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It’s been 30 years since the zippy little 5.7×28 cartridge was introduced, it it was only in August of Anno Domini 2024 that the round was officially accepted by SAAMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute). While the round was popularized early on in the FN P90 (and its video game incarnations), the round has found its way into more conventional firearms as well. Such is the case with the Ruger LC Charger, a large-frame pistol design released in 2023 that many have dubbed the “MP7 at home.”
Lets cover the finer details before going hot.
Tech Specs
- Barrel: 10.3 in. Nitride Finish
- Overall Length: 16 in.
- Weight: 66.5 ounces
- Twist Rate: 1:9RH
- Receiver Coating: Type III Hard-Coat Anodized
- Handguard: MLOK Attachment Slots
- Magazine Capacity: 10 and 20 rounds
- Sights: None
With the back of the receiver having a vertical 1913 picatinny rail, the LC Charger is begging for a brace or SBR stock. Likewise, the threaded barrel yearns for a suppressor, so I added an SAS Reaper. While some will shoot without either, I refuse. The Ruger LC Charger comes with no iron sights, similarly remedied in a hurry with a Bushnell TRS-125.
The LC Charger comes in naked at just over 4 pounds, extremely heavy by traditional handgun standards, and light by modern SBR/PDW standards. With a stock/brace, optic and suppressor, it’s still in the 6 pounds range.
Doing some dry fires and manipulation drills, the LC Charger shows promise. The ambi-safety, bolt release and mag release are all stationed closely together. The charging handle is found forward and left, in the location made common by HK guns like the Mp5, and more recently the PSA JAKL. It’s a good location, and I’m happy to see more guns using it.
The trigger is pretty standard modern fare, which is no insult at all. A good pull, a little creep, before you hit the wall with a clean break. Taking up the slack almost feels like you’re pulling a 2-stage trigger. It might not be a 2-stage, but it’s not going to be your limiting factor in excellent accuracy unless you’re pretty damn good.
Range Days
I hit the range with four types of ammunition, with projectiles all at 40 grains. There were American Eagle, FN GUNR SS201, Speer Gold Dot Personal Protection and FN SS197SR.
First up, I grabbed a quick zero at 25 yards, and shot a few 5-round groups with each type of ammunition. Groups ranged from 1 to 2 MOA. FN SS197SR hovered around 1 MOA, despite being the cheapest round currently (around $.42/per), while Speer Gold ($.73/per) was consistently at the 1.1 MOA mark. American Eagle ($.46/per) grouped well enough, regularly beating 1.5 MOA by a sliver, and FN’s GUNR ($.43/per) round liked the 2 MOA mark.
I popped a couple rounds into 10% calibrated ballistic gel from Clear Ballistics. Both FN rounds, as well as America Eagle penetrated through the 16-inch block and got caught in the vintage level IIa soft armor behind the target. Speer’s Gold Dot stopped very consistently 12.5-inch deep in the block, +/-.5 inch.
I shot steel at 100 yards, working over the mini E-type silhouette with ease. Each round dropped right where the red dot was holding. The LC Charger is light and nicely balanced.
I did CQB drills at 15 yards with the suppressor off, because as much as I like shooting with a can on, I do have some responsibility to make sure it runs without one. Even with the SAS Reaper Ti muzzle brake/suppressor mount on, this gun doesn’t have much ‘boom.’ There’s a lot less powder and pressure than with a .223 round and it’s noticeable.
Just for kicks, I set up the old Level IIa soft plate on the Infinite Defense target and popped it with each round. As I completely expected, there were little laser beam holes through the armor. I didn’t really need to do this, but it was fun.
What I Liked
There’s a lot to like in the Ruger LC Charger, so I’ll rapid fire here. This is an accurate gun. Ergonomics are pretty good. The safety especially, I naturally hit it when I lower the rifle. It’s in just the right spot. There is laughably little recoil. In a couple range days (and no cleaning), I’ve had one failure-to-feed. It happened in the first 200 rounds and hasn’t happened again since. The LC Charger is light and compact. It’s definitely a good truck gun if you don’t need a caliber with more ass.
What I Didn’t
The 5.7 is longer than most “pistol” calibers. This matters in guns where the mag is within the grip, as it is in the LC Charger. The grip is longer front-to-back than I prefer, but my caveman hands are shorter and wider than most. If you’re over 5 foot, 7inches I doubt you’ll notice. It’s not such a huge grip that it’s unshootable, just less comfortable. I bet my kids are going to love shooting this, regardless.
There’s one little hiccup that happened, and is interesting to me. The first round from every mag was loaded by letting the bolt drop from the locked position. The recoil impulse on that first round was significantly different than every other round. Caught me off guard a few times, to the point I broke the gun down to check for a squib. Nope, functions and accuracy were unchanged on these “light” recoiling first rounds… Maybe the bolt is locking up differently when dropped from a locked position rather than racking and dropping the bolt from full rearward travel? Worth mentioning even if it never led to a problem, as it might throw you off the first time, too.
