cocojo wrote:My observation that is causing the nose dive appears to be two issues. Load up magazine to capacity insert magazine with slide closed. What I found was the top round moves forward about eighth of an inch or more. What I found was the hestiation block has a slight ramp behind the top round and moves the round forward. The second round under the top round is cocked inside the magazine, when this occurs. If you slide the top round out, the second round hits the front of the magazine and stops the feeding. The ramp in the block needs to either be set back so it doesnt hit the top round, and the magazine needs just a bit of a cut in front. The culprit is the hesitation blocks under slope or ramp is too far forward.

I did a cut and straightened out the inward bend. This helped immensely with ball ammunition, but hollow points can be problematic! If the cut is too deep, hollow points hang up on the bottom of the barrel feed ramp!
Can you explain about the hesitation block in more detail? Thanks.

cocojo wrote:My observation that is causing the nose dive appears to be two issues. Load up magazine to capacity insert magazine with slide closed. What I found was the top round moves forward about eighth of an inch or more. What I found was the hestiation block has a slight ramp behind the top round and moves the round forward. The second round under the top round is cocked inside the magazine, when this occurs. If you slide the top round out, the second round hits the front of the magazine and stops the feeding. The ramp in the block needs to either be set back so it doesnt hit the top round, and the magazine needs just a bit of a cut in front. The culprit is the hesitation blocks under slope or ramp is too far forward.

I looked and you are correct, that is exactly what is happening. The top round moves forward and the one underneath is moved against the front of the magazine. The interesting part is that I only got nosedives in the 2nd round of the magazine. Why would it NOT affect more than the 2nd round?
If the block is changed, would that not affect the function of the pistol?

The original r51 the ramp was further back. Don't know what remington is thinking but I am sending my r51 back to them for repair if thats at all possible. I want this gun to work but my kel-tec pf9 is much more reliable. Thats sad!

I talked with Remington customer representative and emailed him a photo of the action block with the problem area highlighted in red.
I hope this leads to something, it is hard to completely distinguish possible magazine problems until this issue is clarified.

I'll be interested in hearing anything Remington might suggest on the locking block.

In other news, put some more rounds through my R51 today. Not even a hint of a nosedive--seems to be cured. Perhaps just because its' broken in now with 700 rds. However today, new problem. For the first time ever I had three light primer strikes. All three fired when I reloaded and hit them a second time. The ammo was Tula steel case, so I suspect those Russian primers might be a little on the hard side. No hitches with any brass cased ammo, Federal and American Eagle. Even PMC hollowpoints ran right through it.

After reading your experiences, Paul, I checked my mags and how the rounds load. Every round, whether top round in a full mag or other, is pushed forward about 1/4"in the mag and rests there until loaded. I tried several rounds in both mags in different quantities, removing the magazine to see where they were. Every one 1/4" forward in the mag. That seems to be how it's supposed to function and doesn't seem to me to be a problem.

BlackJack wrote:I'll be interested in hearing anything Remington might suggest on the locking block.

In other news, put some more rounds through my R51 today. Not even a hint of a nosedive--seems to be cured. Perhaps just because its' broken in now with 700 rds. However today, new problem. For the first time ever I had three light primer strikes. All three fired when I reloaded and hit them a second time. The ammo was Tula steel case, so I suspect those Russian primers might be a little on the hard side. No hitches with any brass cased ammo, Federal and American Eagle. Even PMC hollowpoints ran right through it.

After reading your experiences, Paul, I checked my mags and how the rounds load. Every round, whether top round in a full mag or other, is pushed forward about 1/4"in the mag and rests there until loaded. I tried several rounds in both mags in different quantities, removing the magazine to see where they were. Every one 1/4" forward in the mag. That seems to be how it's supposed to function and doesn't seem to me to be a problem.

The majority of my problems have been with hollow point ammunition hanging up on the front lip of the magazines. The bigger the cavity, the worse the problem. Glad to hear that you are not having any problems. I get light primers strikes on a small percentage of Herter's ammo. Probably a harder primer. I have well over 1200 rounds through my R51 now.

After many instances of having a round nosedive, especially hollow points, in my magazines, usually the 2nd round, I feel I have solved my problem. My solution was to bend the inward tab at the front of the magazine straight and polish the inside of the tab. Yesterday I put well over two hundred rounds of 4 different brand hollow points thru my R51 without a single malfunction! I also shot about 50 rounds of ball ammunition without a failure.
I have gone from an unhappy R51 owner to a happy one!

BlackJack wrote:Interesting results from recent shooting Paul. I took mine out yesterday after a slight tweak.

