...reprint this letter (American Rifleman, Jan 2000, p. 4) from Dr. Marvin Fackler:
"The article 'FN's FiveseveN System (No.v/Dec. 1999 p.40) seriously misrepresents the wounding capacity of the 31-gr. P90 bullet. Claiming it "produces a wound cavity that is similar to that of the 5.56 mm NATO ammunition is an absurd exaggeration. The 31-gr. P90 bullet has only half the weight of the M16A2 bullet - and its velocity is about 1000 f.p.s. less. (The reference was intended to convey that it is an FMJ design, not that it has equal energy and wounding characteristics to the 5.56x45 mm cartridge. - The Eds).
The amount of tissue disruption propduced by the P90 bullet is less than one-third of that produced by a well-designed expanding 9x19mm handgun bullet. And the P90 produces a temporary cavity of only about 8cm diameter - smaller than that of an expanding 9mm handgun bullet. Most of the P90's bullet's wounding potential is wasted in producing a temporary cavity that is too small to be a reliable wounding mechanism. The P90 bullet doesn't even come close to matching the wounding capacity of a well-designed, expanding 9mm handgun bullet.
The light recoil of the P90 should hardly come as a surprise: The momentum and kinetic energy of its bullets are only about half that of the .22 Hornet bullet. The P90 bullet's wounding potential is about equal to that of the .22 WMR bullet. The laws of physics cannot be denied - minimal recoil is inconsistent with maximal tissue disruption.
For the military, where any wound is often all that is required to cause an enemy soldier to leave the battlefield, perhaps this tiny P90 bullet is OK. Law enforcement officers are often faced with armed violent criminals at close range. In that scenario, a bullet capable of disrupting a significant amount of tissue is needed: One must incapacitate a criminal, a minor wound will not suffice. By no stretch of the imagination is the P90 bullet adequate for that task.
References for further reading in the Wound Ballistics Review are: Vol. 3, No. 3, 1998 (pp. 36-37) 'Corrections on the Wound Ballistics of the current FN P90 bullet'; Vol. 3, No. 1, 1997 (pp. 44-45) "more on the bizarre FN P90'; and Vol. 1., No. 1, 1991 (p. 46) 'Description of the first generation P90.' These may be obtained from the IWBA by calling (310) 640-6065, or its website at www.IWBA.com.
Marvin L. Fackler, MD, FACS,
President, Int'l Wound Ballistics Ass'n.
Saturday, January 01, 2000
Guns Magazine - Fn P-90 by Charles E. Petty
Light, fast and deadly, FN's high-tech subgun is the first firearm designed to take on the environment of the 21st century.
Before we begin our feature on FN's high-tech P-90 submachinegun, let us be crystal clear: None of the products being shown are available to civilians or even individual police officers. They may only be purchased by legitimate law enforcement entities. The BATF has ruled that the 5.7x28mm cartridge is "non-sporting" and cannot be sold outside of law enforcement agencies.
In addition to the already common restrictions on machine guns, the companion piece -- the Five-seveN pistol -- is only available with a 20-round magazine, so it cannot he sold on the civilian market. Those are the facts of life. No matter how cool it is, neither you nor I can privately own a P-90.
Now for a little history. FN began development of a new weapon system about 10 years ago with the idea of providing weapons for the 21st century battlefield. The most significant change in infantry combat was the prediction that individual soldiers would be protected by body armor and bullet-resistant helmets.
While the average foot soldier is armed with an assault rifle firing the 5.56 NATO cartridge, support troops who are customarily armed with 9mm handguns or submachineguns firing the NATO cartridge would be at a serious disadvantage and possibly unable to neutralize a threat wearing protective clothing.
It's not difficult to see a direct parallel between the military and modern police situations. Law enforcement confronts suspects wearing body armor with increasing regularity.
Most rifle cartridges, such as the 5.56 NATO (.223) will handily defeat body armor, but they also present a potential hazard of over-penetration. FN's system is based upon a new cartridge, the 5.7x28mm, which is specifically designed for tissue penetration in the range of 10", to 12".
The 5.7x28mm bullet becomes unstable as it penetrates tissue, but still possesses enough power to defeat soft armor up to level IIIA. The bullet can accomplish this because of its unusual two-part core.
The forward third of the bullet's core is steel and the back segment is aluminum. It is covered by a copper plated steel jacket. Weight is 31 grains. The shift of the center of gravity forward contributes to the instability. The rifling twist of 1:9 is more than adequate to stabilize the bullet at the nominal velocity of about 2,300 fps.
In A Class By Itself
The P-90 looks very different from any other gun. It took a moment to identify what each thing was and what it did. This is especially true of the stock, since it places the weak hand only inches away from the muzzle. The ergonomic shape of the stock serves to make it very easy to hold correctly, though, and you never really notice how close your fingers are to the muzzle.
