Back when Fabrique Nationale introduced the 5.7x28mm cartridge and both of its parent firearms, the P90 and Five-seveN, I had been intrigued by this tiny bottlenecked cartridge, however the prohibitively expensive price of admission had kept me away. Lately the climate has been shifting. The 5.7 hype is only getting hotter while the prices on firearms chambered for it have been cooling down and what used to be as rare as hen’s teeth is becoming more readily available. The current gateway to the 5.7 world begins with the Palmetto State Armory “Rock,” but don’t be quick to discount this more budget friendly option.
Admission: I purchased a PSA Rock, sight unseen, based purely upon its aesthetics. The FNs are expensive and feel kind of “eh” in my hand. The Ruger wasn’t bad but it also didn’t trip my trigger. The Smith & Wesson had the best trigger feel out of all four of these handguns but it’s one of the ugliest firearms I can recall having seen. The Rock, the most affordable out of the four, had not only gotten rave reviews since first being introduced but it’s the only one out of the bunch which straight-up looks like a proper handgun.
The grip has contours and definitions which at first glance had me thinking it wouldn’t feel like gripping a 2×4. The barrel and slide aren’t super long and super skinny. The trigger and guard aren’t ridiculously tiny (looking at you here, Smith.) The Rock has proper proportions. It looks like it’s intended to be held by a human hand. It doesn’t appear awkward or ungainly or bizarre. It just straight up looks like a modern striker fired gun. The first point goes to PSA since first impressions matter, you guys have the sexiest 5.7 pistol currently available.
This is how we ended up here this month. See, PSA is the underdog in this race. The other names are all huge. You will find their firearms in most any store. PSA guns on the other hand only seem to be available directly on their website which is often woefully sparse in product images. I had to take a leap of faith with this one, though fortunately a not too expensive one. If you’re really looking to pinch pennies, PSA frequently has incredible sales or blemished items which are at a lower discount. It’s also quite common to find packaged deals available. When I was picking out mine they had several models of the Rock complete with TEN magazines and a soft pistol case, or the Rock already outfitted with a Holosun optic, for a flat six hundred dollars. During the Father’s Day sales you could knock another twenty or thirty bucks off of this. If you’re up for hand picking components and don’t mind omitting an optic or an entire range bag’s worth of spare mags you can cut this price down even further.
Speaking of, during the last Memorial Day sales you could get a blemished lower and a fully tricked out upper for $360. Pick up a mag and you’re good to go.
Did I mention the magazines hold 23 rounds as standard and only cost twenty dollars each? This puts PSA in the lead by exactly one round over the M&P 5.7 and three rounds over both the Ruger and the FN. Actually, I take that back. The first time loading one of the Rock mags I thought the 23rd round didn’t quite match the witness hole for 23 so I popped a 24th in, no problem. Between the tiny slippery rounds and double stack/double feed nature these mags were a bit painful to load on new springs, though!
What I ended up with is a grey lower receiver, a “premium” upper called the RK1 with suppressor height sights (which I believe are Ameriglow XL Suppressor Sights,) lightening cuts, Shield optics cut (I think it’s an RMSc footprint?) with RMR and Docter adapter plates, and a 1/2×28 threaded Chameleon PVD finished fluted barrel. Add in two magazines and two boxes of American Eagle 5.7 which were on sale and I still came in at a lower cost than most of the competition can provide with nothing more than a basic pistol.
I will admit, first in person impressions were a mixed bag. Granted, I wasn’t looking for the FN’s service history here and PSA is the newest manufacturer out of the bunch; All I wanted was a delivery platform for this mild recoiling round. PSA delivers here. Their focus isn’t on chasing military contracts or international sales. Their motto is taken straight from the wording of the Second Amendment, an American company focusing on providing affordable arms to the American people. From what I’ve been seeing they’ve been doing a fantastic job of it, plenty of PSA branded boxes have passed through the Range in the last few years. I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to guns and accessories but I too have an ever growing collection of PSA branded products.
Having had a chance to handle all four of these popular 5.7 pistols (and shoot two) I am confident in saying the Rock does suffer from the worst trigger out of the bunch…at first. (Foreshadowing!) For those keeping score I’d give the Ruger third place, the FN second, and the S&W first, but stay tuned. The Rock’s trigger in particular did puzzle me some. If you do a swift full pull then it runs and breaks fine, a bit heavy but cleaner than a factory Glock by a good margin. It’s when you try to do a slow, careful pull where the Rock’s trigger will hit a wall and will actively fight you tooth and nail before breaking, it’s one of the heavier pulls I’ve ever felt and easily the stiffest trigger out of my semi auto family.
The solution: Tons of dry-fire. For about five days I dedicated a chunk of time to racking and pulling while settled in with some online videos. It’s made a big difference with that resistant shelf now feeling about 40% better, give or take.
In fact… Following the first range experience I once again dry-fired the now more broken in Rock alongside the Smith again and, no fooling here, I could not tell a difference between the two. PSA managed to pull a complete 180 here, going from the worst trigger to being parallel with the best.
Another consideration with the trigger, which PSA markets as being flat faced but has a shallow radius throughout, is the drop safety. The Rock’s trigger prefers a lower finger placement. If you’re a little too high the trigger will constantly get caught up by this safety. Thankfully the shape of the grip promotes this alignment but I do occasionally ride a little too high and get caught up by it. A final curiosity: When the slide is locked open the trigger cannot be pulled at all. Something prevents it from any travel. I couldn’t say why but you could see this as another way which the pistol communicates with the user when it is time to reload.
