Remington R1 Commander (courtesy The Truth About Guns)

“Where’s the -” “It’s not here,” the Remington rep interrupted. For reasons left unexplained, the “this is what GLOCK should have built” Remington R51 single-stack 9mm was not in attendance at the SHOT Show Media Day. The no-show was quite odd given the buzz surrounding the new pistol, and the fact that Remington junketed journos into the hinterlands to run the gun ahead of SHOT (not including TTAGers, for some reason). “It’ll be here tomorrow,” the Remington guy promised. “At the booth.” Meanwhile, I got a chance to fire ye olde (in internet terms) R1 Carry Commander. The $1k CC fires like a full-size 1911 – and I mean that in a good way. I’m no 1911 fanboy, but I reckon the Commander’s a suitable alternative to a striker-fired polymer pistol for everyday carry, provided you have the trigger discipline of a Navy SEAL and don’t mind lugging around a gun that’s heavier than three or four GLOCK 42’s.

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37 COMMENTS

  1. Why do I get the feeling the R-51s are going to be later than February getting in the stores and online sites?

    • Two five gun stores across the nation who will receive one gun each, then a five year hiatus until the next batch is built and sent.

  4. They didn’t have a display model at the Dallas Safari Club convention last week either. I was rather disappointed at the fact, but soon got distracted by the TrackingPoint goodies and all the Ruger releases, which Ruger never fails to deliver once announced.

    The GP100 Match Champion was of particular interest to me.

    Still, I am very anxious to have a closer look at the R51.

  5. No guns at media day? Something …smells….Like maybe “not quite ready for prime time” smells. Too bad, I was looking forward to a report on this particular firearm.

  7. Who cares.

    Either the gun isn’t ready for primetime, or it is ready for the market and the demand rises like free heroin on Chicago’s West Side. Either way, us peons aint getting one until 2015 at the soonest.

    Should be interesting to watch the four figure gunbroker auctions on the 25 available nationwide in the meantime though.

    • The linked story is from last year. Since I’m on mobile I’m not willing to dig through the archives but it looks like it’d been reported in a igotd.

      On topic, at least there’s enough interest the rem rep is interrupting you to tell you the gun everyone wants to see isn’t there.

    • That was a year ago. I read everything here, and I don’t remember that story. But maybe that’s because it was a year ago, and it was five injuries and no deaths spread across a thousand miles of the country, in a story that was clearly trying to tie them together into some sort of object lesson. And it was a year ago.

  9. I carried a Series 70 Combat Commander in 45 ACP for 10 years before I switched. It is a good sidearm, and like most of my sidearms, it’s more accurate than I am. It’s just very heavy, even in a Bianchi X16 Agent shoulder rig. The Glock 19 I have with me today is nice and light, even in a SHTF ACE 1 hybrid IWB holster. With a new Bianchi rig on the way, I think I have a combination that’ll work for quite a while to come.
    That said, there is the S&W M&P Compact to consider… 🙂

      • Nope. Interesting marketing approach if used, I guess. Maybe they thought ‘STFU Gear’ was a bit too aggressive. 😉
        SHTF Gear out of Utah is the manufacturer, and it’s the ACE 1 model of their hybrid. So far it’s proving to be about equal to my Alien Gear hybrid IWB for my Walther PPS. Surprisingly enough, the Alien Gear will also carry the G19 Gen 4, but it’s a wee bit tighter of a fit.

      • It’s all relative. If you’re fit, with no conditions or illnesses, the 1911 in any size is great. If you have sciatica, it makes things more… interesting.
        My taste and affection for my Combat Commander is rooted in a few different places: my military service, a close call that could have gone much worse for all involved, the romance born out of old and not-so-old WW2 and crime movies, the American-ness of my pistol and memories of my best firearms training time with the Marine cadre at my last base. I may not ever carry it again, but I plan to keep it unto my death and pass it on to my son.
        Which means I’ll have to get another to pass on to my daughter… 🙂

    • Then I guess we’re a minority of two then.

      1911’s aren’t heavy, IMO. Things like N-frames with 4+” barrels start getting heavy.

      My beef with the Remington R1 is the Series 80 trigger. It’s very difficult to make a really nice Series 80 trigger.

  11. What the hell is going on out there?…..no ammo….no highly anticipated guns. Is there a different range day for “real” journalists that you weren’t invited to?

    • And wtf is up with firearms companies treating blogs and podcasts like a local high school paper or radio broadcast. They still don’t understand their new generation of customers. The 2.0’ers don’t read guns and ammo or watch shooting gallery. They better smarten up.

      • I don’t get podcasts. I’ve probably listened to two, full-length, in my life. I’ve started quite a few, but I lose interest quickly. They’re often, to me, indescribably boring. There’s a reason they don’t do dramatic performances on the radio anymore, and that’s what it feels like to me.

        • TV killed the radio star. It’s because of TELEVISION that they don’t do dramatic radio broadcasts anymore. More’s the pity. We let them swap the immediacy of radio for the ersatz “immediacy” of radio.

  12. I don’t see this as a such a bad thing. If it’s not ready for prime time, good on Remington for pulling it. In a few months why the kinks are worked out, we will all have forgotten that it was late. On the other hand, if they chose to release it with problems and had a recall, we would all be complaining much louder.

  13. There are more than enough that suck but there are plenty of good ones. It’s simply more information, on demand, that I have access to when I’m doing activities where I can’t read, or watch TV or socialize, etc.

      • Yeah, I got it. The only application I could see where I could listen for that long is if I was driving long distances or maybe on a treadmill, something relatively mindless. I do listen to Car Talk when I’m on the road, and I guess since I’m listening to it via my phone on my own schedule, that’s sort of a podcast.

  14. Didn’t the guy from GunBlast say he got to test fire the R51 at Gunsite a few weeks ago? He never mentioned any problems with it, so why is it AWOL from SHOT?

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