The design of the stock is highly ergonomic and totally ambidextrous, so it doesn't take long at all to become intimately familiar with the gun. Controls are few but conveniently located.
The safety/fire selector is located at the rear of the trigger guard where your trigger finger can easily push it while moving toward the trigger. There are three positions: safe, single, and full auto.
The trigger pull is almost two-stage. A short pull will deliver a single shot, even on full auto; pull it a little further to rock and roll. With only a little experience I found it easy to fire three- or four- shot bursts on demand.
The P-90 is only about 20" long, yet it has a 9.8" barrel. This is possible due to the bullpup construction which places the operating mechanism behind your hands.
The P-90's breech is actually just below your cheek, but the magazine effectively blocks any gas or gunk from reaching you. Unlike many blowback weapons there is absolutely no gas or unburned powder to smack you in the face.
The empties are ejected straight down. Gravity is our friend. The case falls free of its own weight and even though it's odd to feel brass bouncing off your shoes or belt buckle, it's nice not to have it bouncing off your nose. A bare midriff would definitely be a bad idea.
Tiny And Terrible
We were able to compare the penetration of the 5.7x28mm round when fired into bare, 10 percent gelatin, the same gelatin covered by FBI standard "heavy clothing and gelatin protected by a test panel of level IIA soft body armor.
The bottleneck cartridge case is tiny. There really is nothing in the American cartridge library that is comparable. The rim diameter is only 0.305" and even though it carries a full .224" diameter bullet, it is dwarfed by the better-known .223 cartridge.
The 5.7x28mm case is highly efficient. A powder charge of 6.5 grs, using a very small-grained ball powder propels the 31 gr. bullet at a measured 2,329 fps from the P-90's 9.8" barrel.
At this time FN is the sole source of ammunition, but an agreement has been reached between FN and Winchester to load the cartridge in this country. Sources report that initial production will be done using components supplied by FN but that Winchester is expected to conduct additional research with an eye toward further development.
The small size of the case makes it possible to get lots of them in a magazine, but the P-90 magazine deserves compliments for more than just its 50 rounds. When you see it, the first thing that may seem odd is that the rounds lie transversely to the bore and feed down. This is contrary to almost everything we're used to, but accounts for much of the gun's reliability and ease of operation.
The heart of the magazine is the follower which actually works like a turntable. As you load the rounds, the follower turns them 90 degrees so they lie at right angles to the bore. The magazine is a very simple mechanism with three molded parts and the spring, yet it is easy to load and completely reliable.
You would think putting 50 rounds in any magazine would become a chore somewhere along the way. Not so with this one. It takes little more effort to load the 50th round than it does the first.
Serious Fun
Shooting the P-90 is both impressive and fun. It is surely a serious weapon, but it's hard to shoot it without a grin. Over the course of two separate sessions I fired hundreds of rounds through the gun without a malfunction and witnessed a lengthy session where a large group of people shot two P-90s. Once more, I saw no stoppages.
Even though the P-90 shoots at a rapid 900 rounds per minute (it takes 3.3 seconds to fire a full 50 round magazine) it is imminently controllable. Some of this is due to the mechanics and design, but even more to the nature of the cartridge.
A fully loaded gun weighs just 6.6 lbs. and generates 0.5 ft/lb. of free recoil energy. By comparison, a 9mm weapon of the same weight would produce about 2.5 ft./lbs. Now neither of these recoil levels are punishing -- or even worrisome -- but it certainly would seem to confirm the ease of shooting I experienced. Accuracy is not a problem in any case.
A full 50-round burst was easily kept inside 8" at about 20 yards. At 50 yards, single head shots on an IPSC target were no problem, and at 100 yards five-shot groups were inside 6". I bet the little cartridge will shoot a lot better than that, but the sights on the P-90 are simply not designed for precision shooting.
The sights are more than accurate enough for the gun's primary mission; the reflex sight's engraved reticle -- a circle with posts at the bottom and either side -- is easy to see and fast to acquire. It is illuminated by a tritium element for night or low light shooting. An optional Picatinny rail is available in place of the reflex sight and there is also a model with an integral laser.
Mechanically, the P-90 is simplicity personified. It is a straight blowback design with a bolt that rides on a pair of steel rods. It is guided very securely within the frame, which is another reason for the gun's high degree of reliability.
Field stripping couldn't be easier. With the magazine removed you'll see a large metal button; push it and the top section slides forward. The bolt assembly will fall out in your hand and it's done.
The top half contains the barrel and sight. Cleaning is easy. The trigger mechanism is located behind the buttplate and can be removed for cleaning if desired, although it is not part of routine field stripping.
