Jack I think this is what Mike is asking and its a fair question.

You have testified that you have never been able to make the subject firearm fail.

You have never been able to make any R-W trigger fail without resorting to ways that would never happen in the field or on the range, i.e your screwdriver test.

With all that in mind do you have any facts to support your contention of R-W trigger failures other then your design analysis that leads you to the conclusion that it is possible?

I contacted Jack Belk directly in an effort to get clarification from him on a few issues pertaining to the Remington Model 700 Walker trigger controversy. I do not know Jack Belk personally or professionally; I am not a gunsmith, engineer or a lawyer; and I’m not affiliated with the gun industry. I’m just a guy who likes to shoot but wants to be safe. I am not qualified to opine on Mr. Belk’s analysis but I believe he is sincere in his opinions and he has been straightforward and inoffensive in defending his comments and analysis about Remington’s use of the Walker trigger design.

The following are excerpts of some of his responses to me that may be helpful to some of you:

“Remington started with the XMark Pro in Oct, of '06, but there were several thousand guns on dealer's shelves and store rooms that are still being sold. You are right about the markings [the vertical grooves on the Walker trigger but not on the X-Mark Pro, the smooth trigger and the adjustment hole on the X-Mark Pro], but late XMark Pros don't have the pull adjustments. That adjustment is for only spring tension and not sear engagement. The spring is pre-loaded to the safe setting and the screw only increases it.”

“All Walker designs, no matter the age, [have] the connector defect in them. The earlier the trigger the more additional defects were possible in them. Folded housings and dual sears triggers with lock down safeties were the worst of the lot.”

“The X-Mark Pro has a solid, one-piece trigger and the safety pushes the trigger back into engagement with the sear every time it's actuated, so 'no' the XMark Pro cannot FSR unless the trigger is pulled OR there is a failure of a part.”

I hope this helps somebody out there.

My piece of mind is worth a lot to me. Whether or not the Walker design is flawed, I’m going to follow the advice of others …I’m simply going to buy a ‘quality’ after-market trigger. Any suggestions?

OK, I am going to weigh in on this issue. Earlier I made what was intended to be a neutral post commenting only on the legal system. The way it panned out was that folks read it the way they wanted, with some thinking I was attacking Mr. Belk and others thinking I totally agreed with them that Mr. Belk was a money grubbing whore. I honestly intended neither of those ideas to be portrayed in what was supposed to be a very simple post explaining some very basic things about our country's legal system. I asked Mr. Belk to contact me if he felt wronged. He contacted me, did not feel wronged, and we have emailed some on this topic.

Mr. Belk knows why I said in my earlier post I had no intention of giving my opinion on the Remington-Walker Trigger (RWT) in a public forum. I have one additional passion beyond hunting and shooting - skydiving. That sport quite often results in severe injury and death to participants. We sign 20-30 pages of waivers at each location at which we jump saying that we wear long pants and know what we are getting into. But occasionally the family of the deceased will sue facilities, gear manufacturers, and professionals in the sport. Entire threads from the largest international web site on the sport have been read into evidence in these somewhat rare court cases. Counsel from both sides of the issue have twisted, turned, contorted, and taken out of context things written by professionals and highly experienced amateurs in threads discussing the death or serious injuries. I do not want my name or opinion read into evidence in any court cases involving the RWT. And make no mistake about it, this thread and web site are monitored by attorneys from both sides of the opinion on what happens when a rifle equipped with an RWT unintentionally fires. But after seeing what has been done to Mr. Belk and after reading some of the twisted “logic” used to “disprove” Mr. Belk, well, I will no longer stay quiet on the issue. So here it goes. My skin is made of Kevlar and my balls are protected by a bullet proof cod piece, so I really don't care what flames or darts or ballistic missiles are hurled my way.

Wow, where to start. There has been so much garbage written I do not know what is a logical first point to address. I will just start and go through things in no particular order. So with that:

The issue of Mr. Belk's compensation for his services as an “expert witness.” ONE THING Mr. Belk said was taken out of context and some folks here thought they had caught him in a lie. Mr. Belk said he did not make any profit from the CNBC program. He NEVER made the assertion that he got no compensation from attorneys involved in lawsuits concerning the RWT. Reading comprehension has been in short supply. As someone who has simply been an outside observer, it is shocking at how little has been comprehended by some people.

While we are the topic of dollars earned and potential for future earnings, let's look at this in the big picture. In an uber case scenario, Mr. Belk does not stand to make a single peanut shell, much less “peanuts,” as compared to what Remington/DuPont/Cerberus stands to loose. Think about it. How many rifles are out there with the RWT? It is more than just the 700. The 72X series and Model 7 have it for sure. I do not know the total production for these rifles, but let's use 7 million as an estimate. From here this gets complicated and I do not know all of the financial details involved between DuPont, Cerberus, and their respective insurance policies. I know not many people have dealt with these issues before, so I will just hit things from 30,000'. But this will be sufficient for the purposes of this post.

Working in management for both end users and OEM's, I learned far more than I ever cared to know about commercial insurance, corporate liabilities, and personal liabilities. Just harking back to my OEM days (Remington is the OEM for all RWT lawsuits), insurance covered us for a lot of things, including some pretty stupid screw up we could make. Even when it was obviously just a case of end user abuse or operating beyond design parameters, it was easier and cheaper for the company and insurance company to just pay some “go away” money. If the offer was not accepted then things went forward down the legal path. Almost everyone knows this is how things work in this country. What many do not know is what exactly insurance covers, and what is the onus of the OEM. All sorts of things are reasonable mistakes and will be covered by the policy, including clients doing some extreme things. However, if our engineering department made mistakes that any reasonable engineer would see as being intuitively obvious to the casual observer, then the insurance company would tell us to go jump in a lake. If the engineering department made an understandable mistake and the insurance company paid for it, but yet we refused to change the design, then maybe they would even pay a second claim. If we continued on with the design and a third case arose, we were liable for every cent of a judgment against us.

So here we have a trigger that Remington itself admits in internal company memos has a problem while the rifle is still in the prototype phase, yet they continue to use the same design, then Remington's insurance company could make a case that they bore no responsibility for any claims. And remember, those first 200 M722's that were made were put in the hands of only very experienced riflemen, and even they had FSR's. This is big. Assuming 7 million RWT units are in use worldwide, and using a base cost of $100/unit to rework (more on this cost later), then we are talking about an amount that is serious to any company, whether it be DuPont, Cerberus, or either of their insurance companies.

So knowing that the design defect was detected before the rifle went into production, yet thew design was not changed due to financial constraints (more on this later), the insurance companies will be doing everything they can to throw this $700,000,000 repair cost PLUS THE COST OF ANY FUTURE JUDGEMENTS AGAINST REMINGTON on anyone but themselves. I do not envy the poor souls who are poring over every word and comma in the insurance policies on both the insurance companies, DuPont's, and Cerberus' sides, trying to find any way possible to shed liability of this issue. And if DuPont was self insured, God help them.

Then there is the sale of Remington from DuPont to Cerberus. I have no knowledge of anything about this deal. I do know that any nimrod trying to buy his first business from some “mom&pop” would be able to uncover something of the magnitude of the RWT issue in even the most rudimentary of due diligence processes. How the deal was structured will determine if Cerberus is responsible for only the triggers they made after their purchase in the '90's, or if they assumed all liability for the RWT design.

