Patti Longmire / Associated Press
Lloyd Woods, at home with daughter Mechelle Magruder, was unloading his Remington 700 rifle after a hunting trip, when a design flaw caused it to unintentionally fire. The bullet ripped through Woods' leg, which had to be amputated.
Flawed Guns: Public at Risk
Faulty Remington rifles shatter lives
Preventable defect hurts, maims more than 100
By Melvin Claxton / The Detroit News
Lloyd Woods is a Vietnam veteran and longtime hunter who has spent much of his life handling and using guns.
But when he bought a used Remington 700 bolt action hunting rifle in 1988, he had no way of knowing that the sleek, carefully finished exterior hid a dangerous design flaw a defect that has injured more than a hundred people.
The series of small, metal parts that control the guns firing mechanism were prone to failure, making the rifle accidentally discharge without the trigger being pulled.
Remington Arms Co. officials knew of this problem in some rifles as early as 1947, but for decades failed to fix the firing mechanism or warn customers of the danger.
The problem, the companys own records show, could have been fixed for 32 cents a rifle.
On Nov. 12, 1996, the 56-year-old Woods killed a deer near his Kentucky home during an afternoon hunt. He got down from his tree stand and began unloading the rifle in preparation for putting it away in a gun holder in the back of his pickup truck.
The Remington 700s design required that the guns safety, a device that keeps the rifle from firing, be turned off in order to unlock the bolt and remove the bullets. But Woods said when he moved the safety to off, the gun fired without the trigger being pulled.
The bullet, fired with enough force to kill a deer more than 1,000 feet away, tore through the muscle and shattered the bones of Woods right leg. Doctors fought to save the leg, but days later amputated it just below the knee.
It was far from an isolated incident. Since the 1970s, more than a hundred people mainly hunters have been injured, maimed or killed when their Remington rifles accidentally fired without the trigger being pulled.
Missouri attorney Richard Miller, who estimates he has handled about 100 cases against Remington, said the firearm manufacturers own records show it has received more than 1,500 complaints of unintentional discharges involving the 700 rifle.
Remington recall
Many Remington rifles made before 1982 require the user to turn the manual safety off before opening the bolt to unload the weapon. But turning the saftety off has caused hundreds of these guns to discharge without the trigger being pulled. The company is recalling the rifles.
Accidental firing
In order to open the bolt to unload the rifle, the shooter must disengage the safety. If parts are worn or out of adjustment, it is possible for the trigger mechanism to engage.
If the shooter pulls the trigger or moves the bolt handle while the safety is on, the mechanism may become preloaded. As the safety or bolt handle is moved slightly, the gun may accidently go off.
Remington recalls
700, 721, 722, 40X and 600 series reifles made before 1982, because of a potential for the guns to accidentally fire.
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Remington rejects taking action on injury reports
Seventeen years before Woods was injured, Remington officials debated recalling the rifle after reports of accidental shootings and injuries.
The company, owned at the time by chemical giant DuPont, decided against the recall because officials estimated only 20,000 of the rifles were prone to fire without the trigger being pulled when the safety was pushed to off.
"That would mean the recall would have to gather 2 million guns just to find 20,000 that are susceptible to this condition," the companys subcommittee on safety explained in a Jan. 2, 1979, report on why it didnt recommend recalling the rifle.
The committee gave another reason for its decision: "An attempt to recall all bolt action rifles would undercut the message we plan to communicate to the public concerning proper gun handling. It would indicate that the answer to accidental discharge can be found entirely within the gun, when in reality only proper gun handling can eliminate injuries resulting from such occurrences."
The safety committee insisted the problem wasnt confined to Remington rifles, but that a "large percentage" of its competitors made rifles with a similar problem.
Instead of a recall, the committee recommended "an informational warning concerning accidental firing and safe gun handling be prepared and effectively communicated to the gun handling public."
The recommendations were approved by the companys president, Remington records show.
Because no federal agency has the power to recall defective guns or even investigate complaints of malfunctions, Remingtons decision went unchallenged.
Attorney Miller said the gun maker not only ignored the problem, but also seriously understated it.
"Every Remington 700 has the potential to accidentally discharge," Miller said. "The problem is that the trigger connect is unreliable. It is the same mechanism in 100 percent of the rifles."