One observation was that the little gun is remarkably clean even after hundreds of rounds. Obviously some of this is due to the ammo, but it is also a credit to the design that does not require very much lubrication to run well. Much of the crud that builds up in automatic weapons is due to too much lubrication. The P-40's combination of steel and polymer parts just doesn't need a lot of oil.
New Age Gun
As we enter the 21st century, the face of law enforcement weaponry is bound to change. I can't begin to predict whether the 5.7x28mm round is going to be the answer to a cop's prayer, but I do know that it is time to seriously examine the options which are made available by today's technology.
The P-90 and its companion pistol, the Five-seveN, offer some potential advantages for law enforcement. The P-90 could easily replace a heavier weapon in the armory of special units and it's not too much of a reach to think of street cops armed with the Five-seveN.
It will take a real shift in attitude for something like this to become widely popular. After all, the last 25 years have been devoted to developing hollowpoint bullets that expand reliably and we'd have to abandon that in favor of a bullet that doesn't expand at all. We'd also have to accept that less penetration may be better than more.
So the news of this story is that a challenge to conventional wisdom is out there. Both the cartridge and the guns that shoot it are very interesting and make good sense in both theory and testing. This deserves careful evaluation by the professional law enforcement community.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
Before we begin our feature on FN's high-tech P-90 submachinegun, let us be crystal clear: None of the products being shown are available to civilians or even individual police officers. They may only be purchased by legitimate law enforcement entities. The BATF has ruled that the 5.7x28mm cartridge is "non-sporting" and cannot be sold outside of law enforcement agencies.
In addition to the already common restrictions on machine guns, the companion piece -- the Five-seveN pistol -- is only available with a 20-round magazine, so it cannot he sold on the civilian market. Those are the facts of life. No matter how cool it is, neither you nor I can privately own a P-90.
Now for a little history. FN began development of a new weapon system about 10 years ago with the idea of providing weapons for the 21st century battlefield. The most significant change in infantry combat was the prediction that individual soldiers would be protected by body armor and bullet-resistant helmets.
While the average foot soldier is armed with an assault rifle firing the 5.56 NATO cartridge, support troops who are customarily armed with 9mm handguns or submachineguns firing the NATO cartridge would be at a serious disadvantage and possibly unable to neutralize a threat wearing protective clothing.
It's not difficult to see a direct parallel between the military and modern police situations. Law enforcement confronts suspects wearing body armor with increasing regularity.
Most rifle cartridges, such as the 5.56 NATO (.223) will handily defeat body armor, but they also present a potential hazard of over-penetration. FN's system is based upon a new cartridge, the 5.7x28mm, which is specifically designed for tissue penetration in the range of 10", to 12".
The 5.7x28mm bullet becomes unstable as it penetrates tissue, but still possesses enough power to defeat soft armor up to level IIIA. The bullet can accomplish this because of its unusual two-part core.
The forward third of the bullet's core is steel and the back segment is aluminum. It is covered by a copper plated steel jacket. Weight is 31 grains. The shift of the center of gravity forward contributes to the instability. The rifling twist of 1:9 is more than adequate to stabilize the bullet at the nominal velocity of about 2,300 fps.
In A Class By Itself
The P-90 looks very different from any other gun. It took a moment to identify what each thing was and what it did. This is especially true of the stock, since it places the weak hand only inches away from the muzzle. The ergonomic shape of the stock serves to make it very easy to hold correctly, though, and you never really notice how close your fingers are to the muzzle.
The design of the stock is highly ergonomic and totally ambidextrous, so it doesn't take long at all to become intimately familiar with the gun. Controls are few but conveniently located.
The safety/fire selector is located at the rear of the trigger guard where your trigger finger can easily push it while moving toward the trigger. There are three positions: safe, single, and full auto.
The trigger pull is almost two-stage. A short pull will deliver a single shot, even on full auto; pull it a little further to rock and roll. With only a little experience I found it easy to fire three- or four- shot bursts on demand.
The P-90 is only about 20" long, yet it has a 9.8" barrel. This is possible due to the bullpup construction which places the operating mechanism behind your hands.
The P-90's breech is actually just below your cheek, but the magazine effectively blocks any gas or gunk from reaching you. Unlike many blowback weapons there is absolutely no gas or unburned powder to smack you in the face.
The empties are ejected straight down. Gravity is our friend. The case falls free of its own weight and even though it's odd to feel brass bouncing off your shoes or belt buckle, it's nice not to have it bouncing off your nose. A bare midriff would definitely be a bad idea.
Tiny And Terrible
We were able to compare the penetration of the 5.7x28mm round when fired into bare, 10 percent gelatin, the same gelatin covered by FBI standard "heavy clothing and gelatin protected by a test panel of level IIA soft body armor.