End of the Line
Small rifle/large pistol, check. The LC Charger is fun to shoot, and shoots well, check. The 5.7 round holds up its end of the bargain as a low recoil, zippy little fella, check. If a .22 Magnum hit the gym for leg day, the 5.7 is what you’d end up with. This is my first experience with 5.7, and I’m now a fan. Now, I’m looking forward to getting some terminal data gathered on critters.
The Ruger LC Charger has an MSRP of $999 and a current street price around $750. If you’re on the fence, I hope my experience has given you a stronger opinion one way or the other. As for me, I dig the LC Charger and look forward to making this a part of my permanent collection.
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Why is the civilian market giving so much attention to 5.7 now? It penetrates poorly, doesn’t create impressive wound cavities, and doesn’t transfer much energy. It’s an expensive niche gimmick.
Everyone began designing their own 5.7 platform when it became a NATO standard round a few years ago.
S.Crock,
I believe there are two facets of the FN FiveSeven that attracts people to it–it has a muzzle velocity well over 2,000 feet-per-second which means:
1) “flat shooting” well beyond traditional handgun calibers.
2) ability to penetrate most/all ballistic vests (without steel/ceramic plates).
And you get that without significant recoil.
Is that cartridge as devastating as a rifle round? Of course not. Does it provide the ability to suppress–much more effectively than most/all other handgun calibers–attackers with ballistic vests as well as attackers out at 100 yards? Why yes, yes it does.
Caveat to #2 against older kevlar multiple loadings in 5.7 had various abilities to penetrate (similar to high speed all copper 9mm). Newer soft pistol armor is often rated for most 5.7 loadings that are not coming out of a rifle (or 10 inches+ barrel), using actual AP ammo, or some exotic but fully legal all copper dart. With that said mil/police surplus soft armor would probably have problems depending on age and use so it would cover the low end well.
SAFEupstateFML,
Ahh. Good to know!
Rambling aside lot of soft armor defeating potential with small surface area and high velocity, just needs the right combination of hardness and bullet construction. I think it was vanguard outfitters black dang/talon/dragon/something or another that one of us got a hold of with some oddball conversion AR pistol monstrosity (VT trip) and it had no problems shredding 3a panels of the .04 NIJ kevlar and the typical lead bullets would get through seemingly every other shot around 20 yards away from a 16 inch barrel. With that said the panel had several holes by the time we got to ball ammo from the copper spikes.
A large portion of the shooting population has wanted to carry a .22 LR for defense. This gives them reliable ignition, higher mag capacities, no recoil, and enough energy to complete the task at hand. It makes for a very good choice for home defense as well as option for female shooters and elderly.
Wasn’t that the idea with 25acp?
the idea? yes. The execution? Didn’t quite catch on.
When I first got to this part : “ Doing some dry fires and manipulation drills, the LC Charger shows promise.” I thought yea that sounds about right, can’t afford the ammo to actually shoot with it.
Thats one of the reasons i just cant bring myself to the 5.7, the other being you cant really reload for it (without significant hurdles).
Besides being able to find appropriate equipment/components is it any worse than 32acp?
I was going to chime in with some wisdom here, regarding the benefits of having calibers that you can easily reload (I’ve even considered tinkering with 22LR reloading, which isn’t easy), but then I remembered that I like the Tok, so I’m just going to shut up.
Just finished up batches of 357 Sig and 475 Linebaugh……..yeah never going to get on anyone’s uncommon case.
Good defensive ammo is a bit expensive, but bulk 5.7 is 40 cents per round… hardly back breaking
Fair enough for states where direct mail order is a thing without police maintained ammo databases. For the odd ones where bulk ammo is either reloaded or questionably legal out of state purchases (yes it’s legal but our state police do have a history of watching places outside of NY) options can be a bit more limited/expensive one way or another.
I checked the ammo prices at my local gun store. While I wouldn’t say it’s a rich person’s gun. You will have to have a very high income inorder to shoot this thing monthly.
I think my ruger take down charger, in 22LR, is a better deal.
40 cents per round if you order online, not terribly expensive. My local store has it for $2/round, which is laughable.
A 10/22 is definitely cheaper, as is .22LR. If someone wants to step up the power (and reliability) to centerfire, this is a pretty good option.
Does the author know what “MOA” means?
Yes, the author is very familiar with both minutes of angle and milliradians
Apologies if I am misreading the photos, but groups looked more like 1-2 inches, not . 25 to . 5 inches, and the distance is stated as 25 yards.
