Has anyone seen any actual testing of the 5.7 round

[1sailor]

I often read statements about the lethality of the 5.7 round. However, they never quote a source and I have never seen any actual testing. Has anyone seen any testing in ballistic gel. I tried a YouTube search but couldn't find anything. I'm not talking about theoretical results on paper but actual testing.

 

[4thAlabama]

Haven't seen any test results either but it seems like 22 Hornet performance. I think I would rather start with something of at least 38 caliber for self defense.

 

[DWalt]

All I know was that there were 13 dead bodies and 33 wounded by it at Fort Hood back around 2009, so it’s not entirely harmless. I guess that was a pretty good lethality test.

 

[Dave Lively]

I searched with "5.7 gel" on YouTube and several videos popped up. What were you using to search?

 

[Dave_n]

Remember, the round was designed to go though body armor. Dave_n

 

[HardToHandle]

All I know was that there were 13 dead bodies and 33 wounded by it at Fort Hood back around 2009, so it’s not entirely harmless. I guess that was a pretty good lethality test.

I think it was Houston SWAT that used the 5.7mm for a short while. They had an OIS and dropped it after that. Correct me if I am wrong on those details.

The first big use of the 5.7 was the Japanese Ambassador’s Residence assault in Peru. Overall an amazingly complex operation, but 5.7mm reportedly did well in the tunnel assaults hands… Both the Texas and Peruvian uses were full auto.

The original testing was against some rather old Soviet CRISAT titanium based armor. Armor piercing bullets are hard to come by for civilians and were developed for the 1970s armor.

 

[John_M52]

A local PD had a round go through a cruiser's windshield and then bounced off an officer's chest. Lucky.

 

[686-380]

I've performed my own tests. Here's the most common rounds: SS197 and 198 wound tracks examination 9 Dec 2014 - YouTube

 

[1sailor]

I went back to YouTube and redid my search. Today a ton of stuff shows up. I must have misspelled a word in my first search or something. It does appear to be fairly lethal. It also seems to way over penetrate a lot of the time. It looks like it could be a lot of fun to shoot, but only if I was rich enough to afford the ammo.

 

[Bald1]

Finding the ammo is harder than paying for it I’ll bet.

 

[smoothshooter]

I think it might make a better varmint rifle round than a pistol round.

 

[cmj8591]

I did some anecdotal testing with an old 2a vest. The soft point ammo out of a FN did not penetrate either the soft vest or the ballistic plate from 15 yards. It went through about 5 layers of Kevlar. Not very scientific but it was very impromptu so there wasn't time to make any scientific plans. YMMV.

 

[Bald1]

There are YouTube videos of it defeating 3A soft armor at 15ft. But that was with military/police ammo not available on commercial market. I think they called it Green Tip.

 

[rosewood]

I often read statements about the lethality of the 5.7 round. However, they never quote a source and I have never seen any actual testing. Has anyone seen any testing in ballistic gel. I tried a YouTube search but couldn't find anything. I'm not talking about theoretical results on paper but actual testing.

Are we talking out of a rifle or pistol? The cartridge loses advantages from a pistol for sure. The 22TCM beats it in the short barrels by a few 100 ft/sec.

Although, a handful of rounds in a pistol is never a bad thing.

Rosewood

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

YAWN..........

 

[Bozz10mm]

i think that Major Nidal Malik Hasan proved the lethality of the 5.7 in his insane attack on Ft. Hood soldiers in November of 2009. 13 fatalities and 30 wounded.

 

[Michaelp57]

Google 2016/17 joint agency ballistics test and download the pdf in the first link. Also Kentucky ballistics did a gel test with 5.7 against common pistols cartridges

 

[cmj8591]

i think that Major Nidal Malik Hasan proved the lethality of the 5.7 in his insane attack on Ft. Hood soldiers in November of 2009. 13 fatalities and 30 wounded.

He could have used a 22lr in this situation and obtained the same result. I'm not sure that this proves anything as to the usefulness of this cartridge as a personal defense round.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Guys, we seem to be swaying away from the original question. Lets try and stay away from mass shootings and dead bodies and get back to the provable test results and comparisons the OP is asking about.

Thank you...