The bottleneck cartridge case is tiny. There really is nothing in the American cartridge library that is comparable. The rim diameter is only 0.305" and even though it carries a full .224" diameter bullet, it is dwarfed by the better-known .223 cartridge.
The 5.7x28mm case is highly efficient. A powder charge of 6.5 grs, using a very small-grained ball powder propels the 31 gr. bullet at a measured 2,329 fps from the P-90's 9.8" barrel.
At this time FN is the sole source of ammunition, but an agreement has been reached between FN and Winchester to load the cartridge in this country. Sources report that initial production will be done using components supplied by FN but that Winchester is expected to conduct additional research with an eye toward further development.
The small size of the case makes it possible to get lots of them in a magazine, but the P-90 magazine deserves compliments for more than just its 50 rounds. When you see it, the first thing that may seem odd is that the rounds lie transversely to the bore and feed down. This is contrary to almost everything we're used to, but accounts for much of the gun's reliability and ease of operation.
The heart of the magazine is the follower which actually works like a turntable. As you load the rounds, the follower turns them 90 degrees so they lie at right angles to the bore. The magazine is a very simple mechanism with three molded parts and the spring, yet it is easy to load and completely reliable.
You would think putting 50 rounds in any magazine would become a chore somewhere along the way. Not so with this one. It takes little more effort to load the 50th round than it does the first.
Serious Fun
Shooting the P-90 is both impressive and fun. It is surely a serious weapon, but it's hard to shoot it without a grin. Over the course of two separate sessions I fired hundreds of rounds through the gun without a malfunction and witnessed a lengthy session where a large group of people shot two P-90s. Once more, I saw no stoppages.
Even though the P-90 shoots at a rapid 900 rounds per minute (it takes 3.3 seconds to fire a full 50 round magazine) it is imminently controllable. Some of this is due to the mechanics and design, but even more to the nature of the cartridge.
A fully loaded gun weighs just 6.6 lbs. and generates 0.5 ft/lb. of free recoil energy. By comparison, a 9mm weapon of the same weight would produce about 2.5 ft./lbs. Now neither of these recoil levels are punishing -- or even worrisome -- but it certainly would seem to confirm the ease of shooting I experienced. Accuracy is not a problem in any case.
A full 50-round burst was easily kept inside 8" at about 20 yards. At 50 yards, single head shots on an IPSC target were no problem, and at 100 yards five-shot groups were inside 6". I bet the little cartridge will shoot a lot better than that, but the sights on the P-90 are simply not designed for precision shooting.
The sights are more than accurate enough for the gun's primary mission; the reflex sight's engraved reticle -- a circle with posts at the bottom and either side -- is easy to see and fast to acquire. It is illuminated by a tritium element for night or low light shooting. An optional Picatinny rail is available in place of the reflex sight and there is also a model with an integral laser.
Mechanically, the P-90 is simplicity personified. It is a straight blowback design with a bolt that rides on a pair of steel rods. It is guided very securely within the frame, which is another reason for the gun's high degree of reliability.
Field stripping couldn't be easier. With the magazine removed you'll see a large metal button; push it and the top section slides forward. The bolt assembly will fall out in your hand and it's done.
The top half contains the barrel and sight. Cleaning is easy. The trigger mechanism is located behind the buttplate and can be removed for cleaning if desired, although it is not part of routine field stripping.
One observation was that the little gun is remarkably clean even after hundreds of rounds. Obviously some of this is due to the ammo, but it is also a credit to the design that does not require very much lubrication to run well. Much of the crud that builds up in automatic weapons is due to too much lubrication. The P-40's combination of steel and polymer parts just doesn't need a lot of oil.
New Age Gun
As we enter the 21st century, the face of law enforcement weaponry is bound to change. I can't begin to predict whether the 5.7x28mm round is going to be the answer to a cop's prayer, but I do know that it is time to seriously examine the options which are made available by today's technology.
The P-90 and its companion pistol, the Five-seveN, offer some potential advantages for law enforcement. The P-90 could easily replace a heavier weapon in the armory of special units and it's not too much of a reach to think of street cops armed with the Five-seveN.
It will take a real shift in attitude for something like this to become widely popular. After all, the last 25 years have been devoted to developing hollowpoint bullets that expand reliably and we'd have to abandon that in favor of a bullet that doesn't expand at all. We'd also have to accept that less penetration may be better than more.
So the news of this story is that a challenge to conventional wisdom is out there. Both the cartridge and the guns that shoot it are very interesting and make good sense in both theory and testing. This deserves careful evaluation by the professional law enforcement community.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
FN Five-seveN - American Handgunner, Jan, 2000 by Charles E. Petty
Is this the shape of handguns to come?