Given that Birchwood-Casey makes a number of different sized orange dot targets that (besides size) are otherwise near identical, it’s pretty clear I should have left the calipers in the picture for reference.
Groups were ~.25″ to .5″ @ 25, next time I shoot this I’ll add a picture with the measurements shown
Now, let’s compare this round with the 22TCM!
It used to frustrate the heck out of me that 5.7 was getting so much more attention when – on paper – TCM wins hands down. Paul Harrell (RIP) got the same velocity from a TCM 1911 as he did from a 16″bbl Ruger!
In practice, I’ve had the worst reliability with TCM from three very different guns (and numerous permutations / upgrades / tries with each). I finally gave up and got an M&P 5.7, which is amazing in every way.
Noted and probably scratching that off the list for future experiments. Going to guess 1911 was one of them but what were the others?
Correct, one was a 1911A2 (doublestack). The others were a MAPP (Witness-P, i.e. polymer CZ75, built by the Filipino originators of the cartridge) and an M-11/9 (straight blowback, FN delayed blowback, and Kimball delayed blowback barrels) – mirror polished chambers, feedramps, and rails, wide range of recoil springs, extra-length FP, extra-power mainspring, reduced power firing pin spring, etc. etc..
As one might infer from the fact that the cartridge is only slightly fatter, MUCH shorter, yet much more powerful than 5.7, it seems to be much higher in pressure even though it’s rated 12kpsi(!) lower. The straight-walled case without the 5.7’s special lube doesn’t help either. If it doesn’t fail to ignite, it either overexpands on ignition and welds itself into the chamber; case-head separates; blows primers; or partially extracts, FTEs, and has its (VERY bulged) base re-rammed into the chamber.
Again, it’s possible that I just got a bad case of ammo because others have had good reviews, but the fact that the company seems to have silently discontinued just about everything seems to reinforce my results.
I always seem to learn the most from looking into oddball configurations. I do keep forgetting it is based off a 2.23 and not a necked down pistol cartridge.
Yeah, the fact that it was doing all those things to supposed rifle brass just makes it that much worse. Frankly, I think several of the issues I’ve seen could have been much better if they had started with the gently tapered 9×19 case.
The mad scientist in me wonders what could be done with the unwanted 30sc brass but 9 or a lengthened 380 may be more suitable.
I don’t think you’d need to neck down SC as much as just come up with a light-bullet load for it; the longer case should help.
On that note, one factor I forgot to mention in previous posts was that finding good light-bullet loads for 9mm (arriving today!) helped change my mind about TCM. Why keep beating my head against the wall with a malfunctioning orphan cartridge that throws 40gr at 2000fps when the most ubiquitous centerfire cartridge throws 50gr at the same velocity?
Liberty started selling components? Or different one for what I am guessing is 50 grain 9mm copper (various design)
No, loaded ammo.
The great thing about the .30’s longer case is that you could use a light bullet with lead and save the powder room.
you claim 1-2 moa group out off the pistol?, I don’t think you understand what MOA is.
A minute of angle is 1/60th of a degree. This meansures out at 1.047″ at 100 yards. center-to-center of furthest rounds apart in these groups were around .25″ to .5″ at 25 yards. multiply that by 4 to get 100 yards, then divide by 1.047″ to convert to Minutes of Angle. If it’s .25″ to centers at 25 yards, that comes in at .955 MOA. The .5″? That’s 1.91 MOA.
I’m starting to think you don’t know what a minute of angle is.
that’s exactly what I ‘m saying 1/4″ group means all projectsils went through one hole almost.
Shooting groups are measured center-to-center. you can also measure outermost rim of the farthest holes apart, then subtract diameter of the bullet.
Over 100 years ago, Mr. Browning created the 25 ACP to replace the 22LR for “self-protection”. (Modern 22WMR is now so much better than the 22LR or the 25 ACP for self-defense.) Why is everyone so into the 5.7×28, but when Mr. Johnson necked down the 30 Carbine case to 22 caliber and created the 5.7×33 (22 Spitfire), everyone just yawned? Even the now obsolete 221 Fireball is only known as the parent case for the 300 Blackout. Either cartridge would be more efficient/effective than the 5.7×28. However, I could see that now RUGER owns MARLIN, they could revamp the lever action model 62 and convert it from 30 Carbine to 5.7×28. With a 16.2+ inch barrel, using the CHARGER magazines, that revamp model 62 could be a near perfect “Non-Black Rifle” for home or vehicle defense.
While neat and probably the best option for ban states re 5.7 the question I would start with is could it ever begin to sell enough to recover design costs? With that out of the way I wonder if anyone did a custom job along those lines yet.
As long as Ruger uses that awful safe action trigger I’d look elsewhere. The blade in my trigger jams up often a real POS. I should have bought the S&W or even the PSA instead.
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