FN Owners....Read This

[TripleDigitRide]

This was taken from another forum, but I've seen plenty of Five-Seven owners posting in here. Some of you may have already seen this, but for everyone else, read away.

As some of you already know I had a malfunction of my dearly beloved FN FiveseveN IOM pistol, which I used as a CCW for just over 1 year, that caused my gun to literally explode in my hands.

On Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 1528HRS I was out target shooting and testing some ammunition that I had reloaded. Before anyone says, "It was a reload, he probably double charged it!" let me say this:

I did not double charge this load, everything was well within specifications.

I had loaded 200 rounds of the following:

Bullet: Hornady 55grain FMJ BT

Case: Once (a couple might have been twice) fired 5.7x28mm brass

Primer: Winchester Small Rifle

Powder: Ramshot TrueBlue 5.0grains

Case Length: 1.228in + or - .002in

OAL: 1.580in + or - .003in

I load every single round by hand using a Lee hand press, RCBS 5-0-5 Scale, RCBS calipers, RCBS seating die, etc... Each round is placed in front of me with plenty of lighting while I am measuring powder, then after all powder is measured and placed in the cases I inspect the case for powder, as even 1.0grains more or less is quite easy to see, then placed in the hand press, topped off with a bullet, and then the bullet is seated. If the powder was double charged it would fill up into the base of the case's neck. Like I said, cases are inspected for overcharges.

Back to the accident. I had fired 66 rounds all reloads of various bullets (Hornady 40grain VMAX, pulled 28grain HP from SS195LF, Hornady 55grain FMJ). My 2nd 20round magazine I fired 5 rounds of 40VMAX I had some failure-to-eject (these were loaded with HS-6, I've had problems with that powder causing FTE), then tossed the magazine so I could pull those bullets and reload them with Ramshot TrueBlue. After that I fired 20 rounds of the 28grain bullets, all of which functioned flawlessly with Ramshot TrueBlue powder. The next magazine of 20 rounds was the 55grain FMJ with the load data above. The first magazine fired flawlessly, I even noted in my reloading book that it I might want to try loading to 5.1grains and see how they functioned. The 2nd magazine is when I ran into the malfunction, the first round fired like the previous 20, the it happened.

On the 2nd round I realigned my sights, slowly pulled the trigger, and all hell broke loose. I saw bits and pieces of the top of the slide cover blow. My first reaction was, "Oh crap what just happened." My second reaction was, how are my hands, I released my grip with my left hand and blood was trailing down my palm dripping off my hand. I could see 2 sources of the blood flow, one on my thumb and the other the web of my hand. I tossed down my FiveseveN into the grass in front of me and inspected my right hand. My right hand faired much better than my left, a small spot on the tip of my thumb.

I immediately pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and called my wife who had just arrived at my father's residence where I was at, I was ~1/2mi from the house. I told her to tell my dad to get out here, my gun just exploded, and not 2 seconds later I heard the 4wheeler start up and hightail it down the driveway. I started walking to the gravel road to meet him and he quickly arrived and assessed my injuries. We went back to the house, cleaned my hand up a bit, bandaged it up, and went to the hospital ~40minutes away with my wife and mother-in-law.

Spent about 2 hours at the hospital getting 1 stitch in the web of my hand and 2 xrays. The xrays revealed a chunk of brass in the middle of my hand between my index and middle finger, and two very small peices between my index finger knuckle and the web of my hand. I have gone to a surgeon to see about getting the large piece of brass removed from my hand but he cautioned against it as it would cause more damage taking it out than leaving it in, as it is embedded into the muscle in my hand a probably isn't going to go anywhere so there isn't any worry about it moving around and slicing tendons and such.

I initially lost feeling in over 50% of my index finger and my thumb felt like it had been hit by a hammer and had numbness for about a week. I have gained some feeling back in my finger and am at ~35% numbness now.

My FN FiveseveN IOM is a complete loss, the magazine is still inside the grip, the remaining 18 rounds were forced out of the bottom of the magazine.

Here are some pictures of my hand and the progression of healing:

After removing bandages the next morning:

After looking over my new $1000 paper weight I've concluded that my FiveseveN fired out-of-battery. There is 0 damage to the chamber and barrel that I can see. From what I can figure the round fired (out-of-battery) and the case was able to hold the pressure enough to allow the bullet to clear the barrel and the case wall gave way in the rear because it wasn't being supported by the chamber. The expanding case broke off at the neck while being extracted and as you can see from the photos above the whole back end of the case gave way. One chunk of brass is embedded into the right side of the grip, I almost had a matching chunk of brass in my right hand, but the grip stopped it.

