tex n cal...
The problem we're dealing with here is not that the 5.7mm doesn't perform as well as some other pistol calibers, it's that the fans of the round will not be convinced of its underwhelming performance by whatever evidence that's been put up here and elsewhere.
Our resident 5.7mm fan has given us 3 examples of the round being used in gunfights. I'm sure it wouldn't take long to find another three, or maybe a half dozen.
The problem is that pointing to this or that shooting, or even a handful of shootings, as "proof" that a round is adequate for serious social purposes is completely lacking in any meaningful validity, statistical or otherwise. I could post specific examples of the 5.7mm failing to perform as intended from OIS's I've analyzed (if authorized to do so by the principals, permission for which was denied), but that would be no more valid than the positive examples. For that matter, I could give you several dozen examples of failure of 9mm, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP bullets. None of these examples prove anything.
Proof is a lot harder to get your hands on. People like Marshall & Sanow tried, with all good intentions as far as I am concerned, to prove which ammo works well in gunfights with their One-Shot Stop data. They've been vilified in the press, on the internet, and in real life for being "unscientific". I'm not convinced their results are all that bad, as time goes by, because their results generally trend well with proven ballistic performance in gelatin (with some glaring and obvious exceptions) and with accumulated data from OIS's in other databases.
The reason I and others are so confident of the value of the best ammunition in the standard service calibers (9mm, 357 SIG, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP, and to a lesser extent 38 Special and 357 Magnum, 41 Magnum, and 44 Special/Magnum) is that they all meet the FBI gelatin testing requirements, but also that real-world OIS results tend to prove that these bullets perform as expected in real shootings, and bullets that fail to meet the FBI standards tend to perform less effectively in real shootings.
You can't "prove" these data. You can only look at trends over time. And most of the real world data is virtually impossible for a non-professional with a LOT of goodwill in the industry to even get a look at, let alone spend time analyzing. There are a lot of good and bad reasons for that. For example, I am told that there is a database somewhere in California with more than 14,000 shootings detailed in it. I've talked to 2 industry professionals who have seen it and used it. But the chances I will ever see it or use it, even with my credentials, is infinitesimal. The FBI has tens of thousands of gelatin tests on file, and while you might get your hands on some of it that's leaked out here and there, it's all summary information and not raw data.
This is why I've had to back off from my original post's assertions. A lot of people are willing to talk to me in general terms, but that's about it. Getting access to bench data is relatively easy, and I've got some data coming from contacts in two ammunition companies; getting people who do ammunition evaluations for a living and advise the Pentagon and other major players to talk about the 5.7mm FN is harder, and I've got a couple of them to at least comment in a general sense, but none of them are willing to go on record and none of them will share with me any specific details of any shootings. Yet. I'm still working on that. The third level of research, i.e., interviewing SWAT and SF people who've used the FN round in multiple engagements, I'm working on, and while I've been given hints that solid information may be forthcoming, nothing has come out yet, and again, nobody wants to speak on the record.
Let's just say this: the discussion that has blossomed out of my original post, which I typed out off the cuff in a moment of pique, has really impressed me. I'm genuinely interested in learning whether the 5.7mm round is the tactical weiner-dog many people say it is, or whether it's a much better round than its reputation to date. Either way, it's a worthy investigation.
I've recently started writing again, and I've contacted a couple of editors I know about this topic and one or two others. If I get the green light from one of them, I expect this will make a whale of a magazine article. We shall see.
