Browning High Power Pistols
Details
The Browning "Hi-Power " pistol is undoubtedly one of the finest automatic pistols ever developed. The last design to spring from the inventiveness of John M. Browning, it was patented in 1927, soon after his death.
The first mode! of this pistol to see official use was the French military model of 1935 in 9mm parabellum, as manufactured at Fab-rique Nationale in Belgium, This is quite similar to most Hi-Powers found in genera! use, featuring the 13-shot magazine. St also had the fairly common tangent rear sight, and was fitted with a shoulder stock similar to the stock-holsters on early Mauser military pistols.
The Belgian government adopted a somewhat different model in the late 30's that had a shorter (10-shot) magazine, and a shortened slide. The Roumanians adopted a mode! similar to the French M-35 at about the same time. Thus when Belgium was overrun by the Nazis in the Second World War, FN was producing Hi-Powers in quantity. The Nazis held it in high regard as a military pistol, and some 200,000 were produced under German control. The Hi-Powers produced under Nazi occupation were subject to sabotage during manufacture, and the barrel nose, barrel nose seating, barrel locking lugs, and slide recesses should be closely examined on any Hi-Power showing Nazi proofs to ascertain that all bearing and locking surfaces are correct.
A first cousin of the Hi-Power was developed in Poland in 1935 with the help of technicians from FN, Commonly called the "Radom " from its place of manufacture, it differs from the original Hi-Power in that it has an 8-shot magazine, grip safety, and a special hammer release mechanism.
Located on the left side of the slide, the release lever moves the floating firing pin forward and then drops the hammer harmlessly against the firing pin recess, merely as a safe way of lowering the hammer on a loaded chamber. Thousands of these Radoms were also produced under Nazi occupation when the Germans overran Poland, and many have been reported sabotaged to fire when the hammer release Is tripped. If a Radom bears Nazi proofs, it should be checked for a firing pin that is too long, or hammer recess that is cut too deeply. This hammer release feature was left off many of the very late production Radoms, and on these the same barrel and slide areas as on the above Hi-Powers were often sabotaged. Hence, these points should also be checked on Nazi Radoms.
During the War many of the engineers from FN escaped to Canada, where they were instrumental in the John Inglis Company's tooling up to produce the Hi-Power pistol, Inglis manufactured quantities
You may also be interested in the following product(s)
Smith & Wesson's AutosRegular Price: $19.95 Special Price: $17.95 |
Check items to add to the cart or select all
You have no items in your shopping cart.
You have no items to compare.