Regardless of whom is eventually determined to be responsible for what percentage of the costs, the total cost will be in excess of $1,000,000,000. Yes, that is OVER ONE BILLION DOLLARS! Let us say that Mr. Belk's compensation is totally off the charts, beyond his wildest dreams. Lets us assume the “ridiculously high” amount of $250,000 earning potential on RWT lawsuits. Mr. Belk's highest potential is just a tiny fraction of the lowest potential payout by the RWT manufacturers and insurers. Yet somehow the fact that Mr. Belk gets paid less than the equivalent of one peanut shell means, in the minds of many posters on this thread, that his testimony if tainted by greed and everything he says should be disregarded. At the same time, Remington (and all liable entities) are on the hook for incredibly more money, yet everything they are saying about the RWT is taken to be gospel because of the goodness of their collective heart? Give me a freaking break! Folks, Remington/DuPont/Cerberus/their insurance companies are on the hook for an amount of money that would likely bankrupt them (with the possible exception of DuPont) and some of you categorically buy every word they say, hook, line, and sinker. They have the money for a HUGE ad campaign defending themselves. Mr. Belk has his own words he can type on internet bulletin boards. And those words are now spoken to a community that has largely ostracized him. People with whom he used to be friends now think he is a traitor to his race. Many people who used to idolize the man now see him as a devil who whores himself out to the highest bidder. Yet the other side of the argument, the side with FAR more money at stake, is seen as pious and righteous. Their motives are not questioned. Just sit back and think about that for a minute. Does that really make sense to you?

The “defense” posed by Remington has been nothing short of amazing to me. What have they done to counter the CNBC special and Mr. Belk's testimony? They took a VERY BRIEF portion of ONE sworn testimony he gave and then spun it to be what they wanted the listener to hear. Remington has hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and oodles of hours of sworn testimony, yet they just present the consumer with a few seconds of recorded testimony. The rest of their short movies/PR/sales videos they have on their M700 page set up to contradict the CNBC show give absolutely no facts, figures, prior legal judgments regarding the RWT, or anything like that. The last time I looked at that web site they had something like 8 or 9 videos, with the longest BY FAR being about a lady who apparently has a TV hunting show that is sponsored by Remington. Her only credentials were that she placed second in some reality TV show. She said nothing about the RWT, nothing about firearms engineering, maintenance, gunsmithing, anything. Her only argument, which was repeated ad nauseam throughout her movie, was “My daddy wouldn't give me something that wasn't safe.”

Now with an engineering department as large as DuPont's, coupled with a Public Relations/Sales system as large as DuPont and Cerberus have, do you not think they could have come up with a better argument supporting the inherent safety of the RWT design than some lady who is basically a Remington employee with a TV show saying, “My daddy wouldn't give me something that wasn't safe.” Mr. Belk is ONE MAN. He is a SINGLE GUNSMITH making a sworn statement against one of the world's corporate giants. If this is all they can come up with to defend their product, do any red flags go up for you? Do you not find that just a little strange? If Mr. Belk is so far off base then the lowliest engineer and bottom of the totem pole employee in the PR department could team upo and totally blow Mr. Belk out of the water. Yet all Remington can do is send out an employee with a TV show to talk about her daddy?

Ross Seyfreid knows some things about guns and Remington has a short clip of him saying that he was a PH and gun writer who now focuses more on protecting Second Amendment rights. What is not to like about that? Nothing that I can see. I like to hear that Mr. Seifried is devoting his time to protecting the Second Amendment. Hell, I will help him any way I can. The United States Postal Service went back and forth on whether they should put the young, skinny Elvis or the old, fat Elvis on the first Elvis Postal stamps that were to be made. It was quite a heated debate among many in the USPS and the US population in general. In the end the camp behind the young, skinny Elvis won out and that is the image used on the first Elvis stamps. What does the version of Elvis used on the stamp have to do with the design of the RWT? Absolutely nothing. Just like Mr. Seifried's video, the video of the woman who really trusts everything her daddy hands her, and every other video on the M700 trigger web page-they have absolutely nothing to do with the allegations against the RWT. Instead of giving their side of the argument, Remington chose to attempt to divert people's attention and get them thinking about other topics.

So again, think of all of the information and documentation that Remington has regarding the design of the trigger and any potential problems. If they are so confident that they are in the right, is this the type of defense you would expect them to present to the world? Mr. Belk is just ONE MAN and CNBC just did a ONE HOUR SPECIAL on the supposed issue with the RWT. With all of the data and money backing them up, would you expect something a little more concrete and admissible in court, or do you think they would ignore the charges and do everything in their power to divert people's attention and try to change the subject?

While we are on the topic of Remington's decisions to spend money, let us talk about the 5.5 cent “fix” Mr. Walker himself proposed before the M700 went into production. Some have stated on this board that there is no way Remington would make a decision not to do the change just because of the money. Anyone who thinks this has not been involved in management in a manufacturing environment. In today's 2010 money, outright fights take place over a manufacturing change that would cost less than a single cent. And this is on items that are comparable in price to firearms. Imagining the percentage of the manufacturing cost 5.5 cents was to each rifle in 1946, I can see how some in management at Remington would would balk at the change. The idea that this was a non-issue to Remington is completely unfounded.

That brings us to the cost to repair/replace the RWT's in service. Going from memory, the CNBC special quoted a price of around $77 to repair/replace the trigger units. I find this number a little hard to believe. To me it sounds more like a number from an accountant. This goes back to my rants about how a W-2 employee rarely knows their true cost to their employer. Even the numbers used by accountants rarely have everything in there that it really costs am employer at the end of the day. I could give a lot of examples, but it is still speculation. I do find it hard to imagine that an all-inclusive price to Remington would be as low as $77/unit when all payroll for everyone involved in every step of the process, taxes, insurances, vacations, sick days, machinery amortization, consumables, shipping, paperwork, document control, etc, etc is factored in.

So what has Remington done in the past in an attempt to protect themselves from trigger issues? Well, they laid down the law on what is and is not allowed to be done to a trigger and maintain the user's warranty and protect Remington if there is a lawsuit. What can be done-pull the trigger to fire a round. What cannot be done-everything else. If you break the seal on a Remington trigger, then you now own the liability for it. It has been asked why there are screws if the end user is not supposed to adjust the trigger. That is very simple. The Remington employees who assemble the triggers and install them on the rifle need the adjustments for the installation of the parts and to get the trigger pull into Remington's specified pull weight, creep, and overtravel ranges. The screws are then sealed to prevent the end user for monkeying with the screws. I urge you to read the owner's manual that comes with a M700 and look for the section that describes how you should adjust the trigger to get a lighter weight or less creep. Or just call Remington and ask them how to do it.

The same goes for “proper trigger maintenance.” Just what is proper trigger maintenance? Where in the owner's manual does it describe proper trigger maintenance? Where is it defined on Remington's web site? Call Remington and ask them for a written description of “proper trigger maintenance.” At what interval should you clean the trigger? How is the proper way to clean the trigger? With what should you clean the trigger? With what and how much should you lube the trigger? So on the cleaning interval-is it after X number of rounds fired, after Y number of days in the field, Z number of days since the last clean and lube? Remington does not list this because the end user is not to tamper with the trigger. Just how do you clean the trigger without breaking the factory seals on the trigger? It cannot be done. Break the seal and you now own total liability for that trigger. So when people scream and holler about an improperly maintained trigger, just how is a person supposed to maintain it and not violate the warranty? It cannot be done.

This is also a scam pulled by Remington. They have the system set up where you cannot work on their trigger without voiding the warranty, yet on many FSR's, FBO's, and FBC's they blame the customer and list the cause as improper maintenance. If that is not a WTF moment, then I do not know what is!


The patent language also is another WTF moment of Biblical proportions. TAKE THE TIME TO READ THE PATENT. Yes, it is boring, but it is critical for several things involving the problems with RWT's. Mr. Walker and Remington state in the patent that it is a well known fact that hunting rifle triggers are not maintained. Not only that, they say it is not reasonable to expect the customers to be able to maintain the triggers. The RWT is, according to its designers, crud proof. The thing that is so ridiculous about it is that they add parts in order to make a trigger supposedly less susceptible to dirt, debris, gummed up oils, etc. Every part added makes the system more susceptible to all of these things. So here is Remington describing its trigger in the patent language as not needing the maintenance, then they seal the trigger to be able to prove it is was tampered with to do any maintenance, saying “it's your baby” if that seal is broken for maintenance, and yet where the rifle fires without shooter input they blame the shooter for improper maintenance. Is that a scam, or what?

