Tokyo Marui FN Five-Seven GBB In- Depth Review!

[Skladfin]

TOKYO MARUI FN FIVE SEVEN GBB PISTOL


Table of Contents:
-Introduction
-Real Steel History
-Basic Product Information
-First impressions/Packaging
-Externals
-Trademarks
-Magazine
-Internals
-Performance
-Pros/Cons
-Overall Conclusion

Introduction:
Let me begin this review by saying that I have really high standards for my secondary. This is because I use the secondary whenever my primary fail, and if my primary were to fail, then I definitely want my secondary to be working in transition. Due to this fact, I constantly demand high reliability, comfortable ergonomics, and consistenct performance out of my pistols. So does this new product from Tokyo Marui deliver? Well let's see!


Real Steel History:
The Five-Seven (marketed as "Five-seveN") is a semi-automatic pistol manufactured by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN). The name refers to its 5.7 mm caliber.

FN created the new 5.7x28mm cartridge for its FN P90 personal defense weapon to meet NATO requirements released in 2000. Subsequently, FN created the Five-Seven pistol as a side arm using the same cartridge.

Conventional side arms usually use the 9x19mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, and similar cartridges and are designed to injure or kill unarmored people or targets. However, FN argues that these bullets can not defeat a Kevlar vest, such as those in use by most of the world's armed forces. FN claims that their newly designed 5.7x28mm cartridge allows the Five-Seven to pierce the older U.S. Army PASGT vest at 300 meters range, and a U.S. Army PASGT helmet at a range of 240 meters. However, these penetration statistics are for the military SS190 cartridge. Other available cartridge variants are not armor-piercing, according to the BATFE.[citation needed] These cartridges are loaded with heavier, expanding projectiles driven at lower velocities.



FN markets the SS190 variant of the 5.7 mm round as being able to penetrate and effectively incapacitate enemy personnel by injuring or killing them, but there has been controversy over these claims. Conventional hollow point bullets rely on expansion to create a large wound channel, but the Five-Seven's ammunition is designed to hit, travel a few inches, then tumble end over end without deforming. This means that the wound it creates would be as tall as the length of the projectile (more than 21 mm), supposedly creating a more grievous wound channel, but without the expansion of a hollow point or the fragmentation of a frangible bullet. As a result, FN claims the round—and the Five-Seven—are suitable for military use under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which prohibit use of expanding or fragmenting bullets in warfare.

The advantages of the pistol itself include its weight (the 5.7 mm round weighs half as much as a standard 9 mm round), its recoil (FN claims the 5.7 mm round produces roughly half the felt recoil of a 9 mm round), and its 20-round magazine. Despite its magazine capacity, the Five-Seven is a light pistol, weighing 726 g (1.6 pounds) loaded. It is also a full size semi-automatic handgun, despite its small caliber

Current users include several international special forces/counter-terrorist groups (including the French GIGN) and a large number of police department firearms response teams (notably SWAT teams and others in the United States).


Basic Product Information:
Model: FN Five-seveN USG
Length: 208mm
Weight: 740grams with no BBs
Magazine Capacity: 26
Inner Barrel Length: 100mm

First Impressions/Packaging:
The packaging itself is nothing impressive. Just a simple Wireframe picture of the Five seveN on the front cover.

When you open the package you are greeted with the gun and one magazine. You also receive a manual, cleaning/unjamming rod, and some 0.20g BBs. Nothing special here.

Externals:
The feel of the exterior of this gun is GREAT!! Just by holding it you can tell that the ergonomics of this gun was designed to be fired with minimal expenditure of effort. The grip is extremely easy to hold and fire, all of your fingers feel comfortable and at ease. Moreover, all of the fire controls of the gun is located exactly where each of your fingers reside.


The slide catch is the grey catch on the right(Thumb controlled). Mag catch on the middle of the grip(Middle Finger controlled), and AMBI safety on the left(Index finger controled on the other side of the gun).The slider thing on the far left is for quick field stripping. The slide catch will jump up when the 2nd last round is fired, therefore also acting as a last round indicator.

Also notice the engraved trade mark on the slide. It's supposed to say FN HERSTAL BELGIUM on the real steel.


20mm under-rail for all your bling needs.


