Remington Model 700 Safety Issues

[Quattroclick]

This has been around forever. I have an early M700 and I have tried every thing I could to make the gun dry fire in the fashion described. Even with the trigger adjusted incredibly dangerously, I could not make the gun dry fire by disengaging the safety. I believe that the nearly every one of these potential claims are from people who committed a MAJOR safety error by pointing a loaded gun at someone and not paying attention to what they were doing. These in many cases may have been compounded by mis-adjusting the trigger. Every firearm manufacturer needs to get ready for the same thing, 'cause guess what, anti gun legislation is going nowhere. This is what the anti gun lobby is doing until they can get political power again.

Have there ever been defective Remington triggers? Yes, you can't make that many guns without one. But it is much easier to blame the maker of the gun than it is to blame yourself for doing something stupid.

Audi and Toyota have weathered similar product liability issues that couldn't be proved one way or the other because a staff of engineers was not there to immediately evaluate the situation. Colt, Uberti and Ruger have made a gazillion single action revolvers that are apt to go off with the hammer down on a loaded chamber. Are they out of business? They are not, and should not be because the person bearing the arm has a responsibility for safe gun handling which includes not pointing it at something you don't want to kill.

 

[mattsbox99]

Quattro you are exactly right, there has been a major malfunction on the part of the firearm handler to cause such a situation.

 

[captainkirk]

My 1971 vintage M700 will fire when the safety is released IF the trigger is adjusted to a "dangerous" low pull weight. Adjusting it back up into the "safe" range makes the problem dissapear. This has never happened to me with a round in the chamber though, only sitting on the bench empty.

When I had it rebarreled several years ago, the gunsmith did not note any worn parts or anything dangerous about said weapon. It can happen, (under the right conditions) but maybe not with every rifle.

captainkirk

 

[TBear77]

Remington is fighting back, taking CNBC to task on a number of issues.

http://www.remington700.tv/#/home

Ted

 

[pisgah]

Even the dessigner of the 700 says that the safety "is NOT a safety". He showed Remington, within weeks of the first production run of the 700, how to correct the design for 5 1/2 cents per rifle, and has hounded them about it to this day. Remington took the cheap way out, and now they may well pay for it dearly.

 

[sp]

My guess is - and I hope to collect comments on this one.

Sometimes the sear-striker contact is engaged excessively hard (bolt closed and cocked) and the safety feature in the trigger that blocks sear-trigger movement is on and the corners of sear and trigger can be observed to be touching (thru small hole in sheet metal housing) - normal. Then, when the safety is switched off (to fire) the sear that was held tight against the cocking piece is free to move, and it existing contact (sear-trigger corners) is reduced and firing occurs without pulling the trigger.

Possibly the fix might involve moving the sear contact area on the cocking piece back. Trigger adjustment may not be effective. I now only have one Rem 700 and the next time I have it out of the stock I plan to take a hard look at the trigger.

 

[Chukar hunter]

As far as I could tell, the safety on the older rifles is the one in question. I think the action has been changed on the newer commercial rifles. Police, military, and sniper rifles have the older style trigger mechanism.