A radically new pistol/cartridge combination graces the cover of this first issue of American Handgunner in the 21st century. The gun was developed as part of a military weapons system and is also available to law enforcement. For reasons that will become obvious, neither the gun nor the ammunition will ever be sold to civilians or even to individual officers.
Fabrique Nationale (FN) of Herstal, Belgium is a major supplier of military weapons and has contracts to manufacture M - 16 rifles and M249 and M240 belt-fed machineguns, in 5.56mm and 7.62mm respectively, for the U.S. government. These are made in their plant in Columbia. S.C.
About 10 years ago FN began a project to develop weapons and ammunition for the battlefield of the next century. There were a lot of issues to address, but foremost of these was the fact that troops would, routinely, be wearing some form of soft body armor. FN's intent was to develop a small arms weapons system for use by support troops whose duties might not permit them to carry more conventional weapons, but would still allow them to successfully engage the enemy with a small, convenient weapon that would defeat soft armor and Kevlar helmets.
The answer came in the form of a compact submachinegun, the P-90, and a pistol, the Five-seveN. Both of these weapons systems were developed to fire a new cartridge, the 5.7x28mm.
The 5.7mm is a departure from conventional ammunition thinking. It uses a 31 gr. FMJ bullet at velocities of about 2,300 fps from the 9.5" barrel of the P-90. It is specifically designed to penetrate soft body armor up to level IIIA without the potential for excessive penetration that may exist with the more common .223 rifles.
"The 5.7x28mm bridges the gap between conventional handgun cartridges fired in submachineguns and the .223," said Bill Forson of FN. The cartridge is really what makes the whole thing different and potentially very valuable to law enforcement.
Everyone saw a dramatic example of the use of body armor by badguys not too long ago in the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery sent live to living rooms around the country thanks to satellite TV. Experts think that such incidents will increase in the future.
The 5.7mm cartridge specifically defeats up to level IIIA body armor-- but not trauma plates-- without the excessive soft tissue penetration sometimes seen with the .223. It does this by virtue of the bullet design. It is meant to be unstable, and it is.
The instability seriously limits penetration in soft tissue and even though it is a full metal jacket bullet, penetration rarely exceeds 12", even after the bullet has penetrated barrier materials.
With conventional hollowpoint ammo, expansion is relied upon to reduce penetration, but if the hollowpoint is plugged by barrier materials, such as clothing, penetration may be more than is desirable-- sometimes a lot more. The 5.7mm's bullet is not so influenced.
The little 31 gr. projectile has a steel jacket and a two-piece core. The forward third of the core is steel and the balance is aluminum. The forward center of gravity, due to the heavier core element at the front, does not seem to harm accuracy.
We were able to do side-by side comparisons of the P-90 and Five-seveN by shooting both into 10 percent ballistic gelatin, first bare and then covered with the FBI standard for heavy clothing-- a t-shirt, flannel shirt, and down-filled denim jacket. We then "protected" the gelatin block with a test panel of level IIA soft body armor. The results were very interesting.
The first round fired into bare gelatin from the P-90 penetrated the entire 12" block, bounced off a piece of plywood behind the gelatin and was recovered on the ground a few feet in front of the target.
Examination of the gelatin blocks and recovered bullets was informative. The bullets, other than rifling marks, looked completely unharmed, but you could see clearly in the gelatin how they tumbled and left a permanent cavity that was every bit as large as that created by many conventional hollowpoint handgun bullets.
The entire philosophy of the 5.7x28mm cartridge is controversial. The very idea of a .22 Anything for police is anathema for some. Critics argue its puny bullet weight can't be relied upon to stop a determined assailant. Even adherents point out that the little high velocity cartridge doesn't always penetrate enough. However, the truth is that there is no single "right answer" to the penetration question.
There surely are applications, such as a jam packed crack house, where the Five-seveN's lack of penetration would be an advantage. Instead of having to worry about a round over-penetrating and injuring an officer or bystander, all you'd have to worry about would be hitting the target in the first place.
Nifty Construction
The construction of the Five-seveN pistol is pretty nifty. The slide is made of a stamping of chrome moly steel, with a machined steel breechblock segment, and covered with a polymer shroud. At first it looks as if the slide is polymer, but that is simply a protective cover.
The barrel is also chrome moly steel. It is a two-piece design with a very interesting set of features. When you first look, it's obvious that the 4.9" long rifled barrel segment has two diameters. The main body is 0.61" OD which is reduced to 0.39" to fit into a sleeve that serves as a locking block.
