdale at Davidsons International was give the capital (D). Later I was given -H- with the (H) laying on it's side and Paul Lafeave was given the old, Custom Gun Shop (C). I have no idea exactly how it was handled in Europe, but I expect it was the same sort of cluster fuck there. The simple way to tell the difference is that the true barrel codes are all roughly aligned. The out of country proof will be directly over top of them and often a different size and font. Or close to it.

Interesting. I bought a new model 700 CDL LH last year that had the "defective" trigger on it. Rather than go through the hassle of getting it replaced, I swapped it with a Timney and have been very happy. Option 2 above sounds like it might be worth my trouble.

Do we know why they issued this second round? Was the recall not satisfactory from a legal standpoint?

Rod.

How many Remingtons have you seen with a number 4 stamped as the customer repair stamp ?.

Down here south of the border that meant it went back to Remington and was returned to the customer with no repair, tough luck.

My Father emailed Fred last month, Fred is very much alive and kicking yet.

J Wisner

Isn't this old news?

(1) have their trigger mechanism retrofitted with a new X-Mark Pro or other connectorless trigger mechanism at no cost to the class members:

No cost unless you live 6 hours from the nearest authorized Remington gunsmith and don't want to remove scopes to send in and then rescope and rezero each one.

We must have had dozens and dozens of Remington rifles through here - I have several myself, and love the model 700.

We have never had a single AD with any of them!!??

The only rifle I can recall having AD are the Japanes made Weatherby rifles.

We had 2 300 WM and both would fire if one loads a round, has the safety on, pulls the trigger, and takes the safety off.

Needless to say, we got rid of those very quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by J Wisner:
Rod.

How many Remingtons have you seen with a number 4 stamped as the customer repair stamp ?.

Down here south of the border that meant it went back to Remington and was returned to the customer with no repair, tough luck.

My Father emailed Fred last month, Fred is very much alive and kicking yet.

J Wisner

I don't recall on the 4 thing Jim. I never paid to much attention to assemblers and repair stamps because they didn't mean anything to me at the time. I take it you worked in Remingtons repair shop at the plant for a spell?

I sure got a kick out of Fred. When I met him he was already pretty old. Well 50 something I guess and he was getting ready to retire at that time. Fred, myself and a couple other fellows had some meetings at the plant with some lawyers and we finished late and Fred had to go to another meeting and suggested that me and another fellow might just wander around the plant until he was finished. We got hung up at the custom shop where they were building the SWS and they wouldn't let us in unless Fred was with us so we waited about 5 minutes more for him to catch up and then did the tour of the custom shop. We were just starting the tour of the CNC shop when Fred shot up and said: "JESUS BOYS! What did you think of the etching machine for the shotgun ribs?" We commented that we hadn't seen it and he insisted that we run all the way back through the plant to watch this fool machine put the little squiggly lines down the ribs of the shotgun barrels. He was just mesmerized by the silly little machine like a cat to a laser spot. I thought he was going to lose his nose in the bloody thing and we practically had to drag him kicking and squealing back to the CNC room. It's nice to hear that he's still up and kicking. I always wondered what happened to him, Jerry Beigh and Yotta Wertman as well. I probably spent several weeks worth of time on the phone with both Jerry and Yotta over the years. Yotta especially and I was pretty taken aback when I first met her. All 4 feet of her. I wasn't expecting that. lol

Doing warranty work for the major corporations is a major pain in the ass, the pay is the shits, you have to do all of their stupid jobs as well as the good and EVERYONE is mad at you ! But you do get to meet a lot of interesting people and you really do get to see and learn a hell of a lot more than the average gun plumber gets to experience in their lifetime. Hind sight being 20/20 though. I wouldn't do warranty work again on a bet. Billy Leeper once told me that I was an idiot for doing it and I can safely say, he was right !

I'm having a hard time getting enthusiastic about this. So, Remington is willing to replace a cheaply made and slightly trouble prone trigger with a cheaply made, slightly trouble prone trigger that is less adjustable/tunable. I'm underwhelmed.

