The makers of Five-seveN handguns finished their evaluation of the gun the blew up in an owner’s hand and have determined that it was due to his error and not theirs. Details, inside…
Initially, the owner, going by the handle “f3rr37″ speculated in an online forum that the gun had fired “out of battery,” which is when the weapon fires and the slide or bolt is not fully closed and all sorts of parts of the gun going flying in the wrong directions. After he sent the gun back, FNH found that the gun failed because the owner used “reloaded ammo,” bullets ammo that he packed himself rather than using factory issued ones. In this case, he packed the bullet with double the amount of necessary powder. The owner says he accepts these findings. Despite the maker’s initial lack of followthrough when f3rr37 tried to escalate the issue through normal channels, FNH eventually sent him a brand new gun free of charge after he sent the busted one back. The uproar f3rr37′s story created in online forums may have helped spur them to action quicker.
Lessons:
1) Don’t make and shoot your own bullets unless you really really really know what you’re doing
2) Don’t ignore your customers on the phone or you’ll have to end up doing your customer service online before a public audience.
Below, the official report by the manufacturer on why the gun failed:
DANGER CAUSED BY RELOADED AMMUNITION!
Subject: Five-seveN serial # 386102425
Date: 6-9-2008
The following conclusions are results from FNH USA’s evaluation of the Five-seveN serial # 386102425 sent in to our service facility after a failure using reloaded ammunition.
Upon examination of this pistol we were able to determine that it did not fire “out of battery” and the catastrophic failure exhibited in this example was clearly caused by excessive cartridge pressure generated by reloaded ammunition.
Our examination showed that the shoulder of the case was separated from the rest of the cartridge and it was left in place inside the chamber. The position of this piece of brass shows that the handgun was in full battery when the reloaded cartridge was fire and the excessive pressure occurred. Another indicator that confirmed our findings is the primer extruded back into the firing pin hole and a portion of the case head was stuck to the breech face. This was caused by brass flow back into the leaded chamber indicator hole.
Additionally there was serious damage to the slide assembly which is clear evidence of excessive pressure. The lower edge of the breech face was peeled away and the slide itself was deformed from the excessive pressure. The pressure that caused this damage exceeded OEM ammunition standards.
The FN ballistics laboratory was able to duplicate the catastrophic failure almost identically with 2x the load data provided by the consumer. In this test the shoulder of the cartridge was left in the chamber at the same position as #386102425, the slide was damaged in the exact same way as #386102425, and the cartridge case head seperated in the same manner with the brass flowing into the loaded chamber indicator hole.
The design of the Five-seveN pistol, being a recoil operated delayed blow back system, has key parameters that prevent an “out of battery” firing.
Our established testing data indicates the firing pin will not strike the primer of a cartridge after .1180 inch. of rearward slide travel. With the slide moved rearward .1540 – .1545 inch. (true out of battery limit), it is impossible for the firing pin to strike the primer, at this point the trigger lever does not actuate the lever of the firing pin safety. It was also noted in our examination that the firing pin safety was still fully functional on Five-seveN #386102425.
It is FNH USA’s finding that the catastrophic failure of Five-seveN #38610xxxx was due completely to excessive pressure caused by the reloaded ammunition and was not the result of an “out of battery” firing.
Please be aware that the owner’s manual for the Five-SeveN handgun clearly states on page 4 that FN Herstal declines any responsibility and invalidates any guarantee and liability claims for incidental or consequential damages (injuries, loss of property, commercial loss, lost of earnings and profits, …) resulting in whole ore partly from the use of reloaded ammunition.
If you have lost or misplaced your owners manual please contact our customer service department at 703-288-3500 x122 for a replacement.
Tommy Thacker
Product Manager
FNH USA, LLC.
FN FiveseveN Warning *Picture Heavy* part1 [FiveseveN Forum]
PREVIOUSLY: Five-seveN Gun Blows Up In Owner’s Hand, Manufacturer Indifferent
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Lots of people regularly reload ammo and have no problems. I’m not sure what gave this guy the idea to double load the gunpowder, but obviously he just put a dent on the reloading scene.
@TeraGram:
Five-SeveN is used because the company is best known as “FN” in the US among gun owners. Capitalizing the N sort of connects it to the brand.