Sights are painted white for better target acquisition. The sights are made of metal and is not adjustable.


The outer barrel is made out of Aluminum and has an O-ring at the tip for less wobble. Which equates to better accuracy. Also notice the ambi safety and serial plate on the front, below the slide.

There are also noticeable seam lines going through the gun, but it's the same with the polymer body of the real steel. So I'm not worrying about it.

In addition, the mag catch can be flipped to be used for lefties.

Exterior Materials:
The real steel version of the Five-seveN has Polymer slide and frame, which means no expensive upgrades to go full metal! sweet!. What's metal of the real steel is metal on the TM. To list the metal parts:
-Outer Barrel
-Front sight/Rear sight
-Hop up unit
-Trigger
-Pins
-Hammer and all other internals such as safety etc.

The ABS slide and frame of the gun is very well made. No visible damage after over a thousand round on propane. And this thing kicks extremely hard!(More on this later). The Frame and slide is textured except for the under-rail and the front of the slide. It feels great and is not cheap at all. Overall I give this gun a 9/10 on the externals. 10/10 if the sights were adjustable.

Trademarks:

The traditional "FN" logo is changed to a "TM" logo. However its extremely hard to tell the difference.


On the other side of the gun, you get:
-cal. 5.7x28 on the slide
-5.7x28 on the ejection port
-Made in Japan Tokyo Marui. co. LTD below the slide along the grip

And the "D.296 SN.08489 F-HB" on the shooter side of the slide. This is where it's supposed to say FN HERSTAL BELGIUM like mentioned earlier with the picture.

Magazines:
The Magazine of this gun is probably what I hate absolutely the most. There are several reasons for this and I will note them all.



First of all, the magazine holds quite a bit of gas. Which is very nice. On a full can of propane I can probably make it last about 2 and half to 3 full mags. However it likes to cool down at a more faster rate than any other GBBs out there. The reason being that this gun is a Heavy Kick version which uses more gas per shot. Cool down causes inconsistent velocity, which is definitely a no no.

The next problem with the mag is that the spring really likes to grind against the inner surface of the BB feeding space. This causes the paint to wear off and stick onto the BB that gets loaded. Every once and then I use a Q-tip or something similar to clean out the paint so that it won't stick onto my BB and shoot through the barrel. Now, this problem happens with most GBB magazines, but its especially bad on this one for some reason. It's going to take some time before I break it in.

The last problem with the mag is that if you don't load it perfectly. As in with no wasted space between the BBs, you have a HIGH chance of the BBs jamming inside the magazine. Like so.


I tested this with all the BBs I had. Marushin 0.30g, Metal Tech 0.25g, Maruzen 0.25g. And all happened every once and now if I didn't load it properly.

Other than that, if you load it properly, it does the job just fine. Holds propane perferctly!

Internals:

Hop up unit is extremely similar to Hicapa and 1911 types. The recoil spring goes onto the outer barrel and the slide itself pushes it back in contrast to Hicapas. It comes stock with the regular TM Gas type hop up rubber and 6.08mm inner barrel. The hop up unit itself is an H-Hop type like the hicapas. For me, the hop up rubber did not seal perfectly. So sometimes I would get shots that are 20 FPS below or above standards. This will affect the consistency of the trajectory as well.

I changed it to a Nine Ball Hop up rubber, and that was too tight to make a consistent seal after each shot(Man, what a bitch gun!). Therefore I changed it to a Firefly Hard hop up rubber and all are fine now.


Blowback Unit. This is the high kick version, therefore the cylinder is much larger than regular GBBs.


Frame Internals including the trigger assembly and Internal Hammer. This is a single action trigger. So you have to have the internal hammer down first before firing a round. You do this by racking the slide.

The internals are all great, no trigger spring breakage like the M9 here. Really reliable.

Performance:
Now for the important part. Most GBBs fire at about 300~330 FPS(0.20g BBs) with propane depending on the temperature. Let's see how this gun does.

-Room temperature: 26 degrees celcius
-Full Gas
-Five shots after the first shot
-NOTE: This is after installing Firefly hop up rubber.
-Marushin 0.30g BBs

274 FPS
271 FPS
273 FPS
270 FPS
272 FPS

Excellent consistency for a GBB. I tested it with 0.30g BBs, so this equates to about 340~344 FPS with 0.20g BBs. Pretty awesome.

