I purchased, and have maintained in pristine condition, this Browning Hi-Power with adjustable sights, new in the mid '80's; mfg. in Belgium, assembled in Portugal. The wood grips are handsome but I find them grip-less when shooting in a hot environment unless using shooting gloves. Many choose to remove the magazine disconnect to improve the feel of the 7.5 lb factory trigger pull; however, smoothing all the connecting parts carefully improves it nicely, kinda like a 1911 Series 80 or a heavy trigger pull revolver that is smoothed out.
The back-story on the Hi-Power as I understand it:
The
Browning Hi-Power is a
semi-automatic,
single-action,
9 mm pistol. It is based on ideas conceived and patented in 1922 by American firearms inventor
John Browning, and later patented by
Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN) of Herstal, Belgium. Browning died in 1926, before he had finished developing a production version. The design was fully developed and realized by Belgian arms designer
Dieudonne Saive, working at FN.
The Hi-Power pistol is named for its 13-round magazine capacity, which was almost twice that of contemporary designs such as the
Luger or
Mauser 1910. The Hi-Power had the first functional double-column magazine of
9 mm Parabellum rounds, and was capable of holding 13
cartridges, with a 14th loaded in the chamber.
The Hi Power was designed in response to a French military requirement for a new service pistol, the
Grand Rendement (Fr; "High Yield"), or alternatively
Grand Puissance (literally "high power"). The French military's requirements were that the arm have a 10-round capacity, a magazine disconnect device, an 8-inch barrel, a magazine disconnect device, an external hammer, a positive safety, be robust and simple to disassemble and re-assemble, be capable of killing a man at 50 meters; it should be chambered for the same 9mm Parabellum cartridge that Germany used. It was to accomplish all of this without weighing more than 1kg (2.2 lb).
FN enlisted John Browning to design a new military sidearm conforming to this specification. Browning had previously sold the rights to his successful
M1911 U.S. Army automatic pistol to Colt's Patent Firearms, and was therefore forced to design an entirely new pistol while working around the M1911 patents. Browning built two different prototypes for the project; one was a simple
blowback design, while the other was operated with a
locked-breech recoil system. Both prototypes utilized a new staggered magazine design to increase capacity without unduly increasing the pistol's grip size or magazine length.
The locked breech design was selected for further development and testing. This model was striker-fired, and featured a double-column magazine that held 16 rounds. The design was refined through several trials held by the Versailles Trial Commission.
In 1928, when the patents for the
Colt Model 1911 had expired,
Dieudonne Saive integrated many of the Colt's previously patented features into the
Grand Rendement design, in the Saive-Browning Model of 1928. This version featured the removable barrel bushing and takedown sequence of the Colt 1911.
By 1931, the Hi-Power design incorporated a shortened 13-round magazine, a curved rear grip strap, and a barrel bushing that was integral to the slide assembly. By 1934, the Hi-Power design was complete and ready to be produced. It was first adopted by Belgium for military service in 1935 as the Browning P-35. Ultimately, France decided not to adopt the pistol, instead selecting the conceptually similar
Mle. 1935.
The Browning Hi-Power has undergone continuous refinement by FN since its introduction. The pistols were originally made in two models: an "Ordinary Model" with fixed sights and an "Adjustable Rear Sight Model" with a tangent-type rear sight and a slotted grip for attaching a wooden shoulder stock. The adjustable sights are still available on commercial versions of the Hi-Power, although the shoulder stock mounts were discontinued during WW2. In 1962, the design was modified to replace the internal extractor with an external extractor, modestly improving reliability.
Standard Hi-Powers are based on a
single-action design. Unlike modern '
double-action semi-automatic pistols, the Hi-Power's trigger is not connected to the hammer. If the pistol is carried with the hammer down, the shooter must manually operate the slide in order to cock the pistol. In common with the
Colt 1911, the Hi-Power is therefore typically carried, in military use, with the hammer cocked and the safety catch on (a carry mode often called cocked and locked, or sometimes called
Condition One).
The Hi-Power, like many other Browning designs, operates on the
short-recoil principle, where the barrel and slide initially recoil together until the barrel is unlocked from the slide by a camming action. Unlike Browning's earlier Colt
M1911, the barrel is not moved vertically by a toggling link, but instead by a hardened bar (locking block) which crosses the frame under the barrel and contacts a slot under the chamber, at the rearmost part of the barrel. The barrel and slide recoil together for a short distance but, as the slot engages the bar, the chamber and the rear of the barrel are drawn downward and stopped. The downward movement of the barrel disengages it from the slide, which continues rearward, extracting the spent case from the chamber and ejecting it. After the slide reaches the limit of its travel, the recoil spring brings it forward again, stripping a new round from the magazine and pushing it into the chamber. This also pushes the chamber and barrel forward. The cam slot and bar move the chamber upward and the locking lugs on the barrel reengage those in the slide.
The Hi-Power has two major flaws. The standard trigger pull is poor, especially for a single-action pistol. This disadvantage is a consequence of the Hi-power's magazine safety design, which was initially added to the model to meet the requirements of the French military in 1935. The standard Hi-Power magazine safety is connected directly to the trigger and is actuated by a plunger pressing on the surface of the magazine. This action of the plunger on the magazine adds grit to the trigger pull, and the required force to operate this feature adds weight as well. This problem is often resolved by either removing the magazine safety entirely, thus voiding the pistol's warranty, or by polishing the interface surfaces between the safety plunger and the magazine.
In addition, the pistol has a tendency to "bite" the web of the shooter's hand, between the thumb and forefinger. This bite is caused by pressure from the hammer spur, or alternatively by pinching between the hammer shank and grip tang. Many HP owners address this problem by altering or replacing the hammer.
