FN FiveseveN Warning *Picture Heavy*

[Orion8472]

I'll half to check my 5.7 when I get home. It is a pretty fun pistol to shoot, as soon as you get familiar with HOW to shoot it properly. It's a shame that this had to happen to such a rare piece, though.

My 5.7 is mostly a safe sitter. I have a little over 2,000 rounds for it, and don't plan on shooting it much. It was something I wanted for a long time, back when it was "Military and LEO only", I finally purchased one, and plan on having it for a SHTF pistol. The extra capacity magazines would come in handy. I wouldn't be afraid to buy another one, even though this happened to the OP poster.

 

[Smurfslayer]

pic - but none of your primers

f3rr37 - will you post pictures of your primers from the spent casings that you fired in this session?

I measured the amount of space my 5.7 will fire out of battery to .304 inches. At .308, it does not fire out of battery. But... WHY would it be out of battery and firing?

You've posted this on the fiveseven forum as well. <harsh>If you spend time researching the 55 grain load data, you know that it's not all fun and games at the load data spewed there. Some of that data is WAY over pressure and some of those pos(t)ers are quite possibly living on borrowed time shooting the 5.7 at loadings they are posting. One poster even tried this round with H110 (that I use in my .357 magnum, .44 & 500 magnums. That resulted in a similar spontaneous disassembly</harsh> Now, I'm not generally a killjoy, but FN wins any case you bring against them in the public forum, or in court.

Now, I do hope sincerely that you are well healed and soon and that your shooting is not adversely affected by this other than the financial loss. Further, I'm glad that you're ok enough to type.

That my friends is where the problem lies. It doesn't matter what load is used in the pistol, reload or factory, it is an inherent design defect that allows the FiveseveN to fire out of battery by up to 1/4"!

It's only a problem when the round won't chamber. When was the last time you heard of a 5.7 kaBoom with a 28.5 grain LF round? (this is an honest question, not a smart-a$$ commentary). I can't recall. Added: I did see in your thread on the 57forum that there is a 2nd hand report of an SS197 OOB firing, but that's the only mention of a factory round I'm aware of.

It's truly unfortunate. But, I seem to recall that the manual said not to use reloads. Your round detonated before chambering and caused a spontaneous and violent disassembly of the pistol. I do agree it shouldn't fire out of battery, but this is a legal "chicken and egg" situation.

 

[Jim Watson]

The Five seveN does not have a hammer, it is striker fired.

I do not have access to one, but Wally's test sounds smart to me. Find out if it will pop a primer with the slide appreciably "out of battery." A 1911's hammer will fall with the slide "out of battery" but it will hit the firing pin retainer, not the firing pin.

Then think hard about what might have held the slide "out of battery." I don't know offhand if there is a cartridge or case gauge for the caliber, but if a sound gun were available, it would be instructive to chamber check the rest of the OP's reloads. If it fired "out of battery" something had to hold it there after the round chambered and til the trigger was pulled.

 

[PTK]

The Five seveN does not have a hammer, it is striker fired.

Mine has a hammer. It's internal.

Then think hard about what might have held the slide "out of battery."

The extractor will not snap over the cartridge rim if hand chambered slowly. This can lead to out of battery firing. When properly chambered and firing factory ammunition, there aren't any problems that I've personally seen in over 5k of 5.7x28mm ammo.

 

[Orion8472]

My Five Seven has a small hammer. It isn't striker fired.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

On Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 1528HRS I was out target shooting and testing some ammunition that I had reloaded.

You know it will be a good story when there are dates, times, and the word "reload" and the word "test" in the opening statements. It usually means the testing wasn't successful.

 

[Jim Watson]

Mine has a hammer. It's internal

Sorry, that is what I get for depending on what my gunsmith calls The World Wide Web of Misinformation, which says at:

http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg18-e.htm

that:
"Both variants are striker fired,

Carry on.

Some of you owners ought to try the primed case trick and see if it will FIRE out of battery or just drop the hammer.

 

[JohnKSa]

It doesn't matter what load is used in the pistol, reload or factory, it is an inherent design defect that allows the FiveseveN to fire out of battery by up to 1/4"!

Even if we accept that this was an OOB event, it doesn't follow that there's no difference between reloads or factory ammunition. Something has to hold the gun out of battery for this to be an issue and I would hazard an educated guess that in that regard reload vs factory definitely does matter...

Either way, I gotta say that I'm severely underwhelmed by how well the gun directed the force of the blowout straight into your hand. I've never seen any other handgun fail in that manner. Most direct the force of a failure down the magazine well or out the top of the gun rather than ito the shooter's hand.