Other details I’m not a big fan of: The texturing on the backstrap runs a half inch higher than I’d like. With all of that dry fire practice the web of my thumbs were getting very sore. The grip texturing isn’t the super sandpapery feel of the others but in short order of gripping and ripping the slide it felt like trying to wrangle a cheese grater.
The slide catch is a metal component but the button your thumb would hit is polymer, making this a two piece component. I question how long this might hold up with use.
The matte black finish on the slide is fine, there aren’t any bare spots but looking closely enough I can see subtle blotching and streaking which almost gives it a black blob camo vibe. I can’t call this one a complaint so much as an observation.
When racking the slide all the way back there’s some notable friction from the lower. I don’t know what this is and it shouldn’t cause any issues but it’s not a great feeling when racking the Rock.
The magazine release is pretty stiff and has a short range of motion. Sometimes the magazines will get stuck, sometimes they drop free. In addition, inserting a magazine causes the mag body to catch on the …catch, requiring a decisively firm reloading action on the shooter’s part. Slap that sucker home. A nice detail, the bottom of the magwell has a contoured extended lip to help guide the mag in.
The included optics plates are aluminum. Most manufacturers do this but aluminum is a terrible choice over steel for this part! I’ve seen more stripped out aluminum optic plates lately for all sorts of reasons. A brief search for steel Shield to RMR adapter plates got me nowhere, they convert in the opposite direction.
Now for the good, and there really is a lot of good to be said for the Rock. First and foremost: Ergonomics. By nature of a 5.7 the grip is long and skinny but this is the first one I’ve seen which legit feels as though it had been made for the human hand. It fits great, it points great (I do tend to hold a bit right, probably due to how long the grip is,) the trigger guard is at the perfect angle against the middle finger knuckle, the mag and slide release controls are accessible without having to break my grip, index points can be found on either side above the trigger, it’s just plain GOOD.
One neat little detail I noticed is a small dished in area at the bottom of the slide catch. What’s it for? Manually locking the slide open! PSA went as far as to trim down the fencing around the slide catch here to make it more convenient for manual operation of this control. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done before.
Simplicity. The Rock doesn’t have a lot of components and the pieces under the hood aren’t unnecessarily machined. For instance, the takedown lever moves a chunky rod rather than a rectangular block which would have required more cost to produce.
A full length Picatinny rail with three cross slots provides options for accessories. Iron sights are Glock compatible so no one should ever be wanting for variety. The barrel is considerably more beefy than the competition but fluted to help reduce the weight. Threaded variants will take any AR-15 muzzle device, though just because you can doesn’t mean you should. More on this soon.
The machining is also quite good on the Rock. While I can see some rougher marks within the barrel flutes the outside of the slide is as crisp as you could want. All of the lines, whether functional or artistic, are smooth and perfectly defined.
Parts! If you want or need parts PSA has them offered. If you want to change up the look of yours you can find a multitude of barrel and slide options in various finishes or tricked out with various creature comforts. Pricing is quite good all around.
Magazines. For real, I love this. While I can’t attest to their durability, twenty dollars for brand new factory 23 round magazines is just incredible. Many manufacturers will get you with the Extra Mag Tax with some varieties running as high as seventy or eighty bucks each!
One more detail which is so small as to be overlooked is the frame to slide fitment. Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a polymer framed gun with a slide gap big enough to see your neighbor through. The Rock already has great fitment but the polymer lower has shallow ledges running the entire length which help to slightly bury the slide within, completely eliminating any unsightly gaps. No light is getting through here.
The Rock really does give you a lot for your money.
Everything comes down to the range experience. With the PSA Rock my initial enthusiasm hit the floor in the same moment the empty brass landed after manually clearing the chamber. The gun fired fine but would short-cycle, refusing to eject the empty. My heart sank. By saving some money on the gun did I end up getting something which wouldn’t work? Frustrated, I decided to pop a linear compensator on the end which I had wanted to add to help channel some of this pistol’s considerable bark downrange. On the upside I managed to build myself a brand new straight-pull firearm!
Unlike the FN’s fixed barrel and the Smith’s rotating collar design, the Rock has a “delayed blowback” which recoils straight rear-ward unlike most tilting lock handgun actions. The Rock seems to be sensitive to muzzle attachments and with a round like the 5.7 I wouldn’t recommend an aluminum muzzle device. Suppressors will likely require a booster for proper function.
This is only the beginning, I promise. After around 20 rounds I field-stripped the Rock and checked for any signs of unusual wear. Everything looked clean and good so I reassembled it, now without the heavy steel compensator on the end. The next time I pulled the trigger everything had sorted itself out. Twenty three rounds ripped downrange. I reloaded then sent twenty three more chasing after the first volley. Following some initial teething issues the Rock suddenly became rock solid. Just like I had to break in the trigger the pistol itself needed some time to settle in.
The taller iron sights weren’t lining up right at thirty feet but they were close enough. If you’re looking for target shooting then either find an adjustable rear or do what PSA probably expects most people to do and slap an optic onto it. Other than the sights the Rock is turning into a real solid performer, just be prepared to spend a little time with it before everything’s up to speed.
Wrapping up a long review, the PSA Rock had impressed me, disappointed me, then impressed me anew. I won’t say it’s the best 5.7 pistol on the market but for your money it is easily the best value and a really darn fun gun regardless. If you’re curious to dip your toes into the 5.7mm pool then definitely consider the Rock and have some fun choosing the parts for your build.