Tampering with the trigger is an excuse that has been posited by many in the gun community as causing the problems with the triggers. And I am talking about folks up to the position of some of the most prominent gun writers in the country. Looking beyond the hypocrisy of the fact that in order to “properly maintain” or “safely adjust the modern lawyer trigger” one must “tamper with a trigger,” these gun writers and internet gun enthusiasts are assuming all of the police and military sniper units modify the Remington trigger. So to follow their logic, it is OK for individuals owners to completely disassemble the trigger for “proper maintenance and lubrication,” but a police or military armorer must never do so. Some armorers may very well adjust the Remington triggers, but I do know for a fact that not all of them do it. It is an assumption on the part of those who make the claim that the issue with sniper rifles was user-induced, and I am guessing you know what assumptions do. And for the record, YES, the assumptions are making an ass out of many a writer these days! Many sniper units use rifles exactly like they come from the Remington Custom Shop and it is against regulations to modify the rifle. It is irresponsible to categorically blame every FSR, FBO, and FBC on tampering with the trigger when the accuser has not investigated what is the policy with the that particular unit. It requires a huge assumption on the part of the writer to make the claim, and I challenge all who have made it to actually contact the police and military units on the CNBC film to fins out their policy.

Examples of one are common throughout the writings and internet postings on the RWT issue. I would love to know the total number of posts now floating around cyber space (does anyone still use that term these days?) along the lines of, “I have owned a M700 since 1973 and mine has never gone off like that.” So, big deal. I never have had cancer, but it might might nail me tomorrow. This always brings to my mind the saying, “All bears walk through the woods single file. At least the one I saw did.” Examples of one do not prove the RWT safe, just examples of one of the rifles firing without shooter input do not prove the RWT a dangerous design. When taken in total, the many examples of one of RWT's firing without user input is statistically significant. In Remington's own internal memos we know that they figure at least 20% of the RWT's in service (out of ~7 million) can be made to fire without the trigger being pulled. Remington chose not to have a recall because it would have been too costly to the company. It was cheaper for Remington to have their insurer pay out “{go away money” in settlements every time a suit was filed against them. This all goes back to who is responsible if the design is bad (Remington pays to fix) or if the incidents fall under the category of “stuff happens” (Remington's insurer is responsible for paying). We do not know if there are internal documents showing an even higher number of potential failure rates of the trigger units. The valid case can be made that all RWT's are prone to firing without user input at some point in time.

This brings us to the point that some folks have made on many internet gun boards-that all mechanical systems fail and the RWT is no more prone to failure than a Timney or any other trigger design. That is not the case. The connector that Mr. Walker and Remington claimed would reduce trigger slap and make the trigger stand up to neglect and a general lack of maintenance is a HUGE difference. If you take a lot of brands of triggers apart to learn how they work, what needs to be done to make them function better, and what can wrong with them, then you will see how the RWT is different than a Timney in a major way. The connector adds more parts to the trigger unit. It uses a stamped sheet metal part as a precision bearing surface, and the part must be reset by a small spring. How well the connector resets determines how consistent the trigger operates and how safe the rifle is. People who use the RWT depend on a stamped sheet metal part being accurately reset by a small spring to make the firearm safe to handle. These parts are housed between other pieces of stamped sheet metal, making it impossible to see if there is anything interfering with the fire control unit's proper and safe operation. The position of these parts in the rifle make them a natural “magnet” for oil, dirt, animal and plant debris, water/snow/ice, and anything else that can work its way into a crack or crevice.

I know that some folks reading the above paragraph will take issue with me saying we are depending on a part to make the rifle “safe.” Yes, I said just that because I meant just that. Every internet gun forum I have read that discusses the CNBC show about the RWT has has at least one person say that the problem is users “depending on a mechanical safety” as being the root cause for the accidents. That is incorrect on several levels. For one, yes, I know exactly how the safety on the RWT equipped rifles functions, while precious few of the posters do not. An FSR is NOT A PROBLEM WITH THE SAFETY! It is a FAILURE OF THE TRIGGER MECHANISM TO WORK PROPERLY! A rifle should not fire without the proper manipulation of the trigger UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The phrase “rely on a mechanical safety” refers to the act of chambering a round, engaging the safety, and then handling the firearm as if it was not a potential deadly weapon. Most of us have seen this at one time or another where someone gives no regard to where their muzzle is pointed. When confronted about this dangerous behavior they reply, “It is OK, the safety is on.” That is relying on a mechanical safety. The act of disengaging the safety in order to take a shot or unload the rifle should under no circumstances cause the rifle to fire. We must rely on the mechanical trigger to operate properly and safely by not firing a shot unless the trigger has been properly manipulated. What about the FBO's and FBC's - would you consider that relying on a mechanical bolt? A rifle should likewise NEVER fire due to the manipulation of the bolt.

Yes, every shooter most certainly DOES rely on mechanical parts on every single rifle in existence. Leaving out the ammunition and focusing just on the rifle, we rely on every part of the rifle to work when firing cartridges loaded not only to SAMMI specifications, but to some percentage of pressure OVER SAMMI specs. We rely on the bolt to be strong enough to not shear its lugs, sending the bolt through our eye. We rely on the action, along with the bolt, to hold everything together and handle escaping gas and particles in the event of a failure of the ammunition. We rely on the barrel to withstand the pressure and deliver the bullets with some degree of accuracy. We depend on the sighting system to allow us to place out bullets with some degree of accuracy on target, as opposed to having the bullets flying over berms or otherwise missing our intended point of impact so wildly that the bullets are flying over the landscape in an uncontrolled manner. We depend on scope mounting systems to be strong enough to prevent the scope from flying off and imbedding itself in our foreheads. We depnd on the stock to be strong enough to not break, thereby destroying our hands. And yes, every single shooter does rely on a mechanical safety to prevent the firearm from unintentionally firing. Lastly, WE MUST HAVE A TRIGGER UNIT THAT DOES NOT FIRE THE RIFLE WITHOUT THE PROPER MANIPULATION! Triggers that fail in the manner of the RWT are totally unacceptable.

OK, this one is going to step on some toes, but it needs to be addressed. NO ONE, NOT A SINGLE SHOOTER IN HISTORY OR ALIVE TODAY, HAS HAD AND WILL ALWAYS HAVE 100% MUZZLE CONTROL AT ALL TIMES! We are all human and to say that we are perfect with our gun handling is, like everything else in life, not realistic. Anyone who says they have had 100% perfect muzzle control at all times is one of two things 1.) they are a liar, or 2.) they are arrogantly overestimating their gun handling abilities. Scenario #2 is worse than #1. At least the liars know they are lying through their teeth, where the arrogant think they really are perfect, and that is a dangerous situation which leads to complacency and even poorer muzzle control.

With that unpleasantness out of the way, IT IS EVERY SHOOTER'S RESPONSIBILITY TO DO THEIR DEAD LEVEL BEST TO PERFECTLY FOLLOW THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF GUN HANDLING AT ALL TIMES! We as shooters are responsible for keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction at all times. This also makes us responsible for every bullet that leaves the muzzle of a gun under our control.

Does the above paragraph remove all onus from firearms manufacturers when it comes to producing “safe” firearms? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Firearms must be manufactured in such a way that ensures we can trust the components of the rifle to perform as designed. This is where we must trust the firearms manufacturers to make a rifle with a bolt, action, barrel, stock, safety, and trigger that we can reasonably trust. With Remington rifles equipped with the RWT, we can have a disconnect between the manufacturer and the shooter. There is a reason to not trust the trigger, which is arguably the most important component of the rifle. If an action or bolt fails, it is the shooter most likely to be injured. But if the trigger fails in a manner that it allows the rifle to fire without proper manipulation of the trigger, then the bullet will go in the direction in which the muzzle is pointed. If the trigger failure happens to occur at a time in the brief window when a responsible gun handle happens to not have perfect muzzle control, then everyone in the path of the bullet is in danger. This means completely innocent people who may not even know a loaded gun is in their vicinity could wind up being the victim of the trigger's failure and the rifle handler's lack of proper muzzle control. Mr. Belk termed it (something to the effect of, if not exactly) a “3 mile radius of accountability.” Many have bashed him for this statement, but after much reflection I have not been able to prove him wrong. And trust me, I wanted him to be wrong.