But the really interesting thing is how the FN engineers managed the recoil spring. The aft end goes inside the locking block sleeve which serves to contain the back end of the recoil spring. The front end is contained within a tapered bushing that mates with a corresponding taper in the slide.
With the slide retracted it appears as if there is a small bushing, but that actually is a spring snap-ring that holds the spring captive. When you field strip the pistol, the entire barrel assembly comes out as one piece.
The frame has some pretty clever engineering too. Unlike many polymer frames that have steel rails molded on, this one has a rear assembly that contains a pair of rails along with parts of the trigger mechanism. The forward portion of the frame (the dust cover) has an integral rail that engages a slot cut in the slide.
This form of connection eliminates the need for a second set of slide rails in the frame, but would seem to be even more stable. Everywhere you look on the pistol is evidence of advanced engineering and thoughtful design.
The operating mechanism is described as "delayed blowback." With most blowback designs, the barrel is permanently affixed to the frame, but the Five-seveN has a slot that permits the barrel to move rearward with the slide about 0.1". A part of the locking block in the frame is spring loaded and bears upon the back of the barrel. The spring tension also provides some delay.
The trigger is double-action only and is among the worst I've ever seen. It isn't overly heavy, at 10 lbs., but it is abysmally long and creepy so that it feels a lot worse than it is. Actually, I'm sure that this is a deliberate design feature. FN informs me that a single-action trigger module will be available, but it was not designed to please gunwriters or target shooters, but to be safe in a combat environment.
Terminal Ballistics
The thought may have occurred to you that the cartridge is not proven on the street. When the .40 S&W was first announced, the naysayers used the very fact that it was new to condemn it out of hand. In so doing they were a bit shortsighted for nothing can be "proven on the street" until it's out on the street.
The Five-seveN surely may fail, but nobody really knows until it's tried. We rely on theory and laboratory testing since it isn't socially acceptable to do the kind of field testing that provides gut piles worth of information.
We were, however, able to test the Five-seveN by shooting into bare gelatin, gelatin covered with the FBI's standard "heavy clothing" and finally covered with IIA soft body armor.
For someone accustomed to full metal jacket bullets zipping through several feet of gelatin, the 5.7x28 was an eye-opener. We first fired at bare 10 percent gelatin and I fully expected the bullet to penetrate the entire length of the 12" block. It did not. Instead the bullet came to rest 7.75" into the block, but it had tracked upward about 2.5" from the point of entry. The permanent wound cavity was 2.75" in diameter.
When FBI standard heavy clothing (t-shirt, flannel shirt, down filled denim jacket) was put in front of the block, penetration was 9" in a straight line, but the permanent cavity was exactly the same.
The final test put a panel of threat level IIA kevlar in front of the block. This time penetration was 6", but there was no measurable difference in the permanent wound cavity.
There will be some who wonder if this is enough penetration. This is a real good question and one for which there is no "right" answer. The FBI insists on a minimum of 12" penetration. When you talk about customary handgun velocities, penetration is needed to get adequate tissue damage, however, the 5.7's velocity levels are into the rifle category where hydrostatic force becomes a significant part of the wounding process.
During Handgunner's testing the pistol functioned flawlessly, but the really remarkable aspect was the near absence of recoil. The tiny cartridge is very efficient, but even though the pistol is light, recoil is little more than a .22 rimfire in the same weight gun.
Recoil is the enemy for the average law enforcement officer. The Five-seveN delivered 1.8 ft./lbs. of free recoil energy from a pistol that only weighs 22 ozs. (with empty magazine). A full ammo load of 21 rounds raises that to 26.5 ozs. and cuts recoil to 1.4 ft./lbs.
Accuracy Testing
In spite of the difficult trigger pull it was possible to shoot 25 yard groups that averaged 2.1" for five, five-shot groups. The combination of light recoil and good accuracy make the Five-seveN a very handy gun to have around.
It's too bad that the cartridge isn't publically available, but it has been ruled to he "non-sporting" by ATF and can only be sold to agencies, just like the guns.
This is a shame. The 5.7mm has tremendous potential in guns like the Contender for real accuracy in the hunting field or target range.
At this time there is only one source of ammunition, but an agreement has been signed between FN and Winchester for the American ammo giant to load the 5.7x28. FN reports that initial loadings will be done using components supplied by FN, but that Winchester may make the cartridge at a later date.
It doesn't take much imagination to see this cartridge changing the direction of law enforcement weaponry in the new millennium. The Five-seveN might well serve as standard issue for officers in a crowded urban setting and the P-90 could be used by special teams and thus retain commonality of ammunition.
