If (a big if) anyone was ever injured, it was because they violated the first rule of gun safety.
Swamp
AGAIN one MUST consider the source of the rule, and the intent of the message ... Which amounts to a defensive measure developed in part by Remington through a means of blaming the owner/customer of a Remington rifle for the accident.
Remington has had safety related issues with their connector design fire control since day one, with the introduction of the M/721 in March of 1948. Wayne Leek identified a "Dangerous Condition" to exist in the design as early as April of 1947, about 11 months before the production was released to the public. Although there was a special category of M/700 rifles manufactured before Jan of 1975 that is continually being reference, that were NEVER recalled. These effected rifles have dimensional/tolerance stack up conditions and potential defects that compound deeper underlying design issues. Again, As to the estimated effected rifles... Remington estimated that 1% of 2 million rifles in the field were susceptible to what they termed "the trick condition" and would subsequently fire on safety release under certain manipulation criteria.
In a Jan. 2, 1979 PSSC record which goes on the say "That would mean a recall would have to gather 2 million rifles JUST to find 20,000" rifles susceptible to the trick condition". And, "would undercut the message Remington planned to communicate to the public concerning safe gun handling," instead of recalling the effected rifles already in the field, referencing the Feb 23 1979 PSSC records concerning the issue of "safe gun handling" and "the Trick Condition" : this message was communicated to the public through SAAMI in 1979: "PSSC" = Product Safety Sub-Committee Records
1) always keep the muzzle pointed in a SAFE direction
2) Never trust a safety which is a mechanical device and can fail (Half safe is Unsafe)
3) Never touch the trigger while the safety is in the ON safe position.
A Hemmm...
There was not any time, then or now, specific mention of Remington connector fire control susceptibility to these functional factors that could potentially result in an inadvertent discharge.
It was Remington's position (Then and now) that it should not matter if there was a potential defect in these effected rifles in the field, if the first rule of safe gun handling was ALWAYS observed, no injury or death should be attributable to these conditions that lead to several forms of malfunctions that would ultimately cause the inadvertent discharges, which are beyond the control of the gun handler. In their opinion human error was the main cause of these forms of accidents even if the rifle may fire without trigger contact being made.