So let us say that a person does not have total 100% perfect muzzle control for just 10 seconds during a day when they are handling a loaded rifle, and during this 10 second window there is an FSR, FBO, or FBC. Let us also say that this unfortunate incident happens at just the right time in that 10 second window for a person to be in the path of the bullet that was fired without any trigger manipulation whatsoever. The rifle handler swears they did not touch the trigger, and may even have witnesses to testify as such. Yet a person was unfortunately injured or killed and an investigation ensues. If the rifle was examined by Mr. Belk and he is asked about it, under oath, but the injured party's counsel, it is reasonable to expect Mr. Belk to be asked if he was able to reproduce the firing of the rifle with no trigger manipulation. If his answer is “No,” then many on this board (and every other I have read) see this as a “gotcha” moment. To the naysayers this proves Mr. Belk is incorrect when he says it is possible for the event to have occurred as the shooter claims. The rifle handler's assertion that they did not manipulate the trigger is also dismissed out of hand. The question of the hour is, is this reasonable?The answer to the question is an unqualified “NO!”

So why can I be so sure of that? Well, it is sorta complicated. I am of necessity going to hit a few things from 30,000' again. Undergraduate mechanical engineering students are taught about the failure of parts and mechanisms. The detailed “how” and “why” is hit from say 20,000' due to the complexity of the issue. Just the high points are hit, with an emphasis being on the fact that many types of failure are random, and there is a GREAT deal of scatter in the data when it comes to failure research. This means that forms of failure, even when a single part is tested to failure under controlled laboratory conditions the best that can predicted is a range of end results. For many forms of failure it is not a simple and concrete “2+2=4” type of answer. Just picking numbers for an example, it is more akin to “2+2=4, +/- 1.376.” Again, the actual reasons why this is so is glossed over in undergraduate studies. In engineering graduate school the “why” is examined in far greater detail. It gets very complicated and few engineers with a graduate degree ever need to know the “why” out in the real world. But all of the principles learned about the failure of a single part is transferable to the failure of a system. Only with a system of parts, the variability, and hence scatter in the data is far greater. Basically, the more parts something has, the more difficult it is to predict when something will fail. As significant the scatter is in controlled laboratory settings, it goes up exponentially when a system is actually operating in the real world. Predicting the exact point of failure is often impossible. A reasonable question of a gun forum reader would be, “So what is the point of this convoluted paragraph?” The point of this paragraph is to show that it is not only reasonable, but actually to be expected for someone to have difficulty reproducing an exact failure event. After this paragraph of gobbledygook, I believe that some real world examples are in order.

As much as I despise it when people give non-gun metaphors for gun issues, I am going to do it myself. Have you ever taken your car to the mechanic, only to have them tell you they could not make the car do what you say it is doing? Does this mean you were wrong, or does it simply mean the car did not do it when it was in the mechanic's possession? Have you ever made a doctor appointment, only to have the problem disappear by the time you were seen by the physician? Does this mean you were faking an illness, or does it mean that for some reason it was undetectable when you were in the doctor's presence? Have you ever had problem with a firearm, only to have the gunsmith call you and say he could not reproduce the problem? Does this mean you were lying, or does it mean the gun did not “act up” when he tested it?

There are many reasons this could occur with a rifle equipped with an RWT. The gun owner could claim to experience an FSR, FBO, or FBC, only to have a gunsmith not be able to reproduce the event. The possible reasons for the inability of the smith to reproduce the problems are many. Some, but by no means all, of the reasons and RWT may not misbehave under expert examination are:
-rust could have built up between the connector and the trigger blade. Upon the unintentional firing of the rifle, the rust bond could be broken, preventing the event from being able to be reproduced on demand
-debris could have interfered with the proper functioning of the connector, but it was dislodged upon unintentional firing. This could mean that the RWT would function as designed under expert examination
-water/ice/snow could have interfered with the mating of the connector and trigger blade. Between the time of the unintentional firing and expert examination, the water could have evaporated or the ice/snow could have melted.
-some combination of oil, grease, bore solvent, etc. may have interfered with the connector in such a manner that it did not properly reset under spring pressure. After the unintended firing the resulting uncontrolled recoil (the rifle would likely not be solidly on the shoulder, allowing for greater gun movement under recoil) the layer of “gunk” may have been slung off of the trigger, connector, or spring surface/surfaces to allow proper resetting of the connector for following shots.
-it is possible for a wood stock to swell or shrink due to a drastic change in water content, or a composite stock to greatly move due a drastic change in temperatures that an RWT that was set at the factory to be marginally acceptable has now moved into an unacceptable position. By the time the expert has a chance to examine the gun things could shift just enough to make the RWT functin correctly.
These are just a few possibilities that would explain why an FSR/FBO/FBC are not reproducible on demand. After the gunsmith examines the rifle and is unable to make it malfunction, the very next time the gun owner uses it the RWT may malfunction on the very first round. Or maybe on the 1239th round. Or maybe it would require over a million rounds to occur again. Maybe it would never occur again. Does any of this prove that the RWT did not malfunction as declared by the gun owner or that the expert gunsmith not being able to reproduce the failure on demand is a liar or incompetent? Absolutely not. Certain modes of failure are hard to predict and hard to exactly reproduce. The more parts to a system and the more conditions under which it operates, the greater the chance for scatter in the data.

Along these lines, many posters on gun boards have made the claim that “anything mechanical can fail.” Truer words were never spoken!!! Nothing but a hearty AMEN! Can be said by me on that fact. Any system Man can make can, and often will, fail at some point in time. The key is to design system that fails at a small rate, or has an expected service life long enough to be considered “infinite life” when compared to time frames experienced by humans. The $64,000 question (or $1billion question when it comes to Remington liability on the RWT) is what is an acceptable failure rate of a rifle trigger? Decades ago Remington's own engineers predicted that 20% of the RWT's could be “tricked” into having and FSR, FBO, or FBS. 20% of ~7 million triggers means that a lot of lead can be flying around at times when the gun handlers had absolutely no intention of letting loose a round. However, it is far more serious than this.

I gave a few examples above of how an RWT could experience a malfunction that an expert witness would be unable to reproduce upon demand. The dirty little secret is that 100% of the RWT's are susceptible to failure due to issues of the connector improperly resetting. As time goes on and the RWT's in service get older and more seasons pass, the odds of every fire control unit experiencing a malfunction increases. How can I make such a bold statement? It is simple – I am an engineer and gunmaker with a lot of real world experience. Is my real world experience with RWT's as great as some on this board? No way; not even close. However, I have a lot of experience in several fields with transferable experience, plus I have been inside my fair share of all sorts of triggers. I have learned many things in my years as a gunsmith/gunmaker. For one, I know that the overwhelming majority of gun owners known only a fraction of what the average reader of the AR Gunsmithing forum knows about guns. The average gun owner really does not care to know that much about guns. One thing the internet has done is to allow folks with kinda sorta obscure interests (such as topics often discussed in this forum) to find other individuals with similar interests. We can now routinely communicate with folks at all four corners of the globe 24 hours a day. In time this has often led to people getting blinders to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world does not posses their level of knowledge about their subjects of interest. “Everybody knows” is a phrase commonly used, when in fact hardly anyone knows about what an internet board member may be posting. When we read day in day out, day after day, year after year, about others who know as much as or more than we do about gunsmithing, then many fall into the trap of assuming all gun owner know these “basic and obvious” facts. As a gunsmith/gunmaker in the real world, I can tell you it just is not so. This fact is central to why 100% of the RWT's in existence are prone to failure at some point in time. How do I dare say that? Glad you asked!

