The Remington 700 bolt-action rifle is one of the world’s most popular weapons. It has been on the market since the 1940’s and continues to be one of Remington’s most popular sport and hunting rifles, with what designer Mike Walker calls the perfect trigger. However, what Walker calls perfect, safety experts call flawed, saying that the weapon can fire accidentally without the trigger being touched. A 10-month investigation by CNBC reveals that the company has known that its trigger was prone to damage and accidental discharge since 1948, when Walker himself told the company about the problem before the rifle hit the market. The CNBC report, Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation, debuted last night.
As the company said in a recent press release, “The Model 700 is the most popular, reliable, accurate and trusted bolt-action rifle in the world, with over five million rifles produced and billions of rounds fired over nearly five decades.” However, if that was the case, why would the company have twice considered recalling the weapon to fix the trigger, in 1979 and 1994? Why did the company change the trigger mechanism in 2002, then swap out the Walker trigger for the X-Mark Pro in 2007?
“Both Remington and experts hired by plaintiff attorneys have conducted testing on guns returned from the field which were alleged to have fired without a trigger pull,” Remington’s statement says, “and neither has ever been able to duplicate such an event on guns which had been properly maintained and which had not been altered after sale. The Model 700, including its trigger mechanism, has been free of any defect since it was first produced.” The reported glut of injuries, lawsuits, and three near-recalls tells a different story.
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