In addition, the kick on the blowback of this thing is INSANE. If I shoot it one handed it can actually shoot up quite a bit! Blowback itself is extremely crisp and consistent. Moreover, the trigger pull of this gun is also short and crisp, which greatly improves its accuracy. Over all, It's great pleasure to shoot this gun!

Accuracy:
Now, I'm really not a believer in Target sheet accuracy testing for pistols for various reasons. First being that the shooter himself have to be shooting exactly the same point every shot. Secondly, pistol sights(Open sights) are much harder to get consistent shooting than rifle peep sights. So for accuracy tests, I just like to aim down the sight and see how straight the flight path is, and how closely the next shot follows that same path for consistency.

After installing the Firefly hop up rubber(washed with dish detergent), with the hop up setting tuned perfectly, I could see that the consistency was GREAT . Each shot pretty much followed the last shot, not pin-point, but very nicely. The range was great as well, it flew to about 180 feet(measured) with Marushin 0.30g BBs. I can CONFIDENTLY hit man sized target even out to the end of its flight path. This isn't surprising however as my Mk23 NBB and AK can do this as well. You just need to know the right upgrades and do a proper assembly with careful cleaning.

For Performance, I give it 10/10
For Consistency out of the box, I give it 7/10, 10/10 after the upgrade and cleaning
For Accuracy after upgrade and cleaning, I give it 10/10
For Blowback, I give it 11/10

Pros/Cons:

Pros:
-Great performance, range, consistency and accuracy after a simple hop up rubber upgrade and cleaning!
-Very light weight and wieldable
-Extremely ergonomic grip and fire controls
-Short and Light trigger pull
-Great blowback!!
-20mm Under rail
-H-hop

Cons:
-Some airseal problem with the hop up rubber, very minor
-Magazine jamming and paint scraping problem
-Faster than usual magazine cool-down

Conclusion:
This gun is great except for the airseal and magazine problems which are fairly easy and cheap to fix. The blowback and the ease of firing makes this gun a great piece to shoot!






UPDATE: Tunabreath's Impression

Originally Posted by tunabreath

Ok, I take back everything I said about the hop up adjustment. I opened it up, applied some tape to the outer, and cleaned out the hop up adjustment. There was just a little crap stuck in the grease. It feels good and smooth now, and the thick markings on the wheel are easier to see when not clogged up with grease, so I can tell what it's set to.

Quick takedown is MUCH less finicky than both the TM and KSC Glocks (simpler than TM as far as lining up the slide, simpler than KSC as you don't encounter that hammer issue). There was some video review where the guy needed a tool to flip the takedown lever. He was doing it wrong :P You just have to press the barrel back since the takedown lever actually holds onto the prong on the hop up chamber. It's in the manual.

The safety is quite simply the greatest thing ever once you are accustomed to how to flick it (it's truly a gross movement - when you first start, you try too hard and it's not very easy until you realize you don't have to - just move your finger down to the trigger and it follows).

hattrick, go with the 5-7
20% superior to the Glock, mostly because of features found on the real 5-7 vs the Glock. They have comparable functionality.

(and considering the very high standard of the TM G17...)

*edit, something else that I love. Man, FNH really went all out with ergo-features on this thing, eh?
The back end of the slide has your grooves per normal for grip, but it also has two oval nubs that your can grasp, giving a very similar feeling to an MP7 or TMP style charging handle. It's much better for use when wet/sweaty, poor gripping gloves, etc.

*edit again, for all the lefties out there, I can confirm 100% that the mag catch is fully reversible. It's quite strange to me, actually being able to use my thumb to release the mag... I'm so used to shifting my grip and doing it with my trigger finger.

*quick rough 'n' dirty accuracy test, prone, supported (bipod on the rail ) on a TM target, from 19 feet.
All hits were inside the 8 ring. 3 hit the 10, 3 hit the 9, 2 hit the 8. Grouping is entirely to the left of center, so about 4cm around. This is about on par with AEGs firing full auto, also prone and supported (semi auto is closer to 3cm, the two bolties I have access to are hitting 2.5cm). Zero fliers. Keep in mind the pistol irons are FAR inferior to the magnifying optics used on the other guns when lining up the shot.
One thing that really surprised me was the amount of recoil when supported. When firing normally from your hands, you absorb a lot of it naturally, but on the rigidly supported bipod, the thing would actually leap up from the ground with every shot despite the added weight.