This is why they always say “Don’t drink and reload.”
@11hawkinst: I had a neighbor that loaded a lot of his own ammo. Shotgun, rifle, pistol, anything. Never had a problem. But he also knew what he was doing.
@dveight: I’ve heard of it going both ways (reload vs loading). I did a bit of internet searching after your reply, and it does look like reloads are used in competition (though they are picky on the type of brass used for the casing). I’m not sure on how common that is though, so I may be mistaken.
I have to admit I enjoyed his original post where he said “I did not double charge this load, everything was well within specifications.”
While I suppose I give FN props for replacing the weapon, I’m really not sure why they did. It was his mistake, his fault entirely.
@valtr0n: Over the years, the Five-seveN has been a very reliable handgun. It is one of the preferred weapons of many secret service agents, and other government entities. However, it fires weird ammo (5.7), and idiots who don’t pay attention can make mistakes reloading. That’s all it really comes down to.
Most reloaders will reuse their brass several times over. If the guy with the blowed-up hand loaded a double-charged round, it wouldn’t make any difference if he had used brand-spanking new brass. The pressures involved far exceeded allowable ratings.
My dad taught me how to load and reload ammo when I was fairly young and I never had any problems when we went out to the shooting range or hunting. Loading your own ammo is easy and not unduly dangerous, but you do have to be careful.
I’m inclined to wonder if the OP didn’t purposely overload his cartridges for extra oomph. I seem to recall that my father made a point of really focusing on how the benefit to loading your own ammo was the consistency you could achieve from round to round, but how some people couldn’t help and do the macho thing and add extra powder which could easily become a Bad Thing ™.
Then again if it really was double loaded then it could have just been that he spaced or stopped and left a round in mid-load thus forgetting where he was when he went back. He probably shouldn’t have been so adamant that it was impossible that he cause the problem, but the company itself didn’t do as good a job as I would have expected in dealing with the issue in the first place.
If someone brings forth a claim that your product is dangerous the first thing to do would be to snap up the alleged defective product and test the hell out of the materials and its construction before attempting to recreate the failure method using other methods (e.g. using double loaded ammo). Without lab testing of the damaged product, there’s no way to know if it is or isn’t safe and that’s just bad business.
Oh, for all the folks making ill informed comments about loading your own ammunition, might I suggest some light reading ([hunting.about.com]) on the matter.
@valtr0n: Better than focusing the pressure of a failure back into the face of the shooter.
@valtr0n: If you look at the detailed pictures on the original post, if you look at what it did to his hand, it seems minimal compared to the damage to the slide and rest of the frame. And guns of this type will always blow down the magazine rack, which it properly did (as evidenced by the fact he wasn’t missing fingers). In the end, if there is too much of an explosive material into your cartridge, you pretty much do just have a mini-bomb in your hands.
@Hawk07: I’ve got a general idea. There are only two ways to increase the impact of a fired round. 1) Increase the velocity while the mass of the projectile stays constant (more powder, same round). 2) Increase the mass of the round while the velocity stays constant (heavier bullet AND more powder).
He chose the former. Much easier for a handloader to use more powder on a relatively scarce round like this. There may not be a heavier bullet made. Probably read on teh internets that it was safe. Now more people can read that it’s not.
Shouldn’t this be tagged bad consumer since he went out of his way to blame them for his mistake?
Anyway a few of us pointed out that he voided the warranty when he shot some reloades through the weapon and said chances are he screwed up. Not susprised that it turned out we were right. I’ve seen a few people destory guns using bad reloads.
I personaly stay away from reloads when ever possible. I know a few friends that reload some weird rounds they have but pretty much everyone elce fires new ammo. Better to be safe.
Kudos to FNH for handling this issue with class, once they finally addressed it. They didn’t have to replace the gun, and could have gone after him for falsely blaming them for the problem. This way they end up looking like the good guys. I don’t know if this was a calculated move or SOP, but they handled it well.
