Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns My FN Five-Seven exploded

Last week my FN Five-Seven blew up causing severe damage to my left hand (I am right handed). There are 6-8 pieces of shrapnel deep in my thumb and palm area which severed the nerves to my thumb and a portion of my palm. Surgery is required in an attempt to repair the hand by harvesting tissue from my leg. Wish me luck.

The �explosion� occurred on the last round of a 30 round mag loaded with the factory 40gr v-max stuff. On this particular day I only had three loaded magazines (70 rounds total) with me for the Five-Seven but had several other handguns to shoot after the Five-Seven. I began with a 20 round mag loaded with hand loads, then a 20 round mag loaded with factory ammo and finished with the 30 round mag with factory ammo. It was the very last round of 5.7x28 in my immediate possession that ruined my day ��. and a whole lot more!!

I have fired (600-700 rounds) both factory and hand loads through the pistol with zero issues since purchasing new in 2/2011. There are reports of the Five-Seven firing out of battery (OOB) which appears to be the case here but I am no weapons forensics expert. I am not a novice to shooting, handguns or reloading and have 20+ years of extensive experience with shooting and reloading.

I have been completely straightforward with FNH (i.e. Browning) so will now wait and see how they respond.

Well this should start a defecation blizzard around the Campfire!!

Sorry to hear about your injury but glad that it wasn't worse, Fair Chase.

I wish you the best of luck on your recovery. I can also tell you, coming from someone that has blown up a few guns myself, you will never be able to approach a gun that you are going to shoot without the thought of what just happened to you.

My best regards...

I, too am SO Sorry that his happened to you. If it were me, the whole story would have come from a redacted version from a personal injury attorney,period. I have tried to play nice nice a couple of times with auto insurers and got screwed each time. No more.

Please do keep us posted on your injuries and recovery!

Also, please put this in the general campfire here so that mroe people see it and read it.

I have been wanting one of these but could only afford the poor mans version so far i.e. the PMR30. Some of the early PMR30's had top strap failures early on but Kel Tech fixed the problems and even if one did come unglued no serious injuries have been reported as the operating pressures of 22WMR ammo are a LOT lower than those of the 5.7 round.

Wow, this is quite the KaBoom, amigo. I really do hope you get full use of your off hand back with no residual issues, as well as some real spending cash form FN for your pain and hardships.

MARK

PS Don't let them give you an A-Bolt as part of a settelment

My gawd!

Glad you didn't take any shrapnel to the eyes.

- Tom

Hope you get a complete recovery.

Wow, that's awful. I'm glad you weren't hurt worse. Let us know how this one turns out, I'm anxious to hear. What is the precedent in an incident like this? Can you hold FN liable?

This was factory ammo that detonated?

O

I hope it works out but if you were using ammo you handloaded they are probably off the hook? I hope thats not the case. I hope you make a full recovery.

Holy Schit!

Hope your hand will be able to mend well.

Those little rounds operate at around 50K psi. you can see the destruction of the pistol is a lot more dramatic than typical KBs from mainstream handgun fodder (9mm, 40, 45, etc.)

I wonder if the added weight of that optical sight changed the operating dynamics?

Best wishes on your recovery.

+1

Wishing you a full and speedy recovery with the best possible outcome

I sincerely hope you regain full use of your left hand.

With that said, was it a reload or factory ammo that caused the catastrophic failure?

Additionally, I would most definitely let an attorney do ANY further communicating with Browning.

It will be interesting. Probably start with the P22 :-)

Sorry to hear about your injury but boy did the sucker blow up.

Thanks Mark. I will probably regret not starting with an injury lawyer but I still hope for the best in people. I also have a PMR30 that suffered a case rupture but that was a mosquito fart compared to this. Kel-Tec has gone through a few revisions with the PMR30 and I think they finally have it corrected. I really liked my Five-Seven and was sad to see its destruction. That will be one gun I will never forget even if I tried.

A factory round was the last round the pistol fired.

The Burris FF II was on the pistol since day one and the pistol operated fine up to this point.