I will talk about the mystical “average gun owner” in this paragraph. What I say will be obvious to most regular readers of the AR Gunsmithing forum, but not so so to Joe Average. Few gun owners properly maintain their rifles. Those that are more concerned than most about rifle upkeep are usually most concerned about rust. In order to combat visible surface corrosion, they liberally douse their rifle with some form of oil they feel will prevent rust. Quite often this is WD-40. This oil gets sprayed and wiped on the rifle year after year. Some may even pull the rifle out between hunting seasons to give it an extra coat of of oil. The design of the Remington 7XX series of rifles lends itself to oil draining into the trigger mechanism. Few people clean the bores of their rifles. Those that do typically clean the barrels from the muzzle. This lends itself to whatever oil they are using for bore cleaning to migrate down into the trigger mechanism with each stroke of the cleaning rod. Those shooter that do know it is best to clean a rifle barrel from the breach do not use a proper bore guide. This lends itself to oil migrating into the trigger mechanism. All gun owners who actually shoot their rifles are subjecting them to all sorts of dirt and debris every time the rifle is used. Some of this dirt and debris makes its way into the trigger mechanism each and every time. Gun owners who hunt with their rifles quite often have some degree of rain, ice, snow, or condensation that makes its way into the trigger mechanism every time they use it in the field, or even just have it outside and bring it back inside where the temperature is warmer. The list goes on, but this will hopefully give you an idea of what makes its way into trigger mechanisms.

A reasonable question to be asked by even the more advanced firearms enthusiast, such as a regular reader of the AR Gunsmithing forum would be, is, “So why does this make the RWT so much worse than, say, a M700 with a Timney trigger? Cannot the same hazards be said to exist for all trigger designs?” In a word, no. It all foes back to Mr. Belk's very first post when he decided to grace us with his presence after such a long absence. The design of the RWT relies on the connector, a small piece of stamped sheet metal, to be accurately reset each time the trigger is manipulated. The connector is reset by a small, relatively weak, spring that is positioned in such a manner that it does not provide great leverage or force to make the critical motion of properly resetting the connector occur each time the trigger is manipulated. With the addition of “gunk” (a catch-all term for every contaminant mentioned above, plus many others not used in this relatively brief explanation) the proper resetting of the connector becomes a dicey proposition. The more gunk present, the less accurate the resetting of the connector. This results in a trigger pull that is less consistent than would be experienced if the exact same trigger mechanism were clean and properly lubricated. Manipulate the trigger through enough cycles and you WILL eventually experience the connector not resetting, or being set by so little engagement that it is jarred off without the operator knowing it. The result would be an FSR, FBO, or FBC. Will this happen on the 13th, 59th, 237th, 10,558th, 12 millionth, or...round? Who is to say? And odds are, the very next round chambered will be OK. This is why failure is so random and often cannot be reproduced on demand. The solution is to properly maintain the trigger unit. Yet by design, Remington has it where this is legally impossible without the gun owner forever more assuming full liability for the functioning of the rifle. The word “scam” pops into my mind yet again! The problems associated with the connector's proper function are not present in triggers with a more conventional design. This is why I make the assertion that the RWT is a bad design and failures are often design related and not a case of “anything mechanical can fail.”

The question has been raised as to why are there no Belk Supporters weighing in on this issue. This question struck me as especially strange. Mr. Belk has been attacked from every angle, and this man has been inside more RWT's than most people, and he has probably seen more sealed Remington documents concerning the failures of this fire control system than anyone else on Earth. If he is slammed so hard, then what would happen to the average layperson who has never been inside ANY trigger and has seen zero confidential documents? They would be ripped to shreds by the sharks patrolling the CNBC/RWT threads across the net.

I will wrap this up with a couple of paragraphs about the political implications of this issue and my greatest fears. Enough for now.

Jack,

I stated upfront, I didn't watch the show and I stated up front I haven't studied the trigger nearly as much as others here.

My lack of expertise of an RW trigger has nothing to do with my disagreement with your logic.

Your logic is not sound (in my opinion) whether we are talking about blenders, bicycles, brakes, or ball point pens.

With respect to your views about "logic", fail is one potential state between perfect and inoperable. But logic doesn't tell us "fail" was the state for any particular event.

I asked you about how you determine what happened with respect to a particular event.

I did not ask you about potential outcomes.

The reason that I asked is because you seem to want us to believe that because all these ADs have been reported to occur on a Remington 700s and because you can manipulate the trigger into failing that some percentage of the ADs must have been actually caused by a trigger/safety design which is deficient in your opinion. Yet you can't get it replicate without manipulation/modification.

By the way, the internal Remington memos if I remember correctly deal with potential issues related to a manufacturing problem for some out of spec parts not the design itself.

By the way a jury is the "trier of fact" in the legal system. The jury doesn't determine what actually happened in real life. The jury found OJ not guilty...that does mean he didn't do it...it means in our system of justice he was found not guilty and won't be punished.

Besides these are civil lawsuits and the jury's decision is not about what actually happened its about the preponderance of the evidence (often called the 51% standard) regarding who is to blame and how much will be awarded.

Maybe that's our disagreement Jack.

Maybe you want people to take your theories and tests and apply something like the 51% standard and since it is a possibility believe that those Remington 700 ADs were factually caused by defective triggers/safeties.

I personally look at all the other evidence and mostly the inability (without modification) to replicate a failure on a Remington 700 which said failure has supposedly occurred "thousands" of other times and I say...not convinced and not logical.


With respect to continuing this conversation, your right continuing this conversation is no longer enjoyable.

Best of luck!

Marc,

What's the basis of this statement below:

quote:

In Remington's own internal memos we know that they figure at least 20% of the RWT's in service (out of ~7 million) can be made to fire without the trigger being pulled.

I would enjoy reading such memos.

Mike-

THnak you very much for the question. This will be breif, as I am trying to finish writing he the last few pooints to be added to yesterday's post.

I encourage you to watch the CNBC show. They showed the actual memo wher eRmeington came up with the 20% figure and then decided it owuld cost too much for a recall compared to what they would have to pay out for the FSR's, FBO's, and FBC's that they (Remington) know are actually occuring in the hands of riflemen every year. This was a nuimber geneterated by Remington themselves when pondering the cheapest way to deal with the problem they know exists with the RWT.

My illness has really been acting up and I am sorry, but I do not rememebr all of the back and forths you and Mr. belk have had. i have read them, but do not remember evry detail. one thing i do want to say is that me personally, i am glad you are taking such an intrest in this amtter, especially the manner in which you are doing so. It was obvious from the beginning that you were using a logical problem solving technique in your person process of digesting both sides of the issue./ You are doing an EXCELELNT job of keeping emotions and personal attacks out of your thought process. Well, at least the part of your htoughts that we are able to read, and I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are doing so in your private thougths as well. I can really appreciate a person who investigates a situation in such a manner.

I encourage you to wtach the CNBC show, and if possible to do soem research on lawsuits against Remington on this issue. I am going to write about it in the wrap up of my post from yesterday. i have doen a lot of searching for info on the matter.

i also e\ncourage you to read the netire patent if you have not already done so, as well as studying diagrams of the trigger mechanisms in both cut away for and exploded views. Then do the same for say a Timney trigger

A for the QC, no that doe snot seem to be an issue. mr. Walker blamed it on QC issues after he left. HOWEVER...what he said on the CNBC show directly contradicted things he said in writing in official Remington internal doccuments going back to 1945, through his entire tenure with Remington, and even extending to requests he made to Remington for several years AFTER he retired. Yet when asked witha camera iun his face he blamed the trigger issues on people doing things after he retired. To me, he entirely blew any credibiolity he ever had after diametrically opposing what he said in writing for over 4 decades. To be frank, that made me lose all respect for ht eman, and believe me, for many i had a lot of respect for him prior to him lying when a camera was put in his face.