Remington, under new ownership since it was sold by DuPont for $300 million in 1993, insists that modifications in the 1982 rifles which allow them to be unloaded with the safety on have ended the problem. And they say an ongoing recall of pre-1982 rifles, initiated last year, is addressing the problem with older rifles.
Miller praised Remingtons new owners for addressing a problem they inherited. He said the ability to unload the weapon while the safety is on significantly lessens the chance of an accidental discharge.
Firing mechanism issue first surfaced in 1947
Problems with the firing mechanism in Remington guns first surfaced in the companys model 721 rifles, a precursor of the 700.
On April 9, 1947, Remington test engineer Wayne Leek warned company officials of a malfunction in the 721 rifles that was "very dangerous from safety and functional point of view."
Among the problems Leek cited in a memo was the possibility of firing the gun "by pushing the safety to the off position."
A Remington product safety subcommittee memo from 1956 acknowledged the ongoing problem: "A major stumbling block has developed in the safety design, which is considered inadequate in the Models 721 and 722."
But Remington issued no warnings and continued manufacturing rifles with the same firing assembly.
In 1962, the gun maker introduced two new rifles, the Mohawk 600 and the Remington 700. The firing mechanism in both guns, while slightly modified, was essentially the same as earlier Remington rifles, experts say.
Soon, old problems resurfaced.
A 1975 Remington internal quality audit found that at least half of the 200,000 Mohawks could potentially fire when the safety was moved to the off position.
But Remingtons product safety subcommittee met several times on the matter and concluded "the situation did not present a safety problem," company records show.
Meanwhile, people were getting hurt.
John Coates, an attorney, was one of them. Coates was shot in his Jeep on the way back from a hunting trip with his son and a friend, a local judge.
His son, sitting in the back seat, turned the safety off to unload the rifle when it fired, hitting Coates. He was left paralyzed and Remington settled the case for $6.3 million in 1977, although some company officials insisted human error, not the gun, was to blame.
The media attention generated by the case forced the company to do something it had tried very hard to avoid. Remington recalled the Mohawk 600 months after settling with Coates.
"Once the allegations of the case became public and the settlement given publicity, Remington had no other choice, regardless of our belief as to (the) cause of the Coates accident, but to recall the Mohawk 600," Remington associate counsel R.B. Sperling stated in a 1978 memo to a DuPont financial department executive.
Remington made no improvements to the 700 rifle, despite complaints similar to those about the Mohawk 600.
On June 23, 1981, a Remington field service specialist, Fred Martin, wrote to his boss pointing out that for 32 cents a gun, the company could fix the rifle so it could be unloaded with the safety on. Included in that price was an additional safety feature that prevented the trigger from moving once the safety was in place.
Martin urged the company "not to pass up this opportunity to improve our fire control."
In 1982, Remington modified the 700 by removing the bolt lock, allowing the gun to be unloaded with the safety on. But the company made little change in the firing mechanism.
It also made no move to recall earlier 700s or warn rifle owners of the danger. In fact, after removing the bolt lock, Remington told customers who asked about the change that the alterations were "based on the results of an independent marketing survey in which a greater percentage of the shooters preferred the capability of opening the bolt with the safety on."
Injuries continued to mount.
In 1985, Remington paid $1.5 million to a New York man who lost a leg after his 700 accidentally discharged.
Three years later, the company paid $800,000 to an Alaska hunter who was shot in a similar incident.
Family forces recall after boys shooting
In 1994, a Texas jury awarded Glenn Collins $17 million after his foot was blown off when his 700 accidentally fired as he moved the safety. Collins later settled for a lesser, undisclosed amount.
Despite its legal losses, and what lawyers suing the company described as an increased willingness by the new owners to settle cases, Remington would not publicly admit to a problem in its best-selling 700 rifles.
Then, 9-year-old Gus Barber of Montana was killed on Oct. 23, 2000.
His mother, Barbara Barber, moved the safety while unloading her 700 rifle when the gun accidentally fired without the trigger being pulled. The bullet traveled through a horse trailer several hundred feet away, hitting Gus in the stomach and arm. He died shortly after being rushed to the hospital.
Richard Barber, Gus father, and other family members began a crusade to have the gun recalled. After a series of television appearances and newspaper stories, they convinced Remington to recall its problem rifles, starting in March 2002.
The recall affects the 700, 721, 722, 40X and 600 series rifles made before 1982 more than 2.5 million rifles.
