Watched an episode of “Gun Stories” that detailed the history of this particular gun. Seems to be one of history’s classic semiautos that has been manufactured and used worldwide by an impressive number of countries. FN only recently (2017?) ended production.
As far as steel-framed semiautos, the Hi-Power doesn’t seem to be mentioned as often as, say, the 1911 or CZ-75. Was it not as popular in the US as in other countries?
Not adopted by our military. Not adopted by any major police departments. Was most popular BEFORE the age of widespread concealed carry of handguns by civilians… So, no, not as popular.
Not as popular being relative I suppose. It is past it’s prime in popularity. It’s an “old guy” gun, more so than the 1911. I only have one personally. An Argentine FM licensed model. At one time I had the opportunity to pick up a WW2 British, a Nazi proofed, and a Canadian Ingliss from different sources. I thought that would be cool but I never did it.
They are nice pistols. The trigger can be made quite nice. I like em but not enough to spend the money on nice ones.
The 9mm was not as popular in the US during the HiPower’s heyday and revolvers were king. The age of the “wondernine” ushered in double action pistols with higher magazine capacities. Add in the fact that the Belgian HiPowers were never cheap and its not hard to understand why they are not more common.
I love my MKII despite the fact it was built in Portugal.
Andy
Remember a few years ago watching the documentary Cocaine Cowboys. When they interviewed a retired Miami detective he said after the he saw first hand the first broad day hit where the gunmen used mac10s he went out the next day and bought a high-power to replace his duty revolver
I had two, now down to one. Both Belgian Israeli trade ins. Unfortunately I sold one, along with a bunch of other stuff, a few months before prices went through the roof! [emoji53][emoji45]
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I had a blued .40. I wanted to like it, but that bastard had a 10# trigger. Removing the magazine disconnect improved it some, and smoothed it out a lot, but the trigger was still at 7#. I just didn’t like shooting it.
Combine that with the shortage of good smiths and I realized one day that HP just wasn’t for me.
I think the P35 is inarguably a classic; the most widely used handgun in Military use in the Free World for several decades.
I still have a few but have gifted several as well. I went through a period of modifying and “improving” them several years back and became very familiar with them.
Great pistols for concealed carry if one is fond of single action.
I think the biggest reason BHPs never were super popular here was that by the time the average American pistol shooter got interested 9mms the Smith 39 and 59 were much more widely available, and modern guns like Sig and Glock were already starting to catch on.
I like the Hipower a lot, but it can be a quirky gun. In GI configuration the trigger suffers from the mag disconnect, some people get hammer bite, and there was a lot less aftermarket support than for 1911s. Slightly tuned a HP is a hell of a gun. Fun fact, the first Americans to hit the ground in Afghanistan after 1911 was a CIA team that was carrying BHPs, for the first few years of that war a lot of the OGA guys had HPs before they started carrying Glocks.
The Hi-Power is the 1911 of much of the non-US world.
It was the original hi cap pistol.
Where I grew up, police bought their own guns, but had to start out with the Smith .357. Most of them stuck with it; it was what they were familiar with and already had. A few, looking for more power, upgraded to the .44 magnum.
Some switched to the 1911 in .45. But once in a while, you’d see one with the Hi-Power. More ammo.
I’ve got a couple BHP’s, one still NIB (going to my youngest daughter later this year). Old School beautiful blued steel with walnut grips. I’ll hang on to my old 1990 version, I’m not sure I could wear it out in three lifetimes. Get one when you can, they’re not going to go down in value and you will enjoy shooting it. Like a 1911, it’s easy to CCW it too.
The Hi Power has long been one of my favorite handguns from an aesthetic standpoint, and it is definitely a classic. I also have one of the FN made Israeli police trade ins. I’ve shot it, but not a lot, and it mostly just sits in my safe. As much as I like the Hi Power, for me, having done the vast majority of my handgun shooting and carrying with striker fired types, the idea of having to disengage a manual safety on the draw just isn’t something I feel like training myself to do, so my BHP is likely to remain mostly a collectible.
Although to be fair, I don’t seem to have an issue with manually operating the safety on an AR when getting on and coming off target…so I could probably learn to do with with a pistol too. I just don’t want to.
I really enjoy customized Hi Powers. So far I’ve owned customized guns by Ted Yost, Cylinder and Slide, and Chuck Warner. They are extremely ergonomic and great shooters. I do think they need some smithing before reaching their full potential.
As others have said, the caliber and availability were the reasons they didn’t catch on in the USA. But when you think it took until the 70-80’s for the wonder 9 trend to arrive it’s pretty amazing that this was around in the 30’s.
I often wished that manufacturers like Springfield, Kimber etc would have produced an updated clones of the HP. In the original Browning Mil configuration, I didn’t enjoy the gun at all. When I tried Novak’s modified one, well it was love at round #3!! While at the time I could not afford a custom gunsmith 1911, I could afford the lightly upgraded/ production customized 1911s on the market. Too bad there wasn’t the same effort put into the BHP as there was 1911 ones.
I was very very fortunate to be gifted one and it is an absolute beauty, great grips, great trigger great…
PB
I remember back in the early 90’s seeing a bunch of them (surplus) at a gun show all strung together with one of those cables through the trigger guards. I don’t recall how much they cost but I’ll wager it wasn’t very much.
I don’t know about early 90s but a decade or so later surplus HiPowers were in the $300ish range
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The Hi Power in the US is like the FAL vs the M14. Once you leave the US, they’re pretty prolific.
I’m a fan.
Y’all should have seen BHP prices at he gun show today. Median around $1500.
Everything is at record prices now !
I like the idea of the Hi Power, definitely a nice looking pistol but the grip and control layout was always way too little for my hands.
The little bit I shot one my trigger finger went all the way through the trigger guard and was touching my other hand, my weak side thumb was on the dust cover of the slide stop, my strong thumb was way past the thumb safety, and the hammer chewed up the web of my hand.
Something about the steel on steel frame and slide made the recoil light, yet very sharp and bothered my wrist. I wrote that thing off as an obsolete antique :laugh:
Great size pistol for a middle school age girl, but too dainty for the average male.