Portland police drop Remington 700 rifles amid safety concerns

[RamboLiberal]

PORTLAND - The Portland Police Department's special reaction team has stopped using its Remington 700 sniper rifles, because one of them started firing unpredictably and a network news report said similar problems elsewhere have caused injuries and prompted lawsuits.

A program on CNBC last week highlighted several reports that Remington 700 rifles -- a mainstay for the U.S. military, law enforcement and gun enthusiasts -- had fired when the trigger had not been pulled.

The program's findings were bolstered by a video taken at a Portland police training exercise. One of the rifles was shown firing when the trigger was not being pulled.

"I don't want to run the risk of having an accidental discharge like this where it puts an officer's or community member's life in danger," Police Chief James Craig said Wednesday.

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One of the most serious cases in which an accidental discharge is alleged occurred in 2000 in Montana, where a woman said she was unloading her rifle with the barrel pointed at an empty horse trailer. The gun fired and the bullet pierced the van's walls and hit her son on the other side, killing him.

http://www.pressherald.com/news/craig-faulty-rif-les-taken-out-of-police-service_2010-10-28.html

I saw this program and it is scary how this model can fire just in moving the bolt. Showed it happening on a police range.

BTW on the accidental discharge thea tkilled the child, the mother did not know the child had gone to the other side of the horse trailer to get a sweatshirt. She had just seen the child behind her on a horse with his sister. The father became one of the driving forces to get Remington to admit the problem with the trigger design in this model of rifle.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Oops.

[Supply Side Jesus]

2. I guess guns can kill people after all

:hide:

[Arctic Dave]

3. Are you going to be here all week?

:rofl:


:spank:

[lawodevolution]

4. You still have to violate two principles of gun safety for

This problem to get someone shot.

1. know what is behind your target
Or
Never aim the firearm at a person (or object that a person can be behind)

2. Do not put a bullet in the chamber until you are immanently going to fire it at your target with the exception that you can have a bullet chambered in your defense gun as long as you are not handling it.

These firearms didn't go off on their own either. Physical manipulation of the bolt seems to be involved. I have a Remington 700 and I never had it go off but I won't ever be in a situation where it goes off and injures someone because I don't violate gun safety rules when handling it.

[SteveM]

14. Not when you aim the rifle in a safe direction....

There is no absolutely safe "safety" on firearms; hell, revolvers usually have none at all.

That is why you handle guns safely. That said, I think the trigger assembly/safety on Remington 700s should be replaced or redesigned and manufactured. I have a Remington 700 and when I push the safety off, I aim the barrel in a safe direction, even though I have never had a miss-fire.

[oneshooter]

15. Not "miss fire"....

Miss fire: When the primer fails to ignite after being struck by the firing pin/hammer.

Accidental Discharge(AD): When the firearm discharges with out the manual manipulation of the firing mechanism.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[AtheistCrusader]

5. I don't understand on what planet pointing a gun at two thin sheets of tin or aluminium

that obscures whatever is on the other side, and won't slow a bullet at all, is a 'safe direction' to point a gun in.

[Euromutt]

7. While I agree with you, that doesn't get Remington off the hook

You're absolutely correct that a horse trailer is by no means an adequate backstop, and certainly not for a weapon like the Remington 700 BDL, which can come chambered for some fairly high-powered rounds. But the thing about Cooper's Four Rules is that you have to break three of them to cause a negligent discharge that results in injury. Mrs. Barber, the lady in question, did violate rule #4 ("know your target, and what is beyond it") by using an inadequate backstop, but by all accounts, she was scrupulously obeying rules #1, #2 and #3. The discharge, in and of itself, was (again, by all accounts) not negligent in that it was caused by a mechanical defect; the weapon discharged when she flipped off the safety to clear, despite the fact that she wasn't touching the trigger. Mrs. Barber's violating rule #4 doesn't get Remington off the hook.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. If that's true

I agree. Mechanical defect if it fired without pressure on the trigger. Slamfires, closing the bolt plagued mossberg bolt shotguns. Wonder if this is similar.

[oneshooter]

6. Remington will do a free check, and will only charge $20 for the repair, if needed. n/t

[one-eyed fat man]

9. The crux of the problem

If the right conditions exist, moving the safety off "Safe" may cause the gun to fire.

Such things as age, wear, contaminated lubricant, things like that will exacerbate over time, so that the older guns will tend to have more problems than the newer ones. Older versions of the Remington locked the bolt closed when the safety was engaged. The first thing you had to do to unload such a rifle was move the safety off "Safe", thus a coincidence of carelessness and mechanical malfunction could easily result in tragedy.

The sequence that is supposed to make a gun malfunction, or "trick," is to place the safety between the "safe" and "fire" positions, pull the trigger, and then place the safety in the "fire" position - which causes affected guns to fire. Anyone who owns or uses a Remington 700 series rifle would be prudent to check the function and extra care to point the gun in a safe direction whenever the safety is moved.

[Pavulon]

10. Dont fuck with those two screws unless you know what you are doing.. ground is safe

pointed at a trailer is a moron. The only problem is stupid people. if you monkey with the trigger you own it.

[DissedByBush]

11. Guns are machines

They do need maintenance, or they can start to work unexpectedly.

And as far as the lady killing her kid, the first rule: always point your weapon in a safe direction.

Few gun accidents are actually accidents, but usually related to not following the rules or not maintaining the gun.

[TheWraith]

16. Yes, but that's why you have the word "failsafe."

The idea is that when a machine eventually malfunctions, it does so in a "safe" way. For instance, by becoming unable to fire. Not by firing unexpectedly.

[jody]

12. It's possible the user of the rifle adjusted the trigger pull so light as to make it unsafe plus

people not familiar with gunsmithing have been known to hone sears and hammers to the point that the extremely thin layer of hard metal that engages its opposite member is removed leaving base metal that quickly wears making the trigger mechanism unsafe.

My guess based on scant information suggests do it yourself gunsmithing and misuse of the trigger mechanism are prime candidates for causing the accident.

[Buzz cook]

13. Police agencies are moving away from blot action anyway.

Variations on the AR-15 are replacing bolt actions in the role of sniper rifles.