At the (admittedly large) risk of sounding like a total gun n00b... What the hell is FiveseveN? I always thought FN stood for Fabrique Nationale?

Sue? Yes. Sue. Jeeze, at the very least, they should have offered medical + a new gun :/

@ceriphim: 57 caliber?

WOW!! An unsafe gun...

It is made by FN and fires a 5.7 mm round, hence the FiveseveN name.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Guess the guy didn't know his own strength. Based on this, I'll never buy a F'n product, either. Well, maybe the F'n poncho.

It's not guns that kill people...

wow i want one.

Cue gun hating crowd in 5, 4, 3, 2...

@sir_eccles: It's the explosive decompression of the gun chamber by a misfiring gun :P

Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, more often abbreviated as Fabrique Nationale or simply FN, is a Belgian manufacturer of firearms. The official company name is FN Herstal. FN is a subsidiary of the Herstal Group. Herstal also owns the U.S. Repeating Arms Company(Winchester) and Browning Arms Company(an American gun company founded by John Moses Browning's family). Together these divisions form the Herstal Group.

F3rr37 sough medical attention and two days later contacted Five-seveN customer support

Hmmmm. I always question the time frames, just as the attorneys do in trial.

Ash78 sough medical attention and called Five-seveN customer support from the ER to bitch them out and demand a settlement

He's lucky that's all that happened to his hand. I had a great-uncle who lost an eye due to a shotgun blowing up in his face.

FWIW, that handgun looks like a cheap piece of plastic crap. By "destroy it" is FN going to leave it on the dashboard on a sunny day with the windows up? That should do the trick.

Be careful about sending it back.

If they do destroy it and you later decide to sue them (I'm imagining for product liability), the one key piece of evidence would have been destroyed. The fact that they told you that they would destroy the gun might negate any argument of spolation (e.g., destruction of evidence. See [en.wikipedia.org]).

Consult a lawyer on this one.

"...the Five-seveN's ammunition is designed to hit, travel a few inches, then tumble end over end without deforming. This means that the wound it creates would be as tall as the length of the projectile (more than 21 mm), supposedly creating a more grievous wound channel, but without the expansion of a hollow point or the fragmentation of a frangible bullet."

Lovely thought.

Five-seveN said they were sending out a pre-paid packing slip for the gun and would inspect it, destroy it, and give f3rr37 a "deep discount" on a new gun.

Wow! You can mail a gun, even a broken one? I had no idea.

I wonder if airport metal detectors will pick up the piece of shrapnel in his hand?

I believe this is the same handgun involved in the Marvin Harrison incident. What a weird coincidence.

I'm curious to the fact the he will spread his experience and claim that this incdident was cause by "firing out-of-battery".

I understand the guy is waiting for some compensation, but saying that the cause of the problem is something you hypothesize...doesn't that make you look dumb?

I'm glad nothing worse happened than just his hand.

They definitely ought to at least pay for his medical. It looks like there are stitches in his thumb and the side of his hand.

@mergatroy6: You can send one through UPS. That's how Wal-Mart ships guns to their stores.

@exkon: Not when his experience (and those of others) lend credibility to his hypothesize. Not like these guys are once in a blue moon gun users. It's like saying someone thinking that their car engine's spark plug misfiring is what is causing their car issue, a dumb hypothesize, simply because they are not the manufacturer.

@mergatroy6:

Why not? A gun without ammunition isn't any more dangerous than a brick.

@mergatroy6: You can mail mangled pieces of metal and composite, for sure. You cannot mail a functioning handgun without being LE or a dealer. I worked for a Fedwral agency, and we mailed firearms to field offices all the time via FedEx in locked shipping containers. Pellican cases to be exact.

@BloggyMcBlogBlog: It is, and the price of them shot up after that.

Essentially, the selling point of this particular gun, and it's automatic counterpart, the P90, is that they have 40% less felt recoil than a standard 9mm firearm. They're made from the same composite that almost all other manufacturers use. Glock being the first, and rapidly followed by everyone else.

I carried a composite firearm for many years, and never once had an issue through thousands upon thousands of practice rounds. It was a Beretta, though.

FN sells "57" models to specialized units, and the pistols to the public. The ammo is expensive, and the pistols are rare in a general sense. Mostly only collectors buy them. There are many agencies who will not buy composite firearms at all, and stick with Beretta and SiG all metal full size models. There are also agencies who only use Glock (my former agency was one of those). It's mostly a personal preference.

However, the big difference is that agency firearms are on a life cycle and are destroyed or transferred after a service life. Private weapons aren't. It's unknown if this guy has put 10K rounds through this or what condition the gun was in. Not saying it was his fault - just some unknowns.

In general, one would think after this happened that FN would be interested in his case from an engineering standpoint. However, they may not be interested from a liability standpoint.

I really hate seeing news like this one......as it scares the crap out of me the next time I reach for my FiveSeven.

It is terrible how FN customer care dealt with this issue and hope they get flamed for this mistake....do they need a dead body before putting in some serious investigation into this?

@TechnoDestructo: Rule number 1: Treat a firearm as if it is always loaded.