@11hawkinst: “Used ammo” is not really the way to look at it. The only part reused is the brass casing. The primer is spent, the powder burns off, and the bullet itself is expelled (and if recovered, really only good for melting, and then only if it’s not jacketed or cored with other metals like copper, steel, zinc, tungsten, etc). The fact is, spent brass, once properly cleaned, lubed, and resized, is often better in many respect, especially when fired from the same gun, as it gets formed to an actual breach rather than just an engineer’s drawing. It will often seat more fully into the breach and cycle more smoothly than new brass. There are also some metalurgical properties that have to with ductility and hardening that are a bit beyond the scope of my knowledge. Of course, there is a limit to this, and the high pressure cycles of firing and then resizing brass will eventually cause the case to break during firing, which is a pain because what’s left in the gun is quite effectively seated in the breach. A good reloader will keep track of the number of firings and watch for signs of damage to older cases. And as long as the powder charge is reasonably conservative, brass can last a surprisingly long time.
@Applekid: Based on the study by FN, it sounds like he double charged a case. If your setup and load characteristics don’t have some sort of safeguard built in (liek marking filled cases, shaking each one to listen for headspace after seating the bullet, using powders that are obviously visible if overcharged, marking filled cases, moving filled cases from one tray to another as part of the process, etc.), it can be very easy to do.
Reloading isn’t inherently dangerous or unwise as many here have suggested. It’s like any DIY kind of project. If you’re not careful, you can do far more harm than good, and in extreme cases, hurt yourself or others around you by taking negligent action. Not to say that the OP is negligent, just that the evidence points to an easily avoidable rookie mistake.
You ejected the first bullet by hand, didn’t you? I see what you were trying to do, but testing a technique you’ve only heard about in the middle of battle wasn’t very smart. You were asking to have your gun jam on you. Besides, I don’t think you’re cut out for an automatic in the first place. You tend to twist your elbow to absorb the recoil. That’s more of a revolver technique.
@krispykrink: I don’t know why anyone would want an autoloader pistol with a shouldered case. Despite the age-old argument of penetration vs. deformation (in which my own belief is that big, slow slugs are always preferable), the problems that such configurations run into with cycling is enough to drive me away. And then to reload… That’s just bad mojo. It’s already been said quite a few times here and other places that an already high pressure cartridge like that stupid little 5.7×28 doesn’t lend much forgiveness to the reloader.
@dangermike: Ok, and you’re addressing this to me why?
In any case, I agree. I prefer big and slow. That’s why my EDC CCW is a 1911 .45ACP.
the 2 types of 5.7mm ammunition that’s available to the public sells at approximately $19.00 for 50 bullets – there are other types of ammunition available but are restricted to military and law enforcement because they are armor piercing
to me it just doesn’t make sense to me to reload a $0.38 bullet
@krispykrink: just adding to the sentiment toward plastic/tupperware. I duppose in retrospect, I got a bit tangential. =D
@bbvk05: “Five-SeveN is used because the company is best known as “FN” in the US among gun owners. Capitalizing the N sort of connects it to the brand.”
exactly. i had actually (surprisingly) never even heard of the Five-seveN until i read the previous article… but when i saw the name in the title i was like ‘hmm… must be an FN of some sort…’ then looked it up. to do some learnin’.
@x23:
They also had the Forty-Nine in the late ninety’s. Totally sucked.
As someone that has reloaded ammo (and plenty of it too), I have fired thousands of reloaded rounds out of a “tupperware” gun (glock’s in this case), and have never once had an issue.
However, at the local indoor range, I do remember years ago some monkey fired a double charged round (the issue in the OP here) in a Colt Python (this is a REALLY big revolver, made of steel), which he had rented from the range. I’m going to start by saying that this man used up all the luck he will ever have on the first round.
Literally the round blew the top half off of the frame AND the cylinder, which struck the bulletproof glass directly behind him (judging by the angles of where he was standing missing his head by mere millimeters) hard enough that it appeared that someone had fired a .50AE into it (that is a handgun load for the non gunners out there, and a BIG one at that).
It was almost funny to see how fast most of the people in the store area of the building drew from concealment (or from open carry in the employee’s cases) when it happened, because for a few moments it appeared that the guy had fired the gun into the window.
The guy that did the reloading said that after examining the rest of the ammo that he had with him he realized that he had set the powder measure to double what it should have been, and the entire box was double charged.
To this day the gun is displayed there above the handgun counter as a warning about why they do not allow using reloaded ammo in rental guns.