I think I have a couple of unaltered 700's, one is an older Sendero and the other is a tactical. I think they would be one of each variety of recall.

I'd consider going for it if they would install a Shilen. Otherwise, I'd be best off to just trash the trigger and put in a Shilen myself. Or just use it as is, and keep it clean.

I solved the entire remington trigger/safety problem on one of my rifles by installing a Shilen Trigger, and a Model 70 type 3 position safety on the bolt. Now a trigger that works, and a safety that moves the sear back off of the trigger. How it should have been done in the first place.

I have personally never had a problem with the 700 triggers unless it was on brought in by a customer that had set below it's recommended weight or had allowed it to become full of old, polymerized oil and dirt. But I have seen a lot of Winchester model 70 triggers that would fire when taking the safety off or hard bolt closing after people had dicked with them or forgotten what the word maintenance meant. So it's all relative.

I have one that also has never had a ad.
That said i have not screwed with it,just cleaned all of the debris out.

If this keeps up i might have a rare rifle one day.

Remington as a matter of record has settled many hundreds of Class action settlements, most if not all trigger related injurys or deaths..They have also lost a large number of individual lawsuits that related to the problem described..Matter of court records and been newsworthy many times over..for what ever news worthy has become in the USA..

Rod,
I did warranty work for Remington and Winchester for many years but dropped Remington when I decided they were asking too much and paying too little in the mid-eighties. I found Winchester to be much nicer to deal with but I had all the work I needed without having to write a book about each repair to get paid so, in the end, I was happy to see the warranty stuff go to some dummy in Edmonton who seemed to relish the punishment . Regards, Bill

When I was much younger I bought a used Remington 700 Classic in 243 that had been built in the early 80s.

I was hunting groundhogs one evening and as I left the truck I chambered a round and the rifle fired. I was stunned and was sure I didn't touch the trigger but couldn't figure out what happened and figured I must have somehow hit the trigger. This was before I ever heard of any issues with 700 triggers.

As I moved over to left hand rifles I sold that 700 along with the rest of my right handed rifles and still wonder about that rifle.

So they're saying that the rifle that I got when I was 14, made in June 1962 has a defective trigger?? I guess it's just luck that it's been fired with live ammo about a thousand times, with dummy ammo several thousand times and been subjected to some very harsh environmental conditions- never having a trigger based problem. I did break the safety lever during one of my take it completely apart sessions and I broke out the bottom of the blind magazine due to the magazine spring getting caught between the magazine and the stock while reassembling. then there was the time my cousin did have an unintended firing when he pulled the trigger but the problem was due to the extractor not gripping the cartridge sufficiently.

If I had known the trigger was defective I would have been wise to not use the rifle as much as I have.

Ray B (etal)
Is your your trigger defective? Probably not.
Is the basic design defective? Probably.
Could Remington have eliminated the danger? Yes, in a couple ways.
Why did Remington adopt/stay with this design? A penny each cost reduction.
Could Remington have avoided the problem? Yes, but decided that cost savings were more important than total reliability.

It is a question of tolerances on the parts that make up the trigger. With one piece at minimum spec and the second at maximum spec (and only that combination), the friction fit the design depends on may release / not reset occasionally, thereby failing to restrain the firing pin.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Leeper:
Rod,
I did warranty work for Remington and Winchester for many years but dropped Remington when I decided they were asking too much and paying too little in the mid-eighties. I found Winchester to be much nicer to deal with but I had all the work I needed without having to write a book about each repair to get paid so, in the end, I was happy to see the warranty stuff go to some dummy in Edmonton who seemed to relish the punishment . Regards, Bill

Warranty was actually sort of nice in those days Billy. The best part was that Ronnie Zinkhan did all of the paper work. We just did the repairs and handed the work orders to him and he pulled out his hair. The down side was that we got stuck replacing stocks on Nylon 66s and 77s and we had to spend hours trying to make 1100s actually work. After I started working for myself, warranty work wasn't so much fun and like you, I finally said to hell with it. By then the makers were actually forcing us to work from the book so there was no way to make money at it anymore.