UPDATE: Common Problem with Outer barrel shredding itself from recoil shock.

SOLUTION: Tape the Outer Barrel like so. The tape will act as a shock absorbant, and also eliminate any unwanted movement between the Outerbarrel and Hop up unit(Therefore increasing accuracy as well).

[aznpos531]

Very nice! Thanks for the review

[Kit]

i just came a little lol

[the_hellspawn]

How did you get your hands on this lol. I just can't wait for the next Custom Order (If someone makes one...) I'll definatly get this gun.

My only concern is propane but it seems that it can handle it. Have you perform any upgrade or change on yours that prevent slide failure?

Thanks

[Skladfin]

i doubt there'd be a slide failure anytime soon because there's an actual second layer plastic reinforcement inside the slide. As you can see in this picture

[Amos]

Tm's now reinforcing their slides with plastic?

:S Hopefully it's a pretty robust plastic... Judging by the FPS that you say this gun outputs on propane I'd guess that it isn't designed to be used on green gas... (Those FPS levels are illegal in Japan)

Does the magazine have any kind of over-pressure valve or anything like the MK23?

Also, why'd you put a firefly hard in there? You'd get much better results with a super soft of a soft

Great reveiw, I'd really like to see one of these things in person.

[Skladfin]

Ya, the thing is I was using a heavier BB, so I'm pretty sure it shot slightly harder than it should(Since the BB stays in the barrel slightly longer and lets the gas expand more). So I assume if I tried out 0.20g, I'd get somewhere around 330FPS and that would be fine for the Japanese Market.

No over pressure valve like the mk23. I wonder why they even did that for the mk23, since it shoots the same FPS(around 330) anyway. Holds propane absolutely perfectly

Firefly hard is actually VERY NOTICEABLY softer than stock TM rubbers. Same with the AEG version as well, the Firefly Hard for AEG is as soft as stock TM rubber.

Nineball on the other hand is bitching with the hardness and airseal, but it's so god damn hard and tight(Man, that just doesnt sound right!) that the blowback unit can't return to the original position after every shot(This doesnt sound right either!), decreasing consistency.

any further questions feel free to ask

[Donster]

SOLID review man. i really enjoyed it. Keep them coming with the rest of the stuff you own.

[Jburough]

this would be a nice secondary to a p90 IMO

[the_hellspawn]

Originally Posted by Jburough

this would be a nice secondary to a p90 IMO

Seriously man I'm holding any classified buy until someone does a custom order just to get this.

Thanks for the input about propane use btw.

[Amos]

Originally Posted by Skladfin

Ya, the thing is I was using a heavier BB, so I'm pretty sure it shot slightly harder than it should(Since the BB stays in the barrel slightly longer and lets the gas expand more). So I assume if I tried out 0.20g, I'd get somewhere around 330FPS and that would be fine for the Japanese Market.

No over pressure valve like the mk23. I wonder why they even did that for the mk23, since it shoots the same FPS(around 330) anyway. Holds propane absolutely perfectly

Firefly hard is actually VERY NOTICEABLY softer than stock TM rubbers. Same with the AEG version as well, the Firefly Hard for AEG is as soft as stock TM rubber.

I think they put the overflow valve so you couldn't fill the MK23 up with Red Gas or something that's higher pressure than propane..

But anyways, Firefly rubbers work in a different way than the marui rubbers, because of the two separate nubs it applies a different pressure onto the BB... If you translate the packaging to english there's a FPS recommendation and the hard rubber (If I remember correctly) is somewhere around 400-500 FPS.

If you've got a spare soft I'd give it a try, you'll most likely see an increase in range

[Skladfin]

wanna scan the packaging for me?

i speak japanese its okay, since I dont remember seeing something like that.

[Amos]

I should have a whole bunch of them coming within 2-3 weeks or so.... If I remember I'll take a picture of one for you

[Skladfin]

if it says something like that ill buy one off of you

[Amos]

I may actually have a soft pistol left over... I'll see once they arrive.