The modern era of Remington pistols seems to follow the old era of Remington handguns. Namely, they never had a design that became an instant success. Some of the guns are arguably good, solid guns, but one helped put the nail in the coffin for the Remington we all grew up with. Let’s dig into the modern era of Remington handguns.
Modern Era Remington Pistols
World War 1911s
The M1911 was Colt’s baby; they got the original contract, but then those pesky World Wars popped up. The U.S. had a lot of soldiers and needed a lot of M1911S, so they gave contracts to numerous companies. Remington UMC obtained one such contract for WWI. Remington UMC had the largest plant in the United States at the time.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Colt shared technical assistance in the form of pistols and production drawings, but the drawings contained only nominal tolerances. This forced Remington to make their own blueprints and created guns with parts that didn’t interchange with Colt M1911s. Remington UMC produced 22,000 M1911s.
In World War II, Remington Rand, the typewriter company, and Remington Arms got a contract to produce M1911A1s. Remington Arms produced somewhere between 13,000 and 24,000 pistols before Remington Rand took over total production. There were 1,800,000 M1911s produced, and Remington Rand produced over 875,000 of those guns.
Remington Model 51
Between World Wars, Remington produced a fairly innovative and complex pistol called the Remington Model 51. Remington released the Model 51 in 1918, and like many companies, they were trying to release a small handgun that didn’t infringe on the short recoil patent, but didn’t have the downsides of a direct blowback gun.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
To do so, they hired John Pedersen, one of the finest firearms designers of the era. The Model 51 used a hesitation lock designed by Pedersen. This system is fairly novel, with fewer than five guns ever using it. It’s slightly complicated, but effective at keeping the breech closed until the round leaves the barrel.
The design allowed the gun to be quite thin, to have a lightweight slide, and hardly any recoil. It integrated both a thumb and grip safety. The gun was produced in .380 ACP and .32 ACP. It was designed for concealed carry. There were a few produced in .45 ACP known as the Model 53.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The Navy tested them and found them to be more reliable than the M1911. However, America’s entry into World War I seemed to shut the production down. Production lasted until 1926. The pistol was a modest success with 65,000 or so produced.
The Remington 1911 R1s
Remington began producing their own version of the M1911 around 2010-2011. The R1 models were produced in both .45 ACP and 9mm and in a ton of configurations. Those configurations only increased when The Freedom Group absorbed Para Ordnance.
They made compacts, enhanced, stainless models, double stack variants, and more. You could get a variety of features, including threaded barrels, enhanced controls, and more. The reputation of these guns is spotty.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Some are great, others not so much. One consistent problem Remington had with the 9mm M1911s I experienced was installing a .45 ACP extractor, requiring me to send it back to get fixed. Sadly, like most Freedom Group products, the reputation of these guns suffered considerably, especially when you consider the fairly high price they sold for.
Buying an R1 today is a bit of a risk, so unless it’s cheaper than a Tisas M1911 I wouldn’t take the risk. I doubt the RemArms today are capable or willing to fix the M1911s.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Remington R51
Oh boy, the R51 was an unmitigated disaster for Remington. Remington wanted to jump into the single-stack 9mm market in 2014, and to their credit, they were at the very least a little creative. They went back to the Model 51 and developed a modern model, scaling the hesitation-locked action up to 9mm.
The new gun kept the grip safety, ditched the thumb-safety, and gave us an upscaled R51. The R51 even received rave reviews from gun mags of the era. Sadly, that wouldn’t be the case when they hit the market. They jammed, fired out of battery, and were difficult to field strip.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Remington produced a Gen 2 after a voluntary recall of pistols. The new guns were better, but still had some serious issues. My Gen 2 is unreliable as it gets, and it’s one of my worst pistols. The Remington R51 was more than a failure; it soured people on Remington handguns as a whole.
RM380
The RM380 was Remington’s pocket handgun. Freedom Group rolled up Rohrbaugh into their ownership group. Rohrbaugh created an incredibly compact pistol in 9mm and .380 ACP. Remington never produced the 9mm model, but released the RM380.
It’s a shame Remington killed their reputation with the R51, because the RM380 is a decent little pocket gun. They didn’t seem to cheap out on the production, although they significantly lowered the price compared to Rohrbaugh. The RM380 is one of the few pocket .380s that isn’t a hand whalloper.
It’s quite pleasant to shoot, with a smooth but long DAO trigger. The all-metal design is a bit heavier and wider than other pocket .380s, but it’s comfortable to shoot. It’s a good little gun that didn’t have much of a chance after the R51.
The Remington RP9 and RP45
Remington handguns didn’t go out with a bang, but with a bit of a whimper. The last handgun Remington produced as of this writing is the RP9 and RP45. Remington went Glock. They produced a polymer frame, striker-fired series of guns in 9mm and 45 ACP.
The guns were fairly generic, but were affordable and offered excellent capacity for the era. The RP9 offered 18 rounds of 9mm, and the RP45 offered 15 rounds of .45 ACP. The .45 ACP gun in particular was an impressive capacity.
They were reportedly fine guns, but I never even saw one in the wild. Like the RM380, they were tainted by the R51’s failure.
The End Of Remington Handguns
As of right now, the current incarnation of Remington only produces rifles and shotguns. There are no handguns on their list, and I don’t see one developing anytime soon. For the time being, Remington’s are used guns. There are clearly some good ideas in their catalog, but never good enough for them to be a major handgun producer.
Read the full article here