 

[LightningMan]

Gordon quote; Why I have only two plastic framed guns: a Model 17 Glock from 1988 and an early 26. I use them on duty as a reservist because the dept. requires a Glock. I have NEVER shot reloads in a Glock since 1988. I don't really like a plastic framed gun and regularly shoot only metal framed ones. Things can happen and the well designed metal frames contain and rechannel the gas ect. away from your hands.
I agree, especially with a high pressure round (45,000 psi) like the 5.7. I personally own a 5.7 pistol and would feel safer shooting mine if the frame were metal instead of polymer. LM

 

[PTK]

Some of you owners ought to try the primed case trick and see if it will FIRE out of battery or just drop the hammer.

It will. Quite simply, it's an incredibly unlikely event and can really only be done by improper ammunition or intentional act.

Either way, I gotta say that I'm severely underwhelmed by how well the gun directed the force of the blowout straight into your hand.

Agreed. However, it's a mostly polymer gun, using ammunition other than factory rounds. I doubt this would happen with factory rounds, to the point that I will happily continue shooting mine.

 

[JohnKSa]

However, it's a mostly polymer gun...

That has absolutely zero to do with it and the design has everything to do with it. Even 100 years ago when Mauser was designing guns he took into account where the gas/force of a case failure would go and designed the gun to channel it away from the shooters hands & face.

Think back about pictures of Glock failures posted here and elsewhere--when was the last time you saw someone missing pieces of meat, needing medical attention and posting about case "shrapnel" embedded in their hands? I was at a range where a fellow with a Glock shot a reloaded round potent enough to split his barrel like a peeled banana and even crack the slide. He was completely uninjured other than a sudden loss of memory--he couldn't seem to remember what kind of ammo he was shooting. His friends later admitted after he left that it was his first attempt at reloading. The point is that if the design is sound, it directs the force of a failure AWAY from the shooter regardless of the materials it is made from.

 

[Ash]

A gun that can fire out of battery is not good. What might prevent it from going into battery? A dirty pistol could. A defective round could, too. In the end, the shooter should be certain he is firing a clean pistol and his ammo is safe, but if the design allows for firing out of batter, it is a defective design just as the Japanese Type 94 Shiki Kenju.

Ash

 

[wally]

I measured the amount of space my 5.7 will fire out of battery to .304 inches. At .308, it does not fire out of battery. But... WHY would it be out of battery and firing?

0.3" is more than 1/4" If a gun fires this much out of battery IMHO its clearly defective!

Stuff happens, why the gun is not in battery is a seperate (minor) problem, but igniting the primer when out of battery is a much more serious problem and IMHO reason for immediate safety recall if its not a fluke problem with a single gun.

Lots of things can prevent the gun from fully cycling and end up chambered but out of battery. A safe firearm design WILL NOT fire under these circumstances!

I've sure scratched the 5.7 off my list for the next gun show!

--wally.

 

[hankdatank1362]

Just checked a normal handgun for comparison... My P226 will fire 1/8" OOB. Not a bit more.

 

[PTK]

My P226 will fire 1/8" OOB. Not a bit more.

My 2008 production USG 5.7 will fire .130" (.005" over 1/8") out of battery, by my measurements. As long as factory loads are used, I think the danger of a result such as the original poster's is very unlikely.

 

[mtgale00]

The thread title should be changed to "Handload Warning". To many assumptions and unanswered questions about the quality of the reloads. Everyone knows the risks of reloading and when a KB happens, blame it on the poor design of the pistol right?

 

[wally]

The key issue is if its out of battery enough for the barrel and slide to be unlocked when fired or not. Its potentially very dangerous if the slide and barrel are unlocked when fired as you've turned it into a high pressure blow-back with only the strength of the brass case to contain the pressure.

Unless your measurements include setting off primers you can't really say if it fired or not. For example if the slide is retracted 1/8" on my EAA Witness Elite Match the barrel and slide are still locked up and the hammer will fall, but I can't say if it would fire or not since I've not tried it with an empty primed case (I may do so later to satisfy my curiosity) but since the barrel and slide are still locked it should still be safe if it does fire, although I wouldn't want to bet the gun could stand up to doing a lot of it.

The extractor will not snap over the cartridge rim if hand chambered slowly. This can lead to out of battery firing.

IMHO if the gun can ignite a primer when the round is in front of the extractor something is seriously wrong with the design

To me the FinveseveN is looking like a marginal design and certainly not one suitable for harsh field conditions where all kinds of FOD could prevent attaining full battery.

--wally.

 

[wally]

Followup, EAA Witness Elite Match won't fire if unlocked

This discussion got my curiosity up. So I put on safety glasses and hearing protection and took my Witness Elite Match .45ACP out to the garage with a couple of primed (Winchester), empty cases.

