Judge Questions Remington’s Rifle Fix
BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 10 months ago
CNBC:
The federal judge considering a proposed class-action settlement involving millions of allegedly defective Remington rifles is raising new questions about the accord, warning a plaintiff’s attorney in court that the agreement as it currently stands risks more people being injured by the guns.
Remington and the plaintiffs in two nationwide class-action cases have proposed replacing the triggers on nearly eight million guns, including the wildly popular Model 700 Series, which critics allege are prone to firing without the trigger being pulled.
Some two dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries have been linked to accidental firings of the guns. The 2010 documentary Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation explored allegations that for more than 60 years, the company covered up the alleged defect.
Remington has steadfastly denied the allegations and still maintains the guns are safe.
“There’s nothing wrong with the Remington 700 rifle,” said Remington outside counsel John Sherk at a preliminary hearing in a federal court in Kansas City to consider the proposed settlement. But he said “Remington is committed to this settlement” in order for the company to move past litigation that has gone on for decades.
This is what happens with students go to law school and become convinced that it’s okay to tell lies. There is indeed something very wrong with the Remington 700. As I’ve said before, don’t believe what I’m saying. Go study the evidence for yourself, including the testing performed at Remington.
The reason this is a big deal goes beyond mere responsibility for your work products as good and honest workers. This goes to the honesty of engineering, the fidelity of weapons design and the ability to entrust your life and the lives of loved ones to a manufacturer. Remington is showing itself to be a very bad example to the gun community. Forget the issue of legal settlements. What happened to being good professional engineers who take ownership of their designs?
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On February 5, 2015 at 12:51 pm, Backwoods Engineer said:
As an engineer who wants to take ownership of his designs (I’ve never bought into the Professional EngineerTM nonsense– too fascist for me), I’ll tell you what happened: management and lawyers. Design-by-lawyer is real, and has happened at every company I’ve worked for, in some degree, during the 23 years of my career.
On February 5, 2015 at 2:25 pm, Blake said:
You forgot to include “design by bean counter.”
I read a story by an engineer was was involved in the headlight design of a car. If I remember correctly, the engineer was shocked when the accountant suggested using 12 or 14 gauge wire to power the headlights rather than 10 gauge originally specified. From what I remember, minimum was 10 gauge in order to prevent the wire from melting due to the current drawn by the headlights. The accountant wanted thinner wire “because it was cheaper.”
(I may be off with my wire gauge, however, the rest is pretty close)
On February 5, 2015 at 3:04 pm, Archer said:
Similar incident between myself and my wife when we moved into our house. It’s our first house, with an actual yard and everything. A yard that requires maintenance and lawn-mowing. We had to purchase a lawn mower.
Back then, we didn’t want to have gas cans lying around (young children and all), so we opted for an electric model. It needs an extension cord to power it. Not just any extension cord; it needs a heavy-duty, heavy-gauge extension cord. My wife initially scoffed at the cost; the heavy-duty cord we needed costed six times the “normal” one.
But of course, we coughed up the cash for the heavy-gauge cord, for safety. As it hasn’t melted and tried to burn the house down, I’d call that a net win.
On February 12, 2015 at 9:39 am, Chiefbuck said:
Mr Smith, This process of determining valid responsibility has continued for far too long. I own an old (1951) 721 and a (1971) 700 BDL heavy bbl .243. Both are accurate and the only problem that I have had was that the 700 bold locked closed and the gunsmith that I took it to broke the bolt handle off. He then sent it to Remington for repair and the cost exceeded the initial purchase price. Being concerned about the rifle safety I checked into the cost of replacement trigger mechanisms. Instead of spending $4-500 I decided to buy a new Ruger American in .243. The Ruger is every bit as accurate as the model 700 which shocked me. If Remington does provide new triggers I will be delighted to comply and will then have no problem passing on the rifles to others. BTW, In the CNBC video the original engineer of the mechanism indeed indicated that there was a problem. As far as testing done by Remington not finding any problems, did anyone expect them to find and identify any? After all most of us are aware of fiasco of vehicle recall. I have no plans of buying any Remington product until this trigger safety mechanism plays out.
On February 12, 2015 at 10:24 am, Herschel Smith said:
The testing by Remington did indeed find problems. See the links above and follow for the original documents (PDFs).
