The level of engineering has a lot to do with cost. Break this gun down and it looks unlike any pistol you have seen. The slide is the work of a mad genius. Looks very complicated to machine. Remeber what you see of the slide is a polymer cover. The actual slide is under the slide cover, and not visible.

It is carried cocked like a striker fired gun. The trigger is 4.5 lbs. The trigger is the safety. There is a safety if you choose to carry it that way. The gun will not fire if dropped with the safety off.

IT IS NOT A STRIKER FIRED GUN! The hammer is concealed.

You are assuming the round performs like a typical service caliber hollowpoint round, and wounds the same way. IT DOES NOT. If you look at the injuries sustained at Ft Hood you will see what I am saying. When the 5.7 bullet encounters bone it is travelling so fast it shatters the bone, but it still has a great deal of velocity and continues in the body bouncing off bone and ripping tissue until it runs out of gas.

I read a great excerpt by a US Serviceman in Iraq of a shooting with a Five seveN pistol by a Belgian Officer. I just spent 15 mins trying to find the link. When I find it I will post it. Basically the Belgian officer fired one round of FN SS198 at an Iraqi at 50 yards. The pathology showed the bullet entered his chest and came to rest in his buttock. It did some serious damage along its path. Shattered bones, tore through an artery to his heart, deflected down to his buttock and did a great deal of damage along the way. One shot at 50 yards the guy dropped instantly and that was the end of the story.

There are great videos on YouTube that show what 5.7 rounds do to pork shoulders with the bones in.

32 people were killed at Virginia Tech in 2007 and the weapons used were a Glock 19 and a Walther P22. The most commonly used weapon in mass shootings is a 9mm. 

I'll be honest, I'm not really sure that's a good thing. (about it being really complicated)  IMHO.

That's the beauty of it, it is not complicated. It is genius. If it was complicated, in my opinion, it would not be genius.

Thanks! Truth is it is easy to shoot this gun accurately.

I actually just got back from the range, slipped out for lunch. I ran 150 rounds of SS197 through my range Five seveN. Here are a few groups from today. I think the second group down was one of the larger groups of the day. 10 rounds 10 yards offhand.






Here is the link to the ongoing long term test of my range Five seveN in the FN section of this forum:
FN Five Seven Pistol - Long Term Use Range Gun - Updated Here

They look like my 300 yard AR shooting groups.   JUST KIDDING!!!!!  It is strange to see such small holes from a duty type weapon.  LOL.  Good shooting again.  

I'm in the camp of not getting all crazy about exactly the performance of a round.  If it goes bang, hits the intended target, within reason it should do the job.  Although with a handgun you may need more than 1 or 2.  But not always........  And you have plenty of ammo on hand in that gun.  So...  I say if you like it, it's a winner.  

But I would probably carry a .380 and possibly even a .32.  And not feel like OH MY GOD I'M going straight H E double toothpicks.  I might be on the dumb side of the pendulum.  Because a lot of guys are like  a G19 or bust.