I'm certainly considering this option, but I'd rather not ship the rifle off into never-never land considering that:
a) I've never done it before. Is there all kinds of legal BS involved in shipping firearms through the mail/UPS/FedEx?
b) I'd expect the round trip to take a considerable amount of time, and where I live, the clock is ticking on the decent-weather-for-shooting season. It's my only semi-auto, and it's fun as hell. But then again, I really don't think I can use it as-is anyway....
Hmm. Thanks for the advice though. Maybe once winter starts, I can send it in and not have to care about how long it takes.
On a): No legal hassles of any kind. Any private citizen may ship a rifle back to the factory (or other repair facility for that matter) and have it shipped straight back to them. For a rifle you can use the US Post Office, UPS, Fedex, whatever. I've used USPS priority mail to ship firearms on several occasions with no problems.
b) Based on my past experience it could very well take 5-8 weeks round trip from Remington so that's a judgement call for you.
OR - in the paperwork that came with the rifle there should be a list of factory authorized repair stations, perhaps there is one near enough to you to drive there? If not one should definitely be close enough to ship it at less cost than sending it all the way back to Remington. They would get the needed part(s) from Remington and it should be at no charge to you, except for the shipping there.
Other fixes mentioned here will definitely work, but it's been my experience that if you send that nice letter (okay, blatantly suck up to them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) the repair departments at the big gun factories will do a very good job of not only fixing your problem but also checking the rifle over for any other problems and fixing them as well. Plus they have always done it for free - they do stand behind their work.