P-90 Five-seveN
Velocity 2,328 fps 1,971 fps
Bare Gelatin 12"+ 7.75"
FBI Heavy Clothing 9.25" 9.0"
IIA Kevlar 9.75" 6.0"
COPYRIGHT 2000 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
A radically new pistol/cartridge combination graces the cover of this first issue of American Handgunner in the 21st century. The gun was developed as part of a military weapons system and is also available to law enforcement. For reasons that will become obvious, neither the gun nor the ammunition will ever be sold to civilians or even to individual officers.
Fabrique Nationale (FN) of Herstal, Belgium is a major supplier of military weapons and has contracts to manufacture M - 16 rifles and M249 and M240 belt-fed machineguns, in 5.56mm and 7.62mm respectively, for the U.S. government. These are made in their plant in Columbia. S.C.
About 10 years ago FN began a project to develop weapons and ammunition for the battlefield of the next century. There were a lot of issues to address, but foremost of these was the fact that troops would, routinely, be wearing some form of soft body armor. FN's intent was to develop a small arms weapons system for use by support troops whose duties might not permit them to carry more conventional weapons, but would still allow them to successfully engage the enemy with a small, convenient weapon that would defeat soft armor and Kevlar helmets.
The answer came in the form of a compact submachinegun, the P-90, and a pistol, the Five-seveN. Both of these weapons systems were developed to fire a new cartridge, the 5.7x28mm.
The 5.7mm is a departure from conventional ammunition thinking. It uses a 31 gr. FMJ bullet at velocities of about 2,300 fps from the 9.5" barrel of the P-90. It is specifically designed to penetrate soft body armor up to level IIIA without the potential for excessive penetration that may exist with the more common .223 rifles.
"The 5.7x28mm bridges the gap between conventional handgun cartridges fired in submachineguns and the .223," said Bill Forson of FN. The cartridge is really what makes the whole thing different and potentially very valuable to law enforcement.
Everyone saw a dramatic example of the use of body armor by badguys not too long ago in the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery sent live to living rooms around the country thanks to satellite TV. Experts think that such incidents will increase in the future.
The 5.7mm cartridge specifically defeats up to level IIIA body armor-- but not trauma plates-- without the excessive soft tissue penetration sometimes seen with the .223. It does this by virtue of the bullet design. It is meant to be unstable, and it is.
The instability seriously limits penetration in soft tissue and even though it is a full metal jacket bullet, penetration rarely exceeds 12", even after the bullet has penetrated barrier materials.
With conventional hollowpoint ammo, expansion is relied upon to reduce penetration, but if the hollowpoint is plugged by barrier materials, such as clothing, penetration may be more than is desirable-- sometimes a lot more. The 5.7mm's bullet is not so influenced.
The little 31 gr. projectile has a steel jacket and a two-piece core. The forward third of the core is steel and the balance is aluminum. The forward center of gravity, due to the heavier core element at the front, does not seem to harm accuracy.
We were able to do side-by side comparisons of the P-90 and Five-seveN by shooting both into 10 percent ballistic gelatin, first bare and then covered with the FBI standard for heavy clothing-- a t-shirt, flannel shirt, and down-filled denim jacket. We then "protected" the gelatin block with a test panel of level IIA soft body armor. The results were very interesting.
The first round fired into bare gelatin from the P-90 penetrated the entire 12" block, bounced off a piece of plywood behind the gelatin and was recovered on the ground a few feet in front of the target.
Examination of the gelatin blocks and recovered bullets was informative. The bullets, other than rifling marks, looked completely unharmed, but you could see clearly in the gelatin how they tumbled and left a permanent cavity that was every bit as large as that created by many conventional hollowpoint handgun bullets.
The entire philosophy of the 5.7x28mm cartridge is controversial. The very idea of a .22 Anything for police is anathema for some. Critics argue its puny bullet weight can't be relied upon to stop a determined assailant. Even adherents point out that the little high velocity cartridge doesn't always penetrate enough. However, the truth is that there is no single "right answer" to the penetration question.
There surely are applications, such as a jam packed crack house, where the Five-seveN's lack of penetration would be an advantage. Instead of having to worry about a round over-penetrating and injuring an officer or bystander, all you'd have to worry about would be hitting the target in the first place.
Nifty Construction
The construction of the Five-seveN pistol is pretty nifty. The slide is made of a stamping of chrome moly steel, with a machined steel breechblock segment, and covered with a polymer shroud. At first it looks as if the slide is polymer, but that is simply a protective cover.
The barrel is also chrome moly steel. It is a two-piece design with a very interesting set of features. When you first look, it's obvious that the 4.9" long rifled barrel segment has two diameters. The main body is 0.61" OD which is reduced to 0.39" to fit into a sleeve that serves as a locking block.
But the really interesting thing is how the FN engineers managed the recoil spring. The aft end goes inside the locking block sleeve which serves to contain the back end of the recoil spring. The front end is contained within a tapered bushing that mates with a corresponding taper in the slide.