As for the notion of “determining responsibility continuing far too long,” no … no … no … no … no … and ten thousand times NO!
Determining responsibility continues until engineers understand what happened and why, corporations take responsibility and understand the culture that led to it and how they didn’t allow engineers the latitude to do their jobs, and continuing education has washed the whole episode throughout the entire engineering field.
Engineers should wake every morning thinking about the Hyatt-Regency walkway collapse, the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster, Morton-Thiokol and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and on and on and on.
The job of engineers is NOT first to design something that works. It’s the job of engineers FIRST to design something that doesn’t inadvertently harm humans (to the extent feasible). Only then should he consider functionality.
Determination of responsibility NEVER ends for engineers. NEVER.
On February 14, 2015 at 11:38 am, Chiefbuck said:
I doubt if 1% of the population knows why the Hyatt Regency walkway failed. We aren’t talking rocket science here, the Remington engineers knew right from the start back in the early 50’s that the trigger system was faulty. That is when a recall fix should have been done. The decision not to recall & repair was a financial one. As time went on the cost of doing a recall increased. Ford went through the same process a few times. Once the buyers begin to question the Remington provided facts, the company should have acted. Many now will not risk harming family or friends. Now we all know that many firearms manufacturers have new ownership. I’d recommend that users not only Remington owners take extreme caution when operating their firearms. There is no instant replay after the bullet leaves the firearm.
On February 16, 2015 at 11:39 am, Herschel Smith said:
Let me try this a different way because it’s obvious I haven’t been clear. I’m not suggesting that the engineers don’t know what happened or why. I am suggesting the same thing you are, to wit: “the Remington engineers knew right from the start back in the early 50’s that the trigger system was faulty. That is when a recall fix should have been done. The decision not to recall & repair was a financial one.”
That means, of course, that engineers failed in their ethical duties to protect the safety and health of the public. It also means that corporate executives and lawyers got in the way of engineers peforming their ethical duties. Both parties are culpable for immoral and illegal actions.
Moreover, Remington is still trotting out lawyers to lie for them. That undercuts any trust anyone can have in their today. Another way of saying it is that Remington hasn’t yet dealt with the culture of corruption or moral problems within its ranks. So purchase of a Remington product today would be off limits for me (as a personal decision) because I need to see them change the culture in order to reward them with my business. I also wouldn’t purchase a Remington product today until the culture changes because if they did this in the trigger system for the 700, they could do it on another product and refuse to accept responsibility for their malfeasance.
On February 16, 2015 at 5:41 pm, Chiefbuck said:
Herschel, As far as I’m concerned, you were perfectly clear. I’m not buying any more Remington firearms. The quality on other ‘home grown” firearms is also declining. I am now an official Ruger only guy.
On February 16, 2015 at 6:12 pm, Herschel Smith said:
I have a Ruger GP 100 Match Champion on order now. My last rifle was a Tikka T3, it had a better feel than the Ruger American I picked up and cycled.
On February 17, 2015 at 9:48 am, Chiefbuck said:
Herschel, Father Time is catching up with me and walking up & down the rocky Pa hills requires much more effort now than years ago. The recoil of even a 30-06 was starting to bother my head to toe arthritis. The Ruger American ‘just fit’ and had very little recoil plus I already had plenty of brass etc for the .243. I have a ‘Husky’ in 30-06 that is like new. The Ruger had other features that I liked and when ‘Petzel’ approves of something, it’s worth taking a look at. I plan to keep hunting and shooting until I stop breathing. I still have rifles that I still have not fired and have a serious stash of ammo for Nagants, Type 99’s, Mausers and of course other newer stuff in .308, 7mm mag. Didn’t fire a shotgun for years but if I ever find a place to hunt here in DE that is mandatory. I use a ski pole when ‘walking the rifles’ now. Several years ago I picked up a 6.5 X 55 Swede dated 1917 that was in mint condition, bought ammo and didn’t fire it yet. I thought that when I retired there would be plenty of time to do things that I had been too busy to do at the time. Wrong again….
On February 16, 2015 at 4:59 pm, Arthur Hartwell said:
Part of the problem relates to the way new products are developed and tested, the workers who build the prototypes and test run samples are not the run of the mill factory workers. The typical sample fabricator is someone who has 5+ years experience with the manufacturing of the product in question, with production well you get who ever is on that station.