Remington Model 700 Rifle Repairs Mandated By 2014 Settlement Don’t Work, Some Owners Say
Defective triggers continue to cause problems with Remington rifles, even after repairs mandated by a 2014 class action settlement agreement have been completed.
According to a recent CNBC report, multiple owners indicate that Remington Model 700 rifles and dozens of other guns which were supposedly fixed as part of the settlement continue to experience problems where the weapons fire even when the trigger was not pulled. In some cases, owners report the guns fired when their hand was nowhere near the trigger.
For years, Remington has maintained the guns are safe and free of defects. However, the Remington rifle class action lawsuit linked the alleged defect to dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries from accidental discharges in the past few decades.
In 2014, the company resolved the claims by agreeing to replace the firing mechanisms on the Model 700 and nearly a dozen other Remington guns with similar designs. The repair impacted millions of guns the company agreed to fix for consumers who registered a claim free of charge.
The Remington Model 700 is one of the world’s most popular rifles. It and other guns involved in the settlement have a trigger mechanism originally designed in 1948. The settlement repair retrofit the guns to a new trigger design known as the XMark Pro.
Remington also agreed to recall thousands of newer firearms containing the existing XMark Pro triggers. The fix would correct what Remington indicated was a manufacturing defect involving “excess bonding agent.” This defect also caused trigger malfunctions.
The approval for the settlement was granted in 2015, and many customers have taken advantage of the repair program. However, some are now reporting that the fix did not solve the rifle trigger problems.
The CNBC report uncovered multiple reports of owners indicating guns repaired under the settlement continued to malfunction and misfire.
Owners report the guns firing when the safety is switched off, but their hand is away from the trigger. One report indicated a rifle fired when the owner closed the bolt after putting a round in the chamber. And another report indicated the gun malfunctioned only after the repairs were done.
CNBC reviewed more than a dozen product service reports documenting similar complaints from Remington owners who had their guns fixed under the settlement.
It is unclear how widespread the issues are among the thousands of owners who have had their firearms repaired as part of the settlement. As of Feb 2017, the last time claims data was reported to the court, only 22,000 claims had been filed. However, more than 7.85 million guns were covered by the Remington repair settlement.
Customers have until April 23 to file claims for a new trigger under the settlement fix.
That date will not be extended by Remington, despite several of the 21 authorized Remington repair centers being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, many authorized repair centers are operating with shortened hours or not accepting repair orders.
Gun shops completing the repairs estimate wait times ranging from two hours to several weeks.