The story of the 5.7x28mm round is both simple and complicated at the same time. The round was developed in the 1990s as a personal-defense weapon (PDW) round for FN’s P90. The round was designed to be something with a little more oomph than the 9mm round in use in Heckler & Koch’s pre-eminent MP5 submachine gun, but in a size that would allow a generous amount of rounds in a magazine not much larger than the 30-round 9 mm magazine employed by the MP5.
End result? The space-age looking P90 with its futuristic grip and radical, 90-degree-turn magazine that held 50 rounds of the new 5.7x28mm round. While the P90 found some favor with military and law enforcement, it’s almost certainly better known for its role in various movies and TV shows, many science-fiction-based, showcasing this futuristic firearm. About a decade later, FN’s FiveseveN pistol joined its carbine sibling, employing a more traditional 20-round straight magazine in a handgun about the size of a 1911, but with less weight.
Forgotten, But Not Gone
For the next couple of decades, that was about it for mainstream firearms in 5.7 mm. Then, in 2020, Ruger launched the Ruger-5.7 pistol and opened up a veritable flood of new firearms. Diamondback, CMMG and others developed large-format pistols, while Smith & Wesson, Palmetto State Armory and Tisas came up with their own traditional-handgun variants chambered in 5.7x28mm. Concurrent with this renaissance was an onslaught of new ammunition choices—for a long time, there was only one source for 5.7, and with limited demand, supply was equally limited.
Now, though, Federal is offering American Eagle FMJ ammo for practice, Hornady and Speer are offering defense-oriented rounds, Fiocchi has been instrumental in bringing more variety in frangible, defensive and practice rounds; heck, even FN is starting to offer more variation in the 5.7x28mm world. It’s because of this massive increase in popularity in a relatively short period of time that I found myself in Robert, LA, at Range Ready, home of the Gun Talk folks, for the inaugural 5.7 Fest.
Starting, naturally, on May 7 (I’m a sucker for themed events; we’re keen on posting AR content on February 23 and Ruger semi-automatic rimfire rifle content on October 22, for example), 5.7 Fest brought firearm, ammunition, optics and other gear manufacturers together to further investigate exactly what made this round so popular. On the firearm side, Ruger brought its full line of 5.7-chambered firearms: the Ruger-5.7 pistol, the LC Charger large-format pistol and the LC Carbine; while Smith & Wesson and Tisas brought traditional pistols in the M&P5.7 and PX-5.7, respectively.
Ammunition was provided by Federal, Fiocchi, Hornady and Speer, with a great mix of FMJ for practice and JHP for defensive use. There were frangible rounds for close-quarters steel shooting, and even tipped bullets for accuracy testing out of the carbines. Optics, mostly red-dots and LPVOs to account for the shorter range of the 5.7 round, were provided by EOTech, Meprolight and Steiner. Speaking of steel-shooting, Caldwell brought a massive array of steel target and other helpful items to score our hits.
Taking 5.7x28mm For A Test Drive
I’ve had a chance to run both the Smith & Wesson M&P5.7 and the Ruger-5.7 for episode of our “I Carry” video series and found both to be eminently controllable and reliable. I hadn’t had a chance to try out either the LC Charger or LC Carbine, but I know that Kevin Creighton, our Managing Editor, Digital who runs the “Rifle Roundup” series is a major-league fan. After running one on the range, I completely understand why. Running through a plate rack at a ridiculously fast rate with easy hits can give you an appreciation for both the round and the firearms in which it is chambered. The LC Charger is just silly fun, and with a single-point sling you can easily make hits out at distance.
One 5.7x28mm firearm I haven’t covered yet is the Tisa PX-5.7 pistol, but I got to know this gun pretty well at 5.7 Fest. It’s the least-expensive offering of which I am aware chambered in 5.7x28mm, and yes, it’s of Turkish origin (imported by SDS Imports). The PX-5.7 was developed to bring an affordable (MSRPs start under $500) means of shooting 5.7x28mm to the market. As a way of showing the durability of the PX-5.7, the SDS Imports rep encouraged us to give the pistol a torture test: 500 rounds in 7 minutes. Zero failures were experienced (well, one failure was experienced, but it was entirely human error—the slide was so hot, the “slingshot” method was not properly employed so a malfunction ensued. After that, the ledge-style sights were used, and no further problems were encountered. Full disclosure).