I also encourage you to, after reading the patent and examining both cut away and exploded views of the entire fire control system, to consider the examples I gacve to back up my contention that as time goes on, 100% of the RWT's are prone to the 3 modes of failure featured in the CNBC show and discusssed in internal Remington doccuemnts going back to the 1940's. Mr. walker himself has addressed these modes of failure for decades. And yes, loose QC makes the problem far worse. I have no idea what the QC is like today, but if it is worse than the late 70's/early 80's when Remington themselves came up with the 20% figure, then the number would be higher.

oh, also please note that Remionton came up with the 20% figure FOR BRAND NEW RIFLES. That means rifles without anything that goes with actually uising a rifle, such as the examples I listed in my first post.

Gotta run. Will write more later.

I'll make this as brief as possible. I have, from the outset, disagreed with Jack Belk's contention that it is the existence of the connector, as a part of the original trigger design, which is the root cause of trigger malfunctions, accidents, incidents, or call them what you will. I disagree because it has not been shown to be the case.
Now, unlike so many others, I have seen quite few Remington triggers which would FSR (fire on safety release)and these were unaltered, factory triggers. However, in not one instance, was the connector in any way responsible for the malfunction. If the connector had not been there, the trigger would still have malfunctioned in the same way. The issue was one of quality control, of improper dimensions of parts, and one which Remington tried to address via a trigger replacement program in the late seventies and early eighties.
By the way, I have also seen a couple of cases where the trigger ceased to function and where the fault WAS the connector which, in these cases, was broken.
Some other failures appeared to be the result of wear of the contact surface of the safety lever. This again, had nothing whatsoever, to do with the connector.
I realize, to some, it might seem like I am splitting hairs. I mean, a failure is a failure; right? The thing is, Jack Belk and the plaintiffs have hitched their cart to the "design flaw" vehicle. Specifically that part of the design which utilizes a trigger connector. They contend that this design flaw is the root cause, indeed, the primary cause, of virtually all Remington trigger malfunctions. The only problem is, this contention has not been demonstrable.
So, what has been demonstrable? Malfunctions due to wear of interacting parts (safety lever and sear) have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to misadjustment have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to improperly dimensioned parts have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to corrosion and/or neglect have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to ineptitude on the part of the shooter have been demonstrable. When it comes to the connector though, the only eveidence is theorizing, supposition, and flawed design analysis.
Perhaps the most damning eveidence against the contention that the trigger connector, as a part of the trigger design, is the root cause of FSR malfunctions, is the malfunctions which have occurred with new rifles using the X mark trigger design which eliminates the connector and adds a trigger block to the safety.
I do not disagree that Remington triggers have malfunctioned. I cannot because I have seen it. I do disagree with the erroneous claims made as to the cause. The contention that it is the existence of the connector which is the root cause of the malfunctions is wrong. It is not demonstrable. To go after Remington because they produced a trigger with a design flaw (this flaw being the inclusion of the connector in the design) is, in my opinion, a tactical error and, further, unjust.
I have to add, there are a few aspects of the Remington-Walker trigger design I don't think are all that great and one of those aspects is the inclusion of the connector. However, it is NOT the existence of the connector, as a part of the original design, which is the root cause of the numerous accidents which have happened over the years. NOT! Regards, Bill.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Leeper:
I'll make this as brief as possible. I have, from the outset, disagreed with Jack Belk's contention that it is the existence of the connector, as a part of the original trigger design, which is the root cause of trigger malfunctions, accidents, incidents, or call them what you will. I disagree because it has not been shown to be the case.
Now, unlike so many others, I have seen quite few Remington triggers which would FSR (fire on safety release)and these were unaltered, factory triggers. However, in not one instance, was the connector in any way responsible for the malfunction. If the connector had not been there, the trigger would still have malfunctioned in the same way. The issue was one of quality control, of improper dimensions of parts, and one which Remington tried to address via a trigger replacement program in the late seventies and early eighties.
By the way, I have also seen a couple of cases where the trigger ceased to function and where the fault WAS the connector which, in these cases, was broken.
Some other failures appeared to be the result of wear of the contact surface of the safety lever. This again, had nothing whatsoever, to do with the connector.
I realize, to some, it might seem like I am splitting hairs. I mean, a failure is a failure; right? The thing is, Jack Belk and the plaintiffs have hitched their cart to the "design flaw" vehicle. Specifically that part of the design which utilizes a trigger connector. They contend that this design flaw is the root cause, indeed, the primary cause, of virtually all Remington trigger malfunctions. The only problem is, this contention has not been demonstrable.
So, what has been demonstrable? Malfunctions due to wear of interacting parts (safety lever and sear) have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to misadjustment have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to improperly dimensioned parts have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to corrosion and/or neglect have been demonstrable. Malfunctions due to ineptitude on the part of the shooter have been demonstrable. When it comes to the connector though, the only eveidence is theorizing, supposition, and flawed design analysis.
Perhaps the most damning eveidence against the contention that the trigger connector, as a part of the trigger design, is the root cause of FSR malfunctions, is the malfunctions which have occurred with new rifles using the X mark trigger design which eliminates the connector and adds a trigger block to the safety.
I do not disagree that Remington triggers have malfunctioned. I cannot because I have seen it. I do disagree with the erroneous claims made as to the cause. The contention that it is the existence of the connector which is the root cause of the malfunctions is wrong. It is not demonstrable. To go after Remington because they produced a trigger with a design flaw (this flaw being the inclusion of the connector in the design) is, in my opinion, a tactical error and, further, unjust.
I have to add, there are a few aspects of the Remington-Walker trigger design I don't think are all that great and one of those aspects is the inclusion of the connector. However, it is NOT the existence of the connector, as a part of the original design, which is the root cause of the numerous accidents which have happened over the years. NOT! Regards, Bill.

We will see if the Judicial System agrees with your position. I would not be betting any money on it though.

This back and forth is quite interesting to see and read.

Many of the participants are those who have on numerous occasions bashed "the legal system" and "lawyers" on numerous occasions on this board.

But I would have to say that those same folks are doing a very good job of representing their side or their opinion. A very good job of acting and arguing like lawyers. Certainly every plaintiff and defense attorney worth his/her salt is going to attack the credibility of the other side's expert witnesses. (what is the old saying? If you don't have the facts argue the law. If you don't have the law argue the facts. And if you have neither argue credibility!)

I don't know enough about mechanical engineering and don't have access to all of the evidence to argue either way. But I would say that in individual cases of negligence where injury and damages can be proven, it would appear that there is ample evidence that these triggers have so many different ways of going off that have nothing to do with their design. It may be next to impossible to prove that a design defect was the result of any one specific injury.

Seems to be the plaintiff's case comes down to, "we are not trying to prove what caused the AD in our specific instance. All we are out to prove is that the product's design makes it prone to fail in the method that we experienced. Also that the manufacturer knew about the likelihood and ignored it"

Seems a pretty slippery slope and one that could bring about numerous as yet even thought of unintended consequences.

Howard,
I think the problem the plaintiff(s)have is this; they are trying to blame an aspect of the design which has NOT been shown to be the cause of the failures. This doesn't mean they won't be able to find a court or a jury which will agree with them. All they have to do is convince a group of people who have little knowledge of the subject at hand.
You can put me on the list of the people who have bashed lawyers and the legal system in the past. In cases like this, the main problem with the lawyers is, they are so smart (in their own minds), they won't freakin' listen nor admit they don't understand. Some of my most aggravating experiences over my years in the gun business has been having lawyers ask me a question then argue about the answer. This in spite of the fact they asked the question because they didn't know the answer!
The manufacturer knowing about the likelyhood of a specific failure would seem to be valid only if that failure due to that cause was commonplace. Regards, Bill.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:
Marc,

What's the basis of this statement below:

quote:

In Remington's own internal memos we know that they figure at least 20% of the RWT's in service (out of ~7 million) can be made to fire without the trigger being pulled.

