Tag Archives: 5.7 ammo

Neptuns Dunklen Söhnen, with blasters by FN

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The Austrian Army this week released a behind-the-scenes look at a little-known frogman unit in the landlocked country, complete with a cameo by FN.

In terms of size, it is thought that the country only maintains about 50 such divers for use in rivers and lakes in the Alpine country. While Austria hasn’t had a coastline since 1918, the nation does have 40 large lakes including Lake Constance on its Western border with Switzerland and Germany, as well as the immense Danube River system which runs through the country. With that, Austria’s combat swimmers (Kampfschwimmers) are highly trained, with its members taking three years to earn their badge.

Besides their Glock 17 pistols– Austria was the first country to adopt the now-iconic handgun as the P80– and Steyr AUG (StG 77) bullpup rifles, the Kampfschwimmer also field the FN P90 in 5.7 NATO.

Austria’s commandos adopted the P90 about 15 years ago, replacing the Steyr MPi 69 sub-gun as a close-in weapon, and augmenting the B&T TMP.

More in my column at Guns.com.

SHOT Hints the 5.7mm Trend may de here to Stay

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Building on a spate of recent new firearm releases chambered for the once-exotic FN 5.7 round, the aisles at SHOT Show this month seemed to reinforce that the caliber is here to stay.

While the 5.7×28 was originally just designed for FN’s PDW program– which led to the P90/PS90 and the Five-seveN series pistol– the now-NATO standardized cartridge caught a boost from Ruger in late 2019 with the Ruger 57 pistol followed soon after at SHOT Show 2020 by the prototype Diamondback DBX large-format pistol. Since then, KelTec has brought its P50 pistol to market, the CMMG Mk57 has appeared, and the DBX has started to appear on dealer’s shelves. In the meantime, FN updated the Five-seveN with new features and colors.

With Vista’s ammo brands (Federal, Speer, etc.) pumping out new 5.7 rounds as fast as they can to keep up with the trend, even more 5.7-chambered guns are inbound.

More in my column at Guns.com.

5.7 NATO for Self Defense?

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Designed by FN as a caliber replacement for 9mm pistols and submachine guns in the 1980s, the 5.7x28mm was only recently adopted as a NATO standard. But is it any good?

While I’ll save the history of the cartridge for another day, the 5.7 was first marketed by FN in the early 1990s in its P90/S PDW/carbine and Five-seveN pistol. Since then, those guns have been adopted with military and police forces in more than 40 countries and sold widely on the commercial market. This undoubtedly led to its recent NATO standardization— along with its competitor, the Heckler & Koch -developed 4.6x30mm.

However, as the only gun available for the 4.6 NATO is the HK MP7, which is unobtainable on the U.S. consumer market, the 5.7 NATO is the default PDW player today.

The thing is, ammo selection can be everything.

More in my column at Guns.com.