With the slide retracted it appears as if there is a small bushing, but that actually is a spring snap-ring that holds the spring captive. When you field strip the pistol, the entire barrel assembly comes out as one piece.
The frame has some pretty clever engineering too. Unlike many polymer frames that have steel rails molded on, this one has a rear assembly that contains a pair of rails along with parts of the trigger mechanism. The forward portion of the frame (the dust cover) has an integral rail that engages a slot cut in the slide.
This form of connection eliminates the need for a second set of slide rails in the frame, but would seem to be even more stable. Everywhere you look on the pistol is evidence of advanced engineering and thoughtful design.
The operating mechanism is described as "delayed blowback." With most blowback designs, the barrel is permanently affixed to the frame, but the Five-seveN has a slot that permits the barrel to move rearward with the slide about 0.1". A part of the locking block in the frame is spring loaded and bears upon the back of the barrel. The spring tension also provides some delay.
The trigger is double-action only and is among the worst I've ever seen. It isn't overly heavy, at 10 lbs., but it is abysmally long and creepy so that it feels a lot worse than it is. Actually, I'm sure that this is a deliberate design feature. FN informs me that a single-action trigger module will be available, but it was not designed to please gunwriters or target shooters, but to be safe in a combat environment.
Terminal Ballistics
The thought may have occurred to you that the cartridge is not proven on the street. When the .40 S&W was first announced, the naysayers used the very fact that it was new to condemn it out of hand. In so doing they were a bit shortsighted for nothing can be "proven on the street" until it's out on the street.
The Five-seveN surely may fail, but nobody really knows until it's tried. We rely on theory and laboratory testing since it isn't socially acceptable to do the kind of field testing that provides gut piles worth of information.
We were, however, able to test the Five-seveN by shooting into bare gelatin, gelatin covered with the FBI's standard "heavy clothing" and finally covered with IIA soft body armor.
For someone accustomed to full metal jacket bullets zipping through several feet of gelatin, the 5.7x28 was an eye-opener. We first fired at bare 10 percent gelatin and I fully expected the bullet to penetrate the entire length of the 12" block. It did not. Instead the bullet came to rest 7.75" into the block, but it had tracked upward about 2.5" from the point of entry. The permanent wound cavity was 2.75" in diameter.
When FBI standard heavy clothing (t-shirt, flannel shirt, down filled denim jacket) was put in front of the block, penetration was 9" in a straight line, but the permanent cavity was exactly the same.
The final test put a panel of threat level IIA kevlar in front of the block. This time penetration was 6", but there was no measurable difference in the permanent wound cavity.
There will be some who wonder if this is enough penetration. This is a real good question and one for which there is no "right" answer. The FBI insists on a minimum of 12" penetration. When you talk about customary handgun velocities, penetration is needed to get adequate tissue damage, however, the 5.7's velocity levels are into the rifle category where hydrostatic force becomes a significant part of the wounding process.
During Handgunner's testing the pistol functioned flawlessly, but the really remarkable aspect was the near absence of recoil. The tiny cartridge is very efficient, but even though the pistol is light, recoil is little more than a .22 rimfire in the same weight gun.
Recoil is the enemy for the average law enforcement officer. The Five-seveN delivered 1.8 ft./lbs. of free recoil energy from a pistol that only weighs 22 ozs. (with empty magazine). A full ammo load of 21 rounds raises that to 26.5 ozs. and cuts recoil to 1.4 ft./lbs.
Accuracy Testing
In spite of the difficult trigger pull it was possible to shoot 25 yard groups that averaged 2.1" for five, five-shot groups. The combination of light recoil and good accuracy make the Five-seveN a very handy gun to have around.
It's too bad that the cartridge isn't publically available, but it has been ruled to he "non-sporting" by ATF and can only be sold to agencies, just like the guns.
This is a shame. The 5.7mm has tremendous potential in guns like the Contender for real accuracy in the hunting field or target range.
At this time there is only one source of ammunition, but an agreement has been signed between FN and Winchester for the American ammo giant to load the 5.7x28. FN reports that initial loadings will be done using components supplied by FN, but that Winchester may make the cartridge at a later date.
It doesn't take much imagination to see this cartridge changing the direction of law enforcement weaponry in the new millennium. The Five-seveN might well serve as standard issue for officers in a crowded urban setting and the P-90 could be used by special teams and thus retain commonality of ammunition.
P-90 Five-seveN
Velocity 2,328 fps 1,971 fps
Bare Gelatin 12"+ 7.75"
FBI Heavy Clothing 9.25" 9.0"
IIA Kevlar 9.75" 6.0"
COPYRIGHT 2000 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)