I would enjoy reading such memos.

Mike,

Here you go....

Remington Internal Memo's 79-80

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
Lawyers are a funny bunch. They are taught to trust nobody.

They are a slimy bunch! Ooorah!

Shadow,

Thanks...

Marc,

Did you check the link that Shadow posted?

I don't think this could be the memo you are referring to.

While I am not a gunsmith, I am pretty good at reading comprehension.

Here is what I gather from the memo:

This memo refers to 1% of Remington 700s being built prior to 1975 which equates to about 20,000 guns having a problem in that they could be tricked into firing because of an issue related to the safety and the sear. My understanding is the safety lifts the sear off the top of trigger/connector.

The content of this memo is not about the presence of the connector or a design issues related to the connector which seems to be a large focus of this thread. There is one reference to a discovery of a warped connector.

The memo is about the safety not lifting the sear off of the trigger/connector and being able to "trick" the gun into firing because of insufficient lift of the sear.

Post 1975 and having implemented a QA process, a sample of 500 guns returned showed that the problem had been corrected.

It doesn't refer to 20% of 7 million guns at all.

Does anybody know of another memo?

Mike-

Have not had a chance to follow that link. Having MAJOR computer issues that popped up out of the blue yesterday. Have I mentioned that I HATE TECHNOLOGY!?! Have been looking at the net on my phone more than on a computer for the past 24 hours. I just thought I had problems “typing” with 2 semi-controllable fingers on REAL KEYBOARD. Hunting and pecking on my phone has taken me to entirely new dimensions of difficulty. For this reason have not had time to finish the first long post I made. Hopefully things will be back to normal by tonight. Also, for those who do not know me, I am disabled and am going through a rough patch with my illness. This is a key fact that you will need later.

I have not had a chance to follow the link that is posted above. I will try to do so by this evening. However, one of the things I was going to say in the wrap up of my long post was that my major liability (being disabled) is in a perverse way one of my greatest assets when it comes to investigating alleged issues with the RWT. When I have a “bad day”, trust me, it is a BAD DAY. I am basically confined to a recliner leaned all the way back, or laying flat on my back on the floor. As you can imagine, this is boring as hell. However, it gives me incredible amounts of time to do research. I have time to follow link after link, track after track of allegations of improper functioning of the RWT. It is unreasonable for me to to expect others to be able to devote this amount of time to looking into the issue.

After spending scores of hours looking into this issue since the CNBC show aired, all I can say is OH...MY...GOD! This is huge. If anything, the QC has gone down in recent times and there are MORE complaints and suits alleging the exact same malfunctions with the RWT over and over and over again. And none of the complainants know each other, the attorneys are different, everything is different except for the 3 modes of failure. Damn near 99% (it seams anyway!) of the material has been sealed under settlement. I would love to know how much “go away” money and money paid out as a result of jury decisions (it is much easier to get at least some of the documents from the cases) Remington/DuPont/Cerberus/their insurance companies over the years. From just what I ave found in my limited searching, I will bet you it is over $100,000,000. Look into it a little yourself. I know you cannot likely sink the hours into that I have, plus it is not easy to find, but there is a lot of info out there.

So with that, I do not remember where I read the 20% figure. Even if I had, I probably would not provide you with a link. I would like to explain that, because I think it reads on screen like I am trying to be a jerk about it. I will not provide links or scans of ANY written legal opinions I have ever gotten from the ATF. My standard response to someone is to tell them to call the ATF themselves. At times I will at most write a couple of lines telling them what ATF agents have told me face to face, on the phone, or in writing. And I leave it at that and do not get into a pissing match with them. Back in the day when I would post links or copy written legal opinions, they prefer to defend their position, which is what they think the law should be. There arguments then begin to hunt and peck away at every word and punctuation mark, using the logic of “it depends on what the definition of 'is' is” to twist it to make the law back up what they think it should be. I see the same thing happening on this thread. Folks are grasping at straws to defend their position and will do anything to prove the other side wrong.

I am not accusing you of doing that, but it is ONLY because I have read too many of your posts where you seem a like a nice, level headed guy who never tries to stir the pot. I will be brutally honest with you here - if you do not watch the CNBC show in the next couple of days and continue to hunt and peck through the opinions of people who are saying they can see AD's occurring due to design issues with the RWT, then I will have no other choice but to think you are hell-bound to argue that the RWT is never to blame. Please read that carefully. I DO NOT think you are doing that now. But for some reason you have not bothered to watch the show. I am no techno guru by any stretch of the imagination, but even if I did not have it DVR'd I could find a copy of it somewhere by now. I went into that show praying it would would be a typical liberal TV slam against guns. Then I could just dismiss ALL of it out of hand. The problem is that the show was most definitely NOT that. And I had too many flashbacks of things I have seen with RWT's made over the period of close to 40 years now. I will be brutally honest and even say that I was hoping Mr. Belk would not seem credible. The way it turned out, Mr. Walker, a man I have greatly admired since junior high, is the main character came across to me as total hypocrite and liar.

Please Mike, watch the show, carefully study the drawings and computer models that are out there, and with your level of skepticism I imagine you are going to have to see several RWT's ranging from brand new rifles to 30 year old rifles that have been used as a canoe paddle, and all in between. Then you will have a good idea of what can and does happen with the RWT under various states of use and care. Look, I have lived it, right now I am just asking you to watch it if you are going to continue to pick apart only one side of the argument. If you watch the show and study models of the trigger, you will see why the safety lifting the sear is not the problem. Again, IT IS NOT A SAFETY PROBLEM, IT IS A TRIGGER PROBLEM! If you learn and understand how the entire fire control system worked then you will better be able to see what is being talked about. I do not doubt for a minute that your reading comprehension is every bit as good as you say, and is likely much better because you are being modest. However, seeing the mechanism work, even on a computer model, will help you understand why a stamped sheet metal part that is a critical bearing surface is sandwiched between two other pieces of stamped sheet metal, it is reset by a small spring that is not positioned to give it good mechanical advantage, and the entire system is built in a manner where it will trap hold debris, oil, etc. To make things worse, you cannot see inside to tell if anything is causing or almost causing a malfunction.

I have to run (am not able to be on my laptop while I am reclining today) but I want to leave you with a thought. A very large percentage of the people I have found who have alleged malfunctions with their RWT equipped rifles also own other Remington rifles and shotguns. And many of them owned multiple rifles equipped with RWT's. All of them I have found owned at least one other firearm, but usually it was many more firearms. They ONLY had problems with the RWT equipped rifles. Hmmm, interesting. I know you do not have the time to sink into the research I have done on the matter, but do some cursory research on lawsuits alleging FSR's, FBO's, and FBC's of all Remington rifles NOT equipped with the RWT, Ruger M77, Winchester M70, and whatever Savage calls their rifles (think it is 110 or something like that). Now add up all of the lawsuits of every one of these rifles and then compare that to the thousands of issues the RWT rifles have had. Some people like to say that there are more M700's out in the field, so there should be more malfunctions than with other rifles. OK, I will play along with that little game and accept that premiss for a moment. No go ahead and look at the SUM TOTAL production of those other rifles and how many complaints you find and then you compare that number to the Remington complaints and you get back to me on it. I can tell you, it is a losing position!

OK, just one more thing before I run. I imagine you have a fair amount of experience with dealing with corporate law and liability and insurance coverage. Now look at how much Remington has outright suppressed and paid people to keep their mouths shut and tell me if you think that is something an innocent company would do. I have been in the position many times when I had to keep my mouth shut or could only state VERY limited facts. But never, at any time, have I been in a situation where a company admitted it knew about a safety problem BEFORE a product went into production, the problem was not fixed due solely to profit reasons, and then they suppressed as much data and information as possible for over 50 years. Even today as the media has outed them, they are attacking people making claims against them and their best defense is a video where a woman who is a Remington employee repeats over and over “my daddy wouldn't give me something that wasn't safe.” Does this seem like the actions of a company that was secure in their legal standing? They have already spent orders of magnitude more than the fix would have cost or a good safety information campaign would have cost, has that been the issue. Now, only because they have tried to suppress a problem and keep the safety hazard framed in a such a way that their insurance company is paying most of the cost, they have created a situation where a full recall for modification/replacement would likely bankrupt Remington and the insurance company would not be on the hook for any of it. It would now be REMINGTON's (DuPont/Cerberus) money. Examining facts such as these are where we have to leave emotion out of it and use our good judgment.