Did I mention that 10 gunwriters attended the event? We might just be a little competitive, and the organizers of 5.7 Fest exploited this fully. We split into three groups, each with different tasks, and Range Ready’s superlative staff patiently herded cats, err, walked us through the various challenges and drills. Obviously, the main thrust of all the different exercises was designed to highlight the advantages of the 5.7x28mm round; for me, it was how controllable the round is under rapid fire. With lighter-weight projectiles, the extreme velocity gives it similar muzzle energy to 9mm, but with significantly less felt recoil. This resulted in a smoking fast (for me) Bill Drill in addition to rapid, accurate hits in other tests. Possibly one of the biggest surprises came on the carbine range, where Ruger’s LC Carbine, topped with a Steiner 1-6X scope, made tiny little 10-round groups at 50 yards—the fastest of which was achieved in under one minute. It is ridiculously easy to get and stay on target with the 5.7x28mm round.
The Case For 5.7x28mm Starts To Gel
Perhaps the most eye-opening part of the event was the gel testing. We had numerous blocks of Clear Ballistics gelatin provided for the event, where multiple types of 5.7x28mm ammunition were provided to see how it all fared. While we weren’t observing the strict FBI protocol (we didn’t have four layers of denim, for example), we were able to compare rounds both to other 5.7x28mm rounds, but also to the 5.7’s closest competitor, the 9 mm. Putting up a Hornady Critical Defense 40-grain 5.7x28mm FTX round against a 115-grain FTX 9 mm round was wild—both rounds reached approximately 12 inches of penetration in the gel, with similar wound channels. It was evident that the same rock-solid testing that advanced 9 mm defensive-bullet technology had been seamlessly ported over into the 5.7x28mm world.
Coming as no surprise, Speer’s excellent Gold Dot ammunition performed quite well in this testing, as well. What was interesting to see here was the difference between rounds fired from a 5-inch pistol barrel compared to the 16-inch carbine: While the overall penetration was fairly similar (both reached the end of the 16-inch gelatin block), it was abundantly clear from the wound channel that the round fired out of the carbine dumped significantly more energy into the target. Pistols are pistols, and rifles are rifles…
Optic-wise, we used pistol-slide-mounted red-dots from EOtech, Meprolight and Steiner for the handguns and large-format pistols and the LC Carbines had a mixture of Steiner and EOTech red-dots and LPVOs and EOTech EXPS3 and magnifiers. Despite the super-fast velocity of the 5.7x28mm round, no failures in any of the optics used were experienced. On the pistol-slide mounted side, I chose pistols with the Meprolight MPO-DS optic, mainly because I’ve used the EOTech EFLX on a number of occasions but hadn’t had a chance to run the Meprolights yet. The MPO-DS is the very essence of simplicity: Standard RMSc footprint, 3.5-MOA dot and automatic brightness adjustment, so there are no power-adjustment buttons to worry about. On the outdoor range, in the near-summer Louisiana sun, there were no issues with losing the dot in the light.
On the carbine side, I had a chance to try out the Steiner T6Xi low-power variable optic on the long-range targets and steel plates and found it to be an excellent complement to the LC Carbine in 5.7x28mm. Making hits at distance was quite easy, allowing great accuracy potential, and the lowest setting allows a true both-eyes-open 1X with the 6X covering pretty much any distance for which you’d be using a 5.7x28mm firearm. Another carbine had an excellent EOTech setup with a 3X magnifier and an EXPs3 holographic sight which made knocking over steel plates and dinging the little bowling pin and prairie dog targets a snap.
I came away from 5.7 Fest with a new appreciation for the 5.7x28mm round. While I’ve had limited opportunities to shoot it previously, it has always been informal shooting for video content or simply plinking. In my mind, 5.7x28mm was a niche round with limited application. After spending two days training with it and seeing what it can accomplish, I have a new appreciation for the capabilities and positives to this no-longer-niche offering. With the market bringing more firearm and ammunition offerings seemingly daily, it’s clear that the 5.7x28mm round is gaining more than just a cult following.
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