I took the mags apart (I just have two) and smoothed that metal indentation that the bullet tip tends to snag on. I used a small fine file and finished it shiny with a piece of 1200 grit sandpaper. The edge was sharp to the touch before the tweak and quite smooth after. I took care not to remove any metal from that indentation--that's what holds the follower in the proper position in the mag when it's empty.

Didn't get to shoot it a lot, but so far, no more nosedives. It makes sense to me that this would at least partially solve the problem. Haven't tried a stronger mag spring yet because I haven't found one, but if the problem reoccurs, I probably will.

When the lip is straightened, the follower is still held, but higher in the magazine. I have not found that to be a problem. Good luck, keep us posted.

Well I got my R51 back from repair within a week. The letter back stated "fired the handgun with 124 grain ammo and the pistol functioned fine". "WHAT" "REALLY" what the hell was that? I sent them numerous pic's of problems and that's all they did was shoot the gun with 124 grain ball ammo? I noticed the spongy rubber spring under the extractor looked bigger than the original, but that may be my imagination. I shot the gun and it functioned better but not 100%. Did have a couple of nose dives and failures to feed. So I went ahead and polished the feed ramp glass smooth again and files a slight angle on the magazine lip that bullet hits on occasion. I tried it with two of my four mags. I hand cycled live ammo hollow points with the slide closed. I retracted the slide on a full mag and filed away until the top round fed without stopping on that lip. One mag was ok, the other I had to file a bit more, which was too much and the follower moved up a bit. I just bent the lip in slightly which solved that problem. Now when I get to the range I will try the altered mags against the new unaltered mags and see what happens. I love the gun a lot but I need it to function at least 99% of the time with HP's. I filed the magazine front at slight angle. We shall see when I shoot it. I either have two junk mags or no more issues. If Remington won't fix it then I guess we are on our own to try.

cocojo wrote:Well I got my R51 back from repair within a week. The letter back stated "fired the handgun with 124 grain ammo and the pistol functioned fine". "WHAT" "REALLY" what the hell was that? I sent them numerous pic's of problems and that's all they did was shoot the gun with 124 grain ball ammo? I noticed the spongy rubber spring under the extractor looked bigger than the original, but that may be my imagination. I shot the gun and it functioned better but not 100%. Did have a couple of nose dives and failures to feed. So I went ahead and polished the feed ramp glass smooth again and files a slight angle on the magazine lip that bullet hits on occasion. I tried it with two of my four mags. I hand cycled live ammo hollow points with the slide closed. I retracted the slide on a full mag and filed away until the top round fed without stopping on that lip. One mag was ok, the other I had to file a bit more, which was too much and the follower moved up a bit. I just bent the lip in slightly which solved that problem. Now when I get to the range I will try the altered mags against the new unaltered mags and see what happens. I love the gun a lot but I need it to function at least 99% of the time with HP's. I filed the magazine front at slight angle. We shall see when I shoot it. I either have two junk mags or no more issues. If Remington won't fix it then I guess we are on our own to try.

I bend the lip straight up and polish, the follower moves all the way up, but that is no problem as it is held by the feed lips. Had ZERO malfunctions with hollow points of several different brands. My altered magazine looks almost identical to my S&W Shield 9mm magazines.

Went to the range today and it went very well. I shot remington 115 jhp and rem 115 fmj along with 124 rws, winchester white box 115, some zombie max 115 and a box of winchester sxz 115 fmj all went well.I had one nose dive with 124 rws ammo and one light strike. I'm finally going to carry it with remington umc 115 jhp's.

I tried something different loading my R51. I load the first round with slide open, then take out the magazine and load it up so bullets touch the back as usual. The seventh round I only slide it in so that the back of the bullet is about a 1/4 inch away from the back of the magazine. What this does is it prevents the ramp on the bottom of the hesitation block from pushing the top round forward and stops the second round from going forward hitting the front of the magazine, when the top round is moved forward. Make sense?

cocojo wrote:I tried something different loading my R51. I load the first round with slide open, then take out the magazine and load it up so bullets touch the back as usual. The seventh round I only slide it in so that the back of the bullet is about a 1/4 inch away from the back of the magazine. What this does is it prevents the ramp on the bottom of the hesitation block from pushing the top round forward and stops the second round from going forward hitting the front of the magazine, when the top round is moved forward. Make sense?

Might work for you, but if I have to do that for a firearm, any firearm, then it isn't worth owning. So far I haven't had any problems with nose diving rounds.

Paul7177 wrote:I have about 200 rounds through my new R-51, several times the 2nd round in the magazine did not feed. It was "nose dived" in magazine. I notice others report the same problem. Is this another major problem? Thanks from a new member.

It is a magazine problem.
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http://r51pistol.com/recent/