One last thought. Remember that Army guy who shot and killed all those folks on base, and wounded that lady cop before she took him out? Can any body guess at what very effective killing weapon he used to whack all those folks on base? Anyone? If you have to reload thats when you get your ticket punched out permanently. This guy on base never did reload once, he just kept shooting and shootin and shootin and shootin, with graveyard dead bodies falling everywhere. It was the Five-seveN pistol using only ss197 Blue tiped Vmax rounds. FN actually recomends the SS195 Hollowpoint, ( I have actuall spoken with Bob and Tim in the LE repairs office via phone regarding this) all for some newly added expansion and the usual cavity sommersault the round is well known for. This is a gut ripper, and a head exploder and either easily placed shot will do it in one. It is the very best siuted ammo for civilian use since 99.99% of all civilians dont use body armor. If in the military then its ss190 for you. Either way the weapons system designed by FNH is truly advanced and very well designed and executed. If you a nay sayer, I place decent odds youve never shot one. So untill you do stop reading this, and got to you local gunrange and rent yourself one!

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Math, do some math, study the research on penetration, over penetration and learn a force calculation.

Take ammo X, fire it at something. Measure the you can calculate the newtons of force that it hits the front of the target. Measure the speed it exits the target. Calculate the force that has. Subtract the two. That is how much force was transfered to the target. Ie; “stopping power”. Example, 44 Mag: files with the potential force of 8 Newtons (approx), hits your target, the round does not expand, and exits your target at 320 meter per second (approx). Thus only 1.6 Newtons were transferred to your target and the 44 Mag becomes no more effective against soft targets then the 5.7×28 round

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So what’s a poor yuppie to do? I bought the Five-seveN because it takes the same rounds as my PS90 (w/Eotech, four 50 rd. mags, & 200 yd. “good enough” accuracy). The Five-seveN pistol is a relatively easy “carry” gun, and my wife & 11 year old daughter can both outshoot me with it, and me using my 30 year old Colt Commander that I qualified “expert” with (at the range, not shooting at each other, yet-haha!) . When Obamarama was nominated, I bought the PS90 with 5 cases of 2000 rounds at a gun show for under four grand. Plus I can currently order ammo for it all day long from several internet dealers for less than 30 cents a shot, and guess what; they have it IN STOCK!!!
Not that the world is going to H in a handbasket or anything, but if I’m on the run with my loved ones, I’m taking my FN’s & ammo, and leaving the .308, .223, .45, 9mm, & .380 guns behind for the sake of simplicity. I’ll probably take a 12 gauge too, as I have been able to stock up on 12 g birdshot, 000, and slugs; and I’ll take the Mod 70 and what ammo I have left for killing food: but I ain’t buying no more guns that I can’t get ammo for. My favorite local gunshop has been doing $8-10K daily firearms sales for 9 months now, but they limit each customer to ONE box of cartridges until the ammo “shortage” is over. I’m bettin’ that within two years… if you ain’t got ‘em already, you ain’t gettin’ any more bullets unless you makes ‘em yoself.

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As far as the penetrating capabilities of the 5.7×28, I have shot every kind of handgun ammunition (except maybe some obscure round thats not even made anymore) at level III balistic glass, and every round except the SS192 was stopped. The SS192 went right through in an identical path of a 5.56×45 (FMJ 115gr.) The SS197SR round penetrated further into the glass then any other round.

And like my main man said, 20 fast, low recoil, penetrating rounds, all in a light, easy to wield package do pretty well in the self-defense department. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not partial to only the Five seveN for a sidearm. I’ve got my glock 20 and 29 (10mm) that I use for my main sidearm and backup that I love to death. But the Five seveN is one sweet handgun!

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I recently spoke with a Florida Highway Patrolman who chose the .45 for Concealed Carry, but was issued a .40 for service. While he personally favored the .45, he greatly preferred the 9mm for service work since it held more rounds in the magazine, which he considered more important than potential lethality. He absolutely HATED the .40 S&W cartridge, as he considered the loss of magazine capacity a greater threat to officer safety than slightly reduced muzzle energy.

9mm with modern JHP rounds is no slouch in the muzzle energy department, and I personally consider the 9mm with JHP to be perfectly adequate for self-defense, but I prefer revolvers for their accuracy, ease of fired case collection (for reloading), and their total reliability with bullets of almost any design (for bullet casting). That being said, while I would prefer a revolver for 98% of shooting scenarios, combat is an area where I would greatly prefer a premium on capacity over potential accuracy or even stopping power. A wounded enemy is better than a healthy enemy, and even something that doesn’t kill you will make you keep your head down if launched in your direction.

Pistols are defensive tools exclusively, and if you were in combat, and fortune had dealt you a pistol as your only means of defense, then I would want as many bullets in the magazine as I could get, no matter what caliber they were. Escape and evasion is the goal of a soldier who is issued a pistol who finds themselves over run, and that means that range and capacity are very important considerations.