After talking with a few friends and showing them my new paper weight they came to the same conclusion. Ryan from Elite Ammunition (www.eliteammunition.com, Custom 5.7x28mm Ammunition, both reloaded and virgin brass loads) also concluded that the cause was from it firing out-of-battery. He also stated that he has observed that with the FiveseveN the hammer will drop at up to 1/4inch out-of-battery.

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"!

Try this for me... if you have a FN FiveseveN clear the weapon, clear it again, insert an empty magazine, make sure the gun is empty, move the slide to the rear and slowly creep it foward and see how far out-of-battery it can be when the hammer drops, I imagine you will see anywhere from 1/8-1/4".

[Magiccarpetrides]

I wonder if this has been corrected on the USG as thats what I have. Might be a possible reason the IOM was discontinued....I love mine...this is some depressing news...Im glad your alright. have you contacted FN yet? You might want to talk to Bob Ailes

If im doing this correctly I would say absolute maximum an 1/8 in on my USG

Edited May 12, 2008 by Magiccarpetrides

[TripleDigitRide]

I wonder if this has been corrected on the USG as thats what I have. Might be a possible reason the IOM was discontinued....I love mine...this is some depressing news...Im glad your alright. have you contacted FN yet? You might want to talk to Bob Ailes

This didn't happen to me. I took it from another forum.

Yes, he contaced FN, but they refuse to do anything, because he was using reloads.

[Magiccarpetrides]

Oh lol...I was under the impression it happened to you. I have not seen this problem happen to anyone else So Carry Away is what I say ;-D

[TripleDigitRide]

Oh lol...I was under the impression it happened to you. I have not seen this problem happen to anyone else So Carry Away is what I say ;-D

I don't know for sure, but according to the FN FiveSeven forum, this has happened with both, the FiveSeven and other FN firearms.

[Mark@Sea]

Is FN another of those companies that warn that reloads invalidate the warranty? It really stinks that they won't make it right for this guy. I had guessed a high (poorly seated) primer, but releasing the FP that far out of battery is unsat, period.

Glad the guy didn't permanently lose function. Lots of nerves and etc. in the hand, not much room for chunks of brass. Lucky guy, all things considered.

[Guest price g]

It seems I read an article somewhere about FN changing the free bore spec to lower chamber pressure.

[Guest Mugster]

I dunno, I've never owned a 5-7 or any fn, but i can't see a major firearms maker selling handguns that would fire out of battery across the board. I guess it is possible that his did.

Until the neck tension of the remaining rounds can be checked...I'll guess it was his reloads. Sounds like one of his bullets either got depressed back into case on loading or moved forward and jammed into the lands and caused a pressure spike.

[Guest Verbal Kint]

Pfft... there's nothing wrong with that 5-7. That's just the previous edition to the USG. The GE. (Glock Edition)

[TripleDigitRide]

Is FN another of those companies that warn that reloads invalidate the warranty?

Yes.

[deerslayer]

Is FN another of those companies that warn that reloads invalidate the warranty?

I think that's just about every company.

[Mark@Sea]

Nice pistols I suppose, but I'd rather have one I can afford to shoot, price of ammo being what it is these days.

I can't envision the bullet being able to twist enough to jam itself sideways in the lands (aren't these things pretty pointy?) but if it were really really loose, I think it might be able to jump forward of the case until it contacts the lands. I've heard a theory about some powders producing a pressure spike if the case has too much empty volume... but bullet inertia wouldn't begin to come into play until the cartridge is fully forward. Surely that wouldn't happen without the slide being in contact with the base of the cartridge; I.E. the pistol would be in battery at that point, give or take a couple of thousandths.

I can't picture any way that recoil impulse or slide action would push the bullet into the powder hard enough to compress it to the point of self ignition unless, again, the bullet was loaded so far off center that it wouldn't chamber, but again that does not seem to be the case in the photos.

Those are TINY cases. It'd be very difficult to miss seeing an overcharge if he were loading them one at a time.

I'm gonna go with a combination of poor design and very possibly a poorly seated or very soft primer.

[TripleDigitRide]

They also have a few videos (YouTube, I think) showing how these guns will fire while the gun is not fully in the battery position.

If you really want to watch them, here they are.

http://fivesevenforum.net/showthread.php?t=17426&page=7

Edited May 12, 2008 by TripleDigitRide

[Guest Mugster]

Nice pistols I suppose, but I'd rather have one I can afford to shoot, price of ammo being what it is these days.