Okay, so these people specialize in items that kill people and you think they give a sh&t about you?

@sir_eccles: ...bullets kill people. Guns just get the bullets going really, really fast.

[carpefactum.typepad.com]

You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

@Ash78: 2 days is quite reasonable in this case Ash; the failure happened on a Saturday so Monday would be the first business day.

@AlexJP: Excellent advice, but if I read the article correctly he was treating the gun like it was loaded, because he loaded it:

"On the 2nd round I realigned my sights, slowly pulled the trigger, and all hell broke loose."

That reads to me like he wasn't mishandling a seemingly empty gun, but that he was at a firing range using it when it backfired (Please excuse me if that's not the correct term. All I know about guns is that they go "pew-pew" when you are picking off bad guys in the middle of your high-speed car chase.).

Anyway, his hand looks like it hurts like hell, and no product should do that when you use it, weapon or not.
And for the person who criticized the timeline of events, what would be a non-suspicious timing? Certainly not if he called the manufacturer before getting medical treatment? Two days seems like a reasonable amount of time to wait for a non-life-threatening injury.

@TechnoDestructo:
I think that if the guy has shrapnel in his hand, he will need a doctor's note to show airport security. This is what they do for people with metal plates in their bodies.

The only requirement for shipping firearms is that they be unloaded and that they go to an FFL holder (usually an 03 or 01. 03's can only receive C&R guns). And USPS will only ship rifles, not hanguns. You have to use UPS or FedEx. You don't (usually) have to be a dealer to ship a firearm. It may vary by state, though.

@lotusangel42: Like Pete & Pete's mom.

@ Consumerist: as noted earlier in the thread, the company is FN Herstal, FiveseveN is a product line.

@ f3rr37: Regardless of how much experience the reloader has, 90% of the civilian firearms accidents I've seen have involved reloads. IMHO, saving a few bucks by reusing spent brass is not worth the danger.

Second, you're lucky that you still have all your fingers -- a LEO friend of mine witnessed a Glock 19 kaBoom! on a federal range -- the user was left with five fingers, total.

Nasty !KB, that.. Hope he's ok.

@sir_eccles: It's that sound they make that does.

@sharkd: He did load his own bullets, and I agree that doing that with his twice fired brass can cause a problem.

Also, after looking at his pictures, I have to say he has/had a horrible cleaning regimen. His injuries look almost necrotic in some photos.

sounds more like a double shot of powder on his reloads.

@sharkd: I'll second you on the reloads comment...If you have to save cash, buy surplus, not reloads. I can understand why collectors reload, having odd weapons and all, but some people reload 9mm and 12ga!

Also to note, I dislike the FiveseveN, mostly because of it's civilian counterpart, the PS-90...having this toy is worthless, because it's a carbine meant to be shot automatic. In semi-auto, it's an inaccurate house clearing gun, with expensive as hell ammo

That's a pretty bad malfunction there, but it could have been worse. Good thing f3rr37 was no doubt wearing eye protection. I always go shooting with my prescription safety glasses and hearing protection.

FN is being total asshats about the whole situation though. Alot of other firearms makers will bend over backwards for you so you don't talk to the media or a lawyer.

The use of composites isn't neccessarily a bad thing. A friend of mine bought a Taurus .45 and only the frame and grip are composite, everything else is metal, and its overall a nice pistol.

@sharkd:

Yea when I read this before first thing I thought of was him using some reloads.

I have mixed feelings here. One I agree it looks like a out-of-battery malfunction(I've seen a few) but I'm sure FN like every other vendor voids the warranty when you throw a reload in the weapon. Can't really blame them because reloads cause a lot of issues when people do them wrong.

Personaly unless FN is going to replace the weapon I wouldn't be giving it back to them. Not sure what FN's warranty is but as I said I'm sure he voided it.

Guy is just lucky to have his hands.

Now it's MY turn to be a gun n00b:

What is an "out-of-battery" malfunction?

I just read the actual article link and without even getting into the "meat" of it could see his problem. RELOADED CARTRIDGES.

Many people just don't get that just because their father reloaded everything years ago does not mean they can today. Many "brass" cases used today are cheaper, weaker, and often not even made of brass to save money in production. Most of the time they are not designed to be reloaded and even say so on the box. Then there are the large amount of people that think they can reload and do it wrong or try to beef up their shots with as much powder as they possibly can.

My dad buys, refurbishes, and sell guns for a living and you cannot believe the amount of guns we have seen completely ruined from a bad reload being fired though it, even from those that claim to be experts.

@savvy9999: The Five-seveN is actually a renowned handgun, and is extremely popular with secret service agents, FYI.

It's not practical for civilian use, though, because the ammo is damned expensive.

@Elvisisdead:

False. You CAN mail a handgun without being LE or a dealer, it just has to be going back to the manufacturer or to a dealer and has to go through common carrier (UPS, FedEx, etc.) as the USPS will only ship rifles and shotguns.

Well no wonder the gun misfired. Some damned fool sawed the chamber in half!

This is why I prefer using my green Power Ring instead.