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but FBI stated that things as “knocking down power” and “stopping power” are a myth! A person only gets stopped by a bullet in the central nervous system. Shots at the center-mass can be lethal, but will only stop the attacker if his spinal cord is hit. Therefor you need penetration.

The 45 has more kinetic energy, so what? penetration is in relation with kinetic energy, the shape and the area of the bullet. both rounds (45 and 5.7) will get the 13 inches required, the 5-7 with tumbling effect and 45 FMJ. second factor is the permanent cavity, here the 45 scores slightly better. Penetration of clothing and armour is definatly won by the 5-7.

Mag capacity is important on the battlefield when engaging multiple targets in fast changing situations.
I visited the FN Herstal factory once, and I’m sure that if those guns resist the torture test there (no mather if they are synthetic or not) they won’t jam in almost ANY condition.

but you’re right, what would I take for self-defence: definately a Glock or a Sig 9mm. Civilians have nothing to do with this gun, without the ss190 round it is like a pub without beer (as we would say in Belgium )
it IS a military weapon, as FNH is a military fabrique.

so if you aren’t authorized to buy ss190 rounds, you should only buy it if you are an expert marksman, otherwise, I would take a 9mm Sig if you have that much money to spend, Glock 17 is also fine.

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The wounding potential of the 5.7 seems like it would be best measured empirically. Someone call Mythbusters!

Having armor piercing capability is clearly an advantage. But given that the pistol is a defensive last-ditch weapon, perhaps a non-AP round will still keep people’s heads down long enough to enable you to retreat and live to fight another day…

It is still utter crap for civilians of course, since they cannot use AP ammo.

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You think the 1911, which is still built the same way it was 98 years ago, out of steel billet, is no match for a plastic injection molded, delayed blowback pistol with a stamped slide thats covered in cheesy looking plastic? $1000 will get you a world class 1911 which will be the match in accuracy of any FN pistol. Also, the 5.7×28 generates about 268 ft/lbs of muzzle energy with the SS197SR round, vs. 230 grain Hardball which generates 400 ft/lbs of energy, and is a somewhat anemic .45 ACP load by modern standards. Corbon loads a 165 grn hollowpoint that generates 573 ft/lbs of muzzle energy, for example.

How do I know this? I just chrono’d one today. 1708 FPS out of the Five Seven pistol, average over two, 10-shot strings.

The way the Five Seven is built, it’s worth MAYBE $400, which leaves me wondering where the other $600 went. I could build that pistol for less money than the magazine sells for, but I wouldn’t then try to sell it for $1000 and then have the audacity to compare it to the “Yankee Fist” which has been on the winning side of at least two dozen wars. It’s also literally the progenitor of nearly every successful pistol design made on Earth since it’s introduction with very few notable exceptions.

The very notion that the 5.7×28 has better wounding potential than even a 200 grain Truncated cone FMJ .45 auto round seems naive. Just the MEPLAT of a 200 grn TC round would have a larger diameter than ANY .224 bullet, and the fact that it yaws and flips over ONCE during a split second of it’s travel is NOT enough to convince me that the 5.7 is anything but an overpriced and over-hyped TOY.

Energy is the ability to do work, and the 9×19, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP ALL generate around TWICE THE ENERGY of a 5.7×28 round. The Springfield XDM, which has a better trigger than any Glock I’ve handled, holds 19 rounds in the magazine. The Five Seven holds 20. If we examine the total fire power of the 9mm XDM to the Five Seven, we get 8740 ft/lbs for the XDM using US M882 and 5200 ft/lbs for the Five Seven with one mag. Energy wise, getting hit with one 9×19 is like getting hit by TWO 5.7x28s.

Oh! But it produces less recoil! Probably because the bullet has less Mass. As much as one tenth the Mass, in fact, but it isn’t recoil-less. No matter how lightly a gun kicks, an untrained person will still flinch when they pull the trigger. They close their eyes, jerk the trigger, and miss. This is only overcome by training. Recoil does not affect accuracy, it effects the shooter. The bullet goes where the gun was pointed when the trigger is pulled. That big muzzle flash isn’t going to help a lousy shooter make that all important shot.

Follow up shots? That’s really important if you’re firing a bullet that is suitable for raccoons and small dogs, but totally inadequate for the average adult human male. When you fire a big bullet, over 150 grains, that’s been killing humans for over 100 years, then it is less important. The margin for error goes down as the caliber goes up. But you’re right, shot placement is key. You can kill someone with a .177 caliber air rifle if you know what you’re doing, but it’s generally easier for a poor shooter or one that’s under stress to use a cartridge that doesn’t require precise shots or full auto fire to hit vital organs.

Realistically, a .38 Snub nose produces about as much energy as a 5.7×28, so I’m sure that the amount of energy generated, while not ideal, is adequate. But a .38 Snub nose Revolver is also a damn sight SMALLER than the Five Seven pistol, and oh yeah, about 2.5 times CHEAPER.

