FN Announces Two New 5.7x28mm Personal Defense and Training Cartridges

By
Dan Zimmerman
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24

FN 5.7x28 ammunition

Fans of 5.7x28mm chambered guns — and there are more of you out there every day — now have more to choose from ammo-wise thanks to two new rounds announced today by FN. Their new DFNS 30-grain and GUNR 40-grain rounds give those of you shooting the FN Five-seveN, Ruger-5.7, Smith & Wesson M&P 5.7, PSA Rock and other guns more options and more options is a good thing. Here’s FN’s press release . . .

FN America, LLC, the creator of the 5.7x28mm cartridge, is pleased to announce the release of two new options to customers who own 5.7-chambered firearms – FN DFNS for personal protection and FN GUNR for training and range use.

FN now offers a total of four 5.7 loads available to the U.S. consumer market with offerings ranging from training, sport shooting, small game hunting and personal defense.

“Since the NATO standardization of 5.7x28mm, there has been tremendous growth in the category and we recognized the need for reliable defensive ammunition and affordable ball ammunition for training, which is why we’re pleased to introduce the FN DFNS personal protection and FN GUNR training loads,” said Chris Cole, Vice President of Sales for FN America, LLC. “FN has spent many years perfecting the design and manufacturing process for 5.7x28mm ammunition to ensure that no matter which FN 5.7 cartridge you load, it will function reliably and deliver the superior accuracy that 5.7 is known for. Our customers and 5.7 enthusiasts alike can depend on FN DFNS and GUNR to deliver equally against that promise.”

 FN DFNS (SS200)

FN DFNS (SS200) is the first 5.7x28mm ammunition perfected for personal protection and delivers safe, reliable performance. FN DFNS is capable of achieving an average of approximately 2,067 feet-per-second while delivering approximately 286 foot-pounds of energy from the muzzle. The unique 30-grain jacketed hollow point bullet contains a copper-tin powdered core designed to expend energy quickly and efficiently while cycling reliably. DFNS has been certified by independent testing to meet the FBI’s ammunition testing protocol to ensure that this high-performance round delivers accuracy and consistent expansion.

FN GUNR (SS201)

The all-new FN GUNR (SS201) 5.7x28mm training round puts new training targets in reach for 5.7 owners. The 40-grain full metal jacketed cartridge features a high-quality brass construction with boxer primer and is designed to achieve an average of 1870 feet-per-second. The FN GUNR delivers extremely low felt recoil, improved accuracy at extended ranges and reliable feeding across all 5.7-chambered firearms and is considered comparable in performance to FN’s other sporting loads.

FN 5.7x28mm ammunition is now available in 50-round individual boxes or 500-round bulk pack cases and new retail packaging for FN’s legacy rounds will be introduced in the coming year.

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24 COMMENTS

    • They never load 5.7 ammo to live up to the potential. They probably made sure it was too slow to penetrate soft armor. I thought the gold dot ammo would be good, but it’s only decent out of a carbine.

      • I think it would be more fair to say that it is thoroughly optimized for a very specialized niche role. It offers shoulder-fired accuracy (+ some semblance of range) and three pistol mags’ capacity without reloading from a PDW that can be carried reasonably hands-free.

        The converse of that optimization is that it can’t easily be forced into other roles; it doesn’t gain much in a full-length barrel, and it’s very difficult to eke much performance from its long, skinny, bottlenecked powder column in a pistol (even from the “hot” stuff).

      • Gold Dot’s heavy (40 grain), that slows it down. This new DFNS is a lot lighter (30 grain), so speed will pick up.

        There are three relevant barrel lengths, for the pistols, the P90/P50, and the PS90. FN shows speeds for two of those barrel lengths (pistol and PS90), and we’ll just have to assume the P90 & P50 fit somewhere inbetween.

        For the DFNS, they show 1894 fps from the pistol, 2240 fps from the rifle. Which means it probably stands a pretty good chance of going through soft armor from the pistol, and almost certainly will go through from the mid-sized pistol/carbine P50/P90.

        For the heavier GUNR, it’s slower. Pistol = 1700 fps, 16″ PS90 = 2040 fps.

        You can get a 500-round case of DFNS from GunZoneDeals for $325, so that’s around 65 cents a round. That’s about the same as 10mm or 357 nowadays, certainly a lot more reasonable than when it was $1/round.

        Hmmm, a P50 under your coat loaded with 50 soft-armor-piercing DFNS rounds that’ll meet the FBI ammo standards, that sounds like an intriguing choice for living in interesting times. Those P50s have gotten down to under $500 during some sales, and Black Friday’s coming up…

        • So basically the same meh as previous affordable ammo.

          The P50 price you cited is very depressing to me as an early adopter.

        • @TexTed
          I didn’t mean that the velocity of the gold dot was too slow per se. I wasn’t comparing the velocity against lighter bullets. I meant that the gold dot hollow point appears to have been designed to open up at carbine speeds. Watch someone who tests it out of a pistol and a carbine. It opens up acceptably at carbine length velocities, but barely, or not at all, at pistol velocities.

          I doubt the engineers screwed that up. It was probably designed with a higher velocity in mind, but they intentionally slowed it down before bringing it to market. 5.7 is one of those demonized rounds due to the ability of some ammo being able to penetrate soft armor.

        • Dude if it is a case of underloaded ammo that is easily fixed on reloading, I would not be surprised however if bullet selection is a bit limited for useful (for some of your purposes) loadings as the size, shape, and weight of copper solids compatible in this cartridge are a bit limited in quantity and the even more useful options are by default generally illegal unless you are loading for government purposes.

    • No, 5.7 is about velocity and quantity, so I wouldn’t expect to see any small 5.7 guns. Chop off too much barrel and you end up with a glorified, overly-noisy, underpowered gun. 9mm is king for tiny guns, it works well in that. 5.7 needs to stretch its legs in a decent barrel, like the P50’s or P90’s 9.6″ barrel.

    • 7.62×25 fan here also.
      Interesting experiment from a guy named Clark years back. He blew up gunms on purpose.
      He found the tt33 to be able to withstand the overloaded cartridges better then the Cz52. The groves cut for the rollers weakened the frame, so he said .
      The HighRoad may still have some of his post?

      • always enjoyed high road.
        i remember you claiming the tt was stronger. simpler and cheaper too, still. toss up which is uglier.
        the cz had weak pin and roller castings. when the rollers oblong they slide instead of roll and create wear, weakening the frame. forged ones from harington are pretty reasonable.

    • “5,7 is ridiculous. It’s neither fish, nor fowl.”

      As I understand it, exceptional flat-shooting with limited muzzle-flip was one of the design goals for that round, to get back on target fast…

    • Hard to carry an AR-15 on your hip every day like I do my Five-seveN. Also, one can’t carry a loaded rifle in a vehicle in Michigan. That’s why you buy an Extar 556. Kinda like an FN SCAR pistol but at 1/6 the price.

  7. What a BS article! “2,067 feet-per-second while delivering approximately 286 foot-pounds of energy from the muzzle” Is that out of a P90 or Five-seveN? Is it available? No. Is the 500 round bulk pack of legacy ammo available? No. So much wrong with this. I expected better of TTAG.

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