Marc---you are much nicer than me he is a boob sorry I went ahead and said it.

I know someone who was on the Leadership Team (do not even waste your time asking me who he is) and there is much more to this than the public is aware of.

As I said before just be patient and it will all come out in the wash... I am sure this thread will be around for the duration so rather than call me names --- save your key strokes because in time everyone who is yelling “liberal conspiracy” will be eating a nice plate of crow over this. It really makes me no difference if you believe me or not (there are a few here who do know I speak the truth about this matter) just remember this thread when I bring it back to life in the future.

For those of you who will be going back to look at my previous posts (even on other boards) looking for a name or reference I Have Never for obvious reasons ever mentioned him on any internet chat forum ever.

Someone "quote" this so it cannot be claimed I edited it.

Thanks for posting the memo, Shadow.

Gotta love Remington's use of the verb "tricked" in this context.

As in, those sneaky, dishonest customers "tricked" our rifles into firing when the safeties were disengaged!

I think the solution is that Remington shouldn't build such gullible rifles.

If the rifle is gullible does this make the cartridge a con??? Or is he the innocent victim of the striker being unknowingly influenced by the conspiracy between the sear and safety?

Marc,

I will try and watch the show but I really don't know if I will ever be home when it is being aired. You are right I am very skeptical, especially of journalism. I believe very little of what journalism reports.

One of the reasons I believe so little of what is in the media is because whenever I read a media story about an event that I have first hand knowledge of, I am always amazed at how inaccurate the reporting is and the amount of bias in the reporting.

What I also find amazing is that many people have the same experience as above, and yet for stories that they do not have any first hand knowledge of, they will believe that the information in the story is 100% accurate.

But whether or not I watch the show, really has nothing to do with my ability to read and comprehend a memo.

All I really wanted to know is if anybody has an actual internal memo that supports the claim that Remington knows/knew that 20% of 7 million RW triggers can be made to fire without the trigger being pulled.

All the drawings and all the computer models and computer simulations mean absolutely squat. What does have meaning are real, demonstrable occurences. When the existence of the connector cannot be shown to be the root cause of accidental discharges, it is not the cause. When dimensional variations in the safety parts, as well as the sear and, sometimes, the housing, can be shown to be the root cause of the "fire on safety release" incidents, I have to lean toward believing that these variations in dimension are indeed the cause.
Further, when replacement of the safety parts effects a cure, I have to believe the safety parts were at fault. If gluing the connector in place while continueing to utilize the original safety parts results in a trigger which will still FSR, I have trouble believing it was the connector which is the cause.
In other words, computer modelling may demonstrate that the safety lifting the sear is not the problem but real world experiences with real triggers by real gunsmiths demonstrates that it is. Virtual failures by a computer generated model can make a TV audience say "oooh" but they are not reality.
As I have said before, I don't think the Remington trigger is the ideal and I think the inclusion of the connector was unnecessary. However, I have yet to see any solid evidence that it is truly the cause of all or indeed, any of the mishaps with Remington rifles.
In spite of the fact that there is no solid evidence that this "design shortcoming" (the existence of the connector)is the root cause, it is a contention which is apparently easy to sell. Well, maybe not that easy; Jack Belk has been at it for at least ten years.
I would like to point out, once again, that the new trigger, sans connector, still has some issues. This is because the source of the problems does not lie with the connector; computer models notwithstanding.
I'm not grasping at straws to defend a position. I'm expressing an opinion based on personal inspection of real, phyically present, triggers on real rifles. I'm not interpreting a memo, studying a drawing, or running a computer simulation.
Just a couple of years ago, a fellow came into the shop with his Remington 700 which had fired when he disengaged the safety and cost him ma nice ram. The trigger did, indeed, malfunction as described but not because of the connector. It malfunctioned because the owner had adjusted it too light and had oiled it excessively then gone sheep hunting when it was minus 20. Nothing to do with the connector and nothing to do with the design of the trigger. That is unless you consider the inclusion of adjustment screws in the design to be a design flaw. Regards, Bill.

Boss,

Your post depicts two "interesting" pieces of "logic".

1. Person A says a document exists that supports a claim. Person B says anybody have a copy. Person C says here it is. Person B says the document does not say that, anybody have a different document.

Your conclusion Person B is a boob. At least that seems to be what your are implying.

I invite you to read the memo and let me know what I misinterpreted in the memo.


2. Group A is those folks that think the RW trigger is a defective and a bad design and has caused ADs and personal injuries. Group A presents its data.

Group B says there seems to be a "holes" in Group A's data and flaws in the logic.

Group A doesn't seem to want to answer the questions about the data or the logic. Group A just re-presents its case or presents other data which Group B sees the same "holes" and logic flaws.

Your response seems to be Group B is "foolish" because you know something but you won't tell Group B what it is. Followed by, and Group B will be embarrassed and look silly when somebody else finally tells them what I know.

I won't feel silly or embarrassed at all, I will say to the person who told me the information..."Thanks for providing good solid information."

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:
Shadow,

Thanks...

Marc,

Did you check the link that Shadow posted?

I don't think this could be the memo you are referring to.

While I am not a gunsmith, I am pretty good at reading comprehension.

Here is what I gather from the memo:

This memo refers to 1% of Remington 700s being built prior to 1975 which equates to about 20,000 guns having a problem in that they could be tricked into firing because of an issue related to the safety and the sear. My understanding is the safety lifts the sear off the top of trigger/connector.

The content of this memo is not about the presence of the connector or a design issues related to the connector which seems to be a large focus of this thread. There is one reference to a discovery of a warped connector.

The memo is about the safety not lifting the sear off of the trigger/connector and being able to "trick" the gun into firing because of insufficient lift of the sear.

Post 1975 and having implemented a QA process, a sample of 500 guns returned showed that the problem had been corrected.

It doesn't refer to 20% of 7 million guns at all.

Does anybody know of another memo?

Mike,

A couple of points I would like to make.

1) I don't know where the 20% figure came from, nor do I know of any other memo's.

2) In the January 2, 1979 Memo Remington estimates 1% of the pre-1975 Remington 700 can be "tricked.

3) Later in the same memo, they state they tested 500 post-1975, and none could be "tricked.

4) However, in the later Feb 7, 1980 Memo, they now postulate that 0.9% of pre-1975 rifles (about 18,000)can be "tricked", and that 0.55% of post-1975 production can still be "tricked". (About 11,000 of another 2 million or so copies made until 2002)

5) So the quality tests instituted in 1975, only eliminated about 0.45% of the allegedly "defective" triggers.

6) In the last memo dated June 18, 1981, Remington's decision to address the entire issue was: not to redesign the Rem 700 trigger, to eliminate any potential future problems, but to cut-off the locking arm on the bolt. This would allow the rifles to be unloaded while still "on-safe".

7) Although not mentioned in the memo's, Remington changed the Model 700 triggers in 2002 with the introduction of the Mark X trigger. This trigger eliminates the "connector".

However, the Walker designed trigger still lives on in the guise of the 40x trigger, which is still placed on Remington's "target and competition" models.

The above is IMHO, and my reading of the documents at hand.

Regards,

Bob

Bob,

Thanks, you are right. I missed the last phrase in the last sentence in the second to last paragraph referring to the .55% of post 1975 rifles in the Feb 7, 1980 document.

Since, the memo was written in 1980; we of course don't know from this memo what Remington did after the date of the memo related to the the safety/sear lift issue.