[xtimberman]

Does anyone around here like Browning Hi-Powers?

I don't have one, but Mrs. xtm inherited a nice one 30+ years ago, and she occasionally lets me shoot it.

This one is from the early 1950s and shows some use and holster wear. It may be one of the few Renaissance Grade Hi-Powers that has actually shot someone.

George Lawrence #31 Basket-stamped holster rig with a Buck Yachtsman folding knife:

xtm

 

[Gizamo]

That is an absolutely stunning looking HP
My Radar is on full alert wanting more details on that gun and it's history...Any story gun is interesting but that one has to have a heck-of-a lot of stories attached to it....

giz

 

[photohause]

Nice watch too....Elgin?

 

[xtimberman]

Nice watch too....Elgin?

Yes, but not too old - from the late 1920s.

I've always thought it somewhat strange that a fellow who packed a new-fangled autopistol would also carry a pocket watch. Pocket watches and revolvers - particularly single actions - seem to go together.

xtm

 

[onenut58]

 

[xtimberman]

Sweet! ...both of 'em!

xtm

 

[Leighton]

My MKIII sitting with some of her other Browning relatives.

 

[LeMat]

I love 'em, but they slaughter the web of my hand.

 

[shortranger]

P-35s are like 1911s - no collection of serious pistols is complete without one. These days they are too fiddly for my tastes, but mine still shoot better than I do. One of the most accurate pistols I've got is a beat up Argentine with tiny service sights. I have to put it on sandbags to do it, but with ordinary ball ammo it can produce 1" groups at 25 yards.

That's a beautiful pistol, btw. I'd be afraid to shoot it.

David

 

[xtimberman]

I used to consider the Hi-Power to be fiddly, too. Mrs. xtm's would only function at 100% with factory hardball - and would rarely empty a mag of HPs or any other bullet with a different profile without some kind of malf - usually a ftf.

I had a set of reloading dies and a bullet mould, but I wasn't really driven to handload 9mm - and to try to figure out the problem until recent years. If I watched for deals, I could buy 9mm Blazer and first class milsurp stuff cheaper than I could reload it, and the very few boxes of HP ammo I bought didn't bother me.

Once I finally started handloading for the 9mm, I found out that this BHP was finicky about OAL (or rather that the magazines for this BHP are finicky about OAL). If bullets are seated out of the case so that the cartridge will nearly fill the available magazine space - so as to not allow much back-and-forth movement, I will only rarely get a ftf with any HP or TC bullet - and never with a FMJ. Short cartridges tend to move forward in the mag. and aren't picked up properly by the slide on the way to the feed ramp. 1.160"O.A.L. is perfect for FMJs in this pistol and my other 9mm.

xtm

 

[Leighton]

Mrs. XTM's HP is alot older than mine, but my MKIII will eat anything its fed, and even out to 50yds will still put them in the black. To me its classic cool. I had the chance years ago to watch some SAS guys on the pistol range at Grafenwohr, they could really do some majic with their HP's.

Leighton

 

[rimfired]

Xtimberman: That is a spectacular looking HP. I'd like to hear the story too. I've got a shooter from '71. Got to take a better pic.

 

[xtimberman]

When did they go to the spur hammer on the BHP, and is that the reason for the pinched flesh I hear about?

Let's just leave it that many years ago, deserving thugs got plugged in and around Galveston, TX. We'll all have to sit around a real campfire and tell the good tales one of these days. I'm not about to post something on the internet that might do harm to this forum and our interesting study of firearms. No matter how innocent or heroic a shooting might be, our opponents can always find a way to portray it as "alley justice" or in some other illegal and inflammatory light! :|

xtm

 

[Leighton]

I like the campfire idea!! Something we should work on one day.

Leighton

 

[Quarter Cherokee]

Next the 1911, the Browning HP is one of my most favorite auto-loaders. I can't remember when I haven't had one or three floating around here somewhere. Like the 1911, I feed it what it was designed to shoot - the 124 gr. FMJ. I've never experienced any malfunctions with Old John's designs.

 

[m58]

I have a "Practical" MK 111 model in 9mm that make the trip to "Cylinder and Slide" about 10 years ago to have a new Bar-Stol barrel installed. While there I had them replace the hammer, trigger and sear with their parts. I must of missed the part where they tell ya that they have to drill the slide with another hole in order to install these parts and it made me sick to my stomach when I opened the box upon it's return home from their shop. The pistol is a fine shooter and it has won me a good number of trophies over the years but it lost alot of it's eye appeal to me with that modification to it's slide. One day I will cross path with an older model T-series in decent shape for the right price and it will go home with me.

 

[m58]

xtm has it exactly right. Some "Tales of the Gun" ought not to be spoken of on an open public forum.

 

[bmcgilvray]

Here's a early post war FN that I have. The Hi-Power and the 1911 are the two automatics that I admire and trust.

 

[xtimberman]

That's a really nice one. Approx. what year?

Do you have trouble with malfs when shooting bullets other than standard RN FMJs?

xtm

 

[bmcgilvray]

No xtm, it seems to shoot the conventionally shaped hollow points fine. I saw "seems to" because I've not tested it extensively with such rounds nor have I tried any of the more esoteric "performance" 9mm loads in it.

I've not been able to turn up any written documentation on Hi-Powers with mid-4-digit serial number ranges but a fellow who "was suppose to know" told me that it dated from the 1948-1950 time period.

A "Shotgun News" ad from back in the mid 1990s featured Hi-Powers from the Austrian Rural Police and I ordered one out. They weren't very much and it seems like $50 additional would net a "handpicked" better grade gun so I sprung for the extra. The gun appeared unfired/unused and was provided with its original box and cleaning rod. The box is worn but of course I kept it.