I understand that you have a lot of patriotic loyalty to the product of your homeland, maybe you even had a hand in creating it, but the Five Seven is at best a niche item and more likely a boutique item for people who already own a 1911, Glock, Sig, or Beretta and have no intention of carrying it into harm’s way if they have a choice. The number of police officers who go through their entire career without having to fire or even draw their weapon in the line of duty is surprisingly large, and of the small number of officers who are forced to engage an assailant, the percentage who will need a round which penetrates body armor is painfully small. There is no chance the 5.7 will replace the 9mm, the .40, or the .45… ever.

So, you’re right. The 5.7×28 is no match to the 1911.

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Not to speak of the P-90 (only the MP-7 and MP-5 are worth to be compared with it)

But quality comes with a price (altough a 1911 can cost as much, and it’s no match)

proper shot placement and penetration will do the trick ALWAYS, bullet diameter SOMETIMES

so the 5-7 is accurate and penetrates deep, what else do you want?

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What’s the overall length of the projectile? The overall length, minus elastic rebound of penetrated tissue, minus a metric buttload of calculus to derive the actual amount of tissue displaced by the particular shape of the projectile at a particular part of it’s ‘tumble’ in a particular type of tissue, etc. Figure that all out and you get the dimensions of the actual perforation caused by the bullet.

Remember that you don’t get to count any ‘tumbling’ that takes place between organs, inside of organs, between skin and subcutaneuous fat, between fat and fascia and in clothing before you get to the body at all.

Now remember your first year college physics and all of those lectures, papers and other documentation put out by everyone from Fackler to modern medical examiners looking to make a name. Remember all of that? Remember how the bullet is documented to rotate roughly 180 degrees and finish it’s penetration tail first. This is a summersault, not a ‘tumble’. It’s half a rotation. That’s all you get from rounds with double and triple the energy of the 5.7 and it’s all you can possibly get from the 5.7 itself.

It might be a fun range toy. If I had a giant pile money, I’d love to have a suppressed P90 and a chin high pile of ammo to blow off at the range. If I want to have any chance at all of stopping an attacker; be it human, pissed off bobcat or annoyed pit bull; I want to poke a bigger hole in it than you can ever get from a 5.7 projectile no matter what length.

Now comes my opinion, humble or not, it’s my opinion. The whole P90/5.7/whatever else was a badly thought out solution designed for a problem that has never existed. Yippee, it can shoot through a STANAG armor sample. I can poke a letter opener through a STANAG armor sample if I push hard enough. If I sharpen the letter opener, I can just slash the bejeezus out of the fabric carrier for the rigid components of the STANAG sample and then the notional body behind it.

For those of us raised in an era when boredom was something to be avoided at all costs, remember back to those times when you solved your boredom by going out into the boonies and shooting your ratty old .22lr? Remember how amazed you were when the rifle went, “PLAT”, and the sound of the bullet hitting the beaten-to-death tailgate from the mid-60s pickup you were using as a target was louder than the sound of the rifle? Remember being weirded out the first time you noticed your .22lr was going through both sides of the tailgate while all of the TV cops and soldiers were safely hiding behind the MUCH thinner metal of the doors on their cop cars and jeeps? Those two layers of steel in that ratty old tailgate offer up just about 200% the resistance to penetration as the single layer of Titanium in the STANAG (CRISAT) test target. (No, I’m not going to ‘show my work’ and write down the math to prove this… that much calculus makes my brain hurt and I don’t make my brain hurt when I can just go to the range and shoot another hole in the ratty tailgate… empiricism uber alles)

If that .22lr will poke a hole through a more penetration resistant target than the standard used to judge the, “new, better, gotta-have-it, used-in-really-cool-lookin’-guns, pistol/carbine/submachinegun/none-of-the-above”, round, why not go get a .22 WMR, save about $900 of the cost of your 5.7N and just send me the money left over. You’ll get larger holes in your target and eventually I’ll have my big pile of money. Then we can all go to the range and shoot my P90. It’s a win:win if ever there was one.

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Imagine you a situation where officers face terrorists or criminals wearing body armour (not too difficult to obtain in ex-Warschau Pact countries). The only chance of survival would be a carefully aimed head shot, something most officers are uncapable of doing in stressful situations. Even level IIA armour stops a 9mm, and certainly a 45 auto, level IIIA (most common protection) stops a 44 mag, so the officer wouldn’t stand a chance when he shoots at center mass (standard procedure), bullets just don’t have “knocking-down power”.

If he would be shooting the 5.7mm round, the bullet would go straight trough (even from 150 meters) and would than start to tumble (as it is a very unstable bullet), having nearly the same chance as an 45 auto to hit vital organs. The 45 or 9mm wouldn’t have done any damage (except for some bruises) in this case. If the officer would place a headshot, it wouldn’t matter which round he would use, they would all kill him.

I don’t know how many criminals have armour in the US (here it’s sometimes used in bank robberies) but in a modern battlefield it’s not uncommon (look to footage of the war in Georgia, all Russians had body armour). A soldier facing an armored opponent when not able to use his rifle could be saved by this weapon.

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