Browning Hi-Power

This week for Firearm Friday we are back on a pistol, and what a pistol!. Time to look at a Browning Hi-Power.

The Browning Hi-Power is a single-action, semi-automatic pistol available in the 9×19mm and .40 S&W. 

It was based on a design by American firearms inventor John Browning, and completed by Dieudonné Saive at FN Herstal. Browning died in 1926, several years before the design was finalized. FN Herstal named it the "High Power" in allusion to the 13-round magazine capacity, almost twice that of other designs at the time, such as the Walther P38 or Colt M1911.

During World War II, Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany and the FN factory was used by the Wehrmacht to build the pistols for their military, under the designation 9mm Pistole 640. FN Herstal continued to build guns for the Allied forces by moving their production line to a John Inglis and Company plant in Canada, where the name was changed to "Hi Power". The name change was kept even after production returned to Belgium. The pistol is often referred to as an HP or BHP,

The Hi-Power is one of the most widely used military pistols in history, having been used by the armed forces of over 50 countries. Although most pistols were built in Belgium by FN Herstal, licensed and unlicensed copies were built around the world, in countries such as Argentina, Hungary, India, Bulgaria, and Israel

After 82 years of continuous production, FN Herstal announced that the production of the Hi-Power would end, and it was discontinued in early 2018 by Browning Arms.

The Browning Hi-Power was designed in response to a French military requirement for a new service pistol, the French required the following.
The gun must be compact.
The magazine has a capacity of at least 10 rounds.
The gun has a magazine disconnect device, an external hammer, and a safety.
The gun is robust and simple to disassemble and reassemble.
The gun is capable of killing a man at 50 m.

FN commissioned 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 in Utah and filed the patent for this pistol in the United States on 28 June 1923.

By 1934, the Hi-Power design was complete and ready to be produced. Ultimately, France decided not to adopt the pistol, instead selecting the conceptually similar but lower-capacity Model 1935 pistol. However, it was good enough to stand on its own as a service pistol for the Belgian Army and other clients. These would become the Grande Puissance, known as the High Power, in Belgium for military service in 1935 as the Browning P-35.

Browning Hi-Power pistols were used during World War II by both Allied and Axis forces. After occupying Belgium in 1940, German forces took over the FN plant. Examples produced by FN in Belgium under German occupation bear German inspection and acceptance marks. In German service, it was used mainly by Waffen-SS and Fallschirmjäger personnel.

While the Hi-Power remains an excellent and iconic design, since the early 1990s it has been replaced somewhat by more modern designs which are often double-action with aluminum alloy frames and are manufactured using more modern methods. However, even to this day, the Hi-Power remains in service throughout the world.

Our pictured Hi-Power is a MK II & a Canadian MK1 that will take a butt stock, however we have a few on display in our museum and from time to time we also have some for sale.