I can't envision the bullet being able to twist enough to jam itself sideways in the lands (aren't these things pretty pointy?) but if it were really really loose, I think it might be able to jump forward of the case until it contacts the lands. I've heard a theory about some powders producing a pressure spike if the case has too much empty volume... but bullet inertia wouldn't begin to come into play until the cartridge is fully forward. Surely that wouldn't happen without the slide being in contact with the base of the cartridge; I.E. the pistol would be in battery at that point, give or take a couple of thousandths.

I can't picture any way that recoil impulse or slide action would push the bullet into the powder hard enough to compress it to the point of self ignition unless, again, the bullet was loaded so far off center that it wouldn't chamber, but again that does not seem to be the case in the photos.

Those are TINY cases. It'd be very difficult to miss seeing an overcharge if he were loading them one at a time.

I'm gonna go with a combination of poor design and very possibly a poorly seated or very soft primer.

Not knowing much about the FN design, I can't say for sure. But alot of armalites (and other automatics) kaboom because the bullet gets driven down into the case when it hits the feed ramp, which is a pretty violent strike. Also when the round stops moving forward, its possible for the bullet to jump its crimp and go into the lands pretty hard (with improper neck tension). Either way, Thats a good way to kaboom a service rifle. The bullet doesn't have to go in sideways, although its possible for the bullet to come completely out of the case and go down the barrel and plug it up.

Its difficult to put enough powder in a modern rifle to cause a kaboom (and this is more of a small rifle case than a low pressure straight walled pistol case). It almost has to be some type of physical problem with the round itself. (out of dimension, improper crimp, high primer, bad brass, etc). It could be a high primer (does the fn even have a free floating firing pin?)...but i'll still wager my dollars on an improper crimp.

[GLOCKMEISTER]

wow.... got hundreds of rounds thru mine... no problems so far. But I have seen about every kind of gun blow up when using bad reloads! Just saying...

[molonlabetn]

I will not own a pistol which will fire out of battery.

[Magiccarpetrides]

Im leanin towards his fault; not FN's since I have never heard of one ka-boomin with factory ammo. I can absolutely blaze away with this gun and not have one FTF or FTE.

[Smith]

I gotta go with Magiccarpetrides. I have never heard of a kaboom with factory ammo.

[TripleDigitRide]

Im leanin towards his fault; not FN's since I have never heard of one ka-boomin with factory ammo. I can absolutely blaze away with this gun and not have one FTF or FTE.

I was leaning the same way, but you know how those reloaders are--It's like pulling teeth to get them to admit that the issue could have been caused by bad ammo.

[Guest m4coyote]

The 5.7 X 28mm round is not an easy one to reload, and definitely not a good project for a beginning reloader. It is very finicky about dies, powders, and bullets. As a matter of fact, many reloading dies from Lee and RCBS require custom machining work to properly resize these cases, but the expensive Hornady Custom dies seem to work OK. There is very little reloading information about the 5.7 X 28, and most of what does exist, came about by user trial & error, and many of those errors blew up guns. More than a few FiveSeven pistols and PS90 carbines have exploded due to some minuscule reloader error. I have not heard of one instance of a damaged user or gun using this caliber when fed the FN factory ammunition.

After some research on the subject of reloading the 5.7 X 28, I decided to sell my FiveSeven pistol and PS90 carbine. I sold them not because I felt they were not well made or inferior in any way, but because there was only one overseas manufacturer of the ammo, and reloading for them seemed a real hit or miss proposition - and a miss with a reloaded 5.7 usually means injury or one less gun. After much deliberation, I have decided to stick to more conventional rounds that have plenty of factory ammo manufacturers, and for which reloading data is common & easily available.

[DWARREN123]

Must be made by GLOCK on contract!

[Magiccarpetrides]

HAHAHA....no they dont easily go off and actually have a mag safety and manual safety so they can be carried safely in "rock and roll" mode.

[molonlabetn]

If the reloaded cases were out of spec, that could certainly prevent the slide from going into battery... I think that is is indeed a design flaw in the gun, however, which allowed the striker to fall when the slide was out of battery, if that is the case.

The incident could have been prevented by using factory ammo, OR by safe function of a properly designed disconnector.

[Guest moreland281]

DAMN, I wonder if the PS90 has had this problem?

[~Emily~]

I'm glad the pieces didn't hit his eyes.