With the case chambered but the extractor not snapped over the case (case in front of extractor) the hammer won't fall. Good, fail safe.

With the case fully chambered I pulled back until the barrel hood just started to move down. Net result if the barrel has not started to drop down to unlock (about the alignment of the takedown dots at the maximum) the gun will fire the primer when the hammer falls. But with the smallest downward (unlocking) movement of the barrel I could see, the primer would not fire, although I could see light marks from the firing pin well off center. Again I'm happy to see "fail safe" in the design.

I suspect firing with the takedown notches aligned would mess up the timing and not be good for the gun in the long term, But since the barrel and slide are still locked as one at the moment of ignition, steel still supports the brass during the highest pressures. Hopefully I'd notice abnormal wear on the barrel/slide locking surfaces if this was happing often enough to eventually cause a problem.

The higher pressure the round, the less margin for error your gun will have for out of battery issues.

--wally.

 

[Owen]

how many times had you reloaded the brass. That looks like a pretty classic case-head separation.

 

[wally]

That looks like a pretty classic case-head separation.

Huh?

Form the first photo of the gun and slide together it looks like the shoulder area blew out -- grossly excessive head space as if fired well out of battery.

The second photo suggests the case also let go at the web (head) as well. Seems to me the pressure still had to be very high when the case was coming out of the chamber (if it ever fully got in).

I've seen SKS rifles with excessive head space split the cases completely in two, just where the bottleneck starts and eject a more or less straight walled case remnent with the forward portion wedged around the bullet of next round that prevents chambering and fortunately the rifle fails to fire out of battery. Rifle in question was "fine" with steel cases but did this about 1/3 the time with Remington reloadable brass cased ammo. The ones than didn't seperate were grossly over length and not reloadable (safely).

He says initially cases were once fired with perhaps a few twice fired.

--wally.

 

[Owen]

The 5-7 is a blowback pistol last I checked. IOW there is no lockup

In addition its a bottleneck cartridge. Case head separation occurs in bottleneck cartidges because a web of metal near the head thins out when the case stretches during firing. When the case is resized, the neck gets pushed back, but the area near the head does not get any thickness back. After repeated firing/resizing, the brass gets really thin, and fails.

In a rifle, with locking lugs, its not a big deal. When I was shooting high-power with a club Garand, I was issued a tool to remove the cases after a head separation.

Now in a blowback pistol like the 5-7, not only do you have the the stresses from firing/resizing, the firing stresses are even higher, because there is no mechanical connection between the breechface and the barrel, so the case stretch will be far larger than what we would typically see in a gun that locks.

Instead of having the pressure contained and redirected by the gas handling mechanisms on a rifle, we have a ruptured case that is being extracted from the chamber, so it vents its case into the frame/magazine well.

Looking at the pictures again, I also just noticed that the neck and shoulder separated from the case body too. I've broken a heck of a lot of guns, but I've never seen that before.

 

[wally]

WOW the FiveseveN is a blowback? Bad juju to be messing around with heavier than normal reloads in a blowback, thats for sure!

--wally.

 

[Gunnerpalace]

If you spend time researching the 55 grain load data, you know that it's not all fun and games at the load data spewed there. Some of that data is WAY over pressure and some of those pos(t)ers are quite possibly living on borrowed time shooting the 5.7 at loadings they are posting.

It is not a battery issue for me at this point, it is a reloaded ammo issue,

When someone posts a picture of a FiveSeveN that KB'd without using reloaded ammo I will correct myself.

Sorry for bad grammer if any my spellcheck is down.

 

[MachIVshooter]

The fact that reloads were used suggests that excessive pressure or a weak case may have been contributing factors.

Lot's of guns will fire out of battery, and it often causes damage. Nothing new here.

However, as has been covered, I can't think of any KB's I've seen or read about where so much of the destructive force was directed into the trigger guard area. That is a design flaw. Lot's of folks who've KB's Glocks, HK's and other polymer guns got stung in the hand when the grip frame cracked, but the catastophic damage we see on this Five-seveN tells me that FN needs to reinforce the frame above the trigger guard. A thin piece of steel embedded in the polymer would have prevented most, if not all, of the hand injury.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

However, as has been covered, I can't think of any KB's I've seen or read about where so much of the destructive force was directed into the trigger guard area. That is a design flaw. Lot's of folks who've KB's Glocks, HK's and other polymer guns got stung in the hand when the grip frame cracked, but the catastophic damage we see on this Five-seveN tells me that FN needs to reinforce the frame above the trigger guard.

Maybe with a normal FN 5.7 KB, this type of catastrophic failure would not have been so bad and the bun would have channeled the expanding gasses appropriately...but this wasn't a normal loading and the pressures overcame whatever design elements were in place?