Browning Hi-Power - how good is this gun

Brettzky

Brettzky

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Anyone with a wide variety of experience care to weigh in on this very old timeless design?

It's the first gun that back in the early 90's, whenever I saw one in a gun catalogue, it was the one I instantly wanted. But out of the dozens and dozens of guns I've had in my revolving door, never got around to trying for some reason.

What are it's closest competitors and how does it rank for shootability, recoil management, and maintenance?
 
Anyone from the CF will chime in negatively on the pistol(Due to age and use), Anyone who was not CF will most likely have only positive things to say.

That being said, In my Experience they are great guns, Dated design but robust and reliable. Haven't upkept to a modern look like the 1911 has but still a good gun, Heavy enough to absorb recoil much better than a poly counterpart. Maintenance is a breeze, Super easy take down.
Your not going to find a new browning Hi-power right now unless its on the used market, But quite a few Girsan(Turkish copies) are still in stock I believe, I haven't heard any negative comments on them and it may be your last chance to get a Hi-Power, I'll take a look after and post any links with stock I find.

https://www.gotenda.com/product/girsan-mcp35-9mm-4-87-pistol-dual-tone/
https://www.gotenda.com/product/girsan-mcp35-9mm-4-87-pistol-barrett-brown/
https://www.gagnonsports.com/copy-of-girsan-mcp35-9mm-487-pistol-barrett-brown.html
https://theammosource.com/girsan-pc35-hi-power-clone-9mm-black/

I don't expect many of these will make it to the end of the month, Act fast if you want one.
 
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Craig0ry said:
Anyone from the CF will chime in negatively on the pistol(Due to age and use), Anyone who was not CF will most likely have only positive things to say.

That being said, In my Experience they are great guns, Dated design but robust and reliable. Haven't upkept to a modern look like the 1911 has but still a good gun, Heavy enough to absorb recoil much better than a poly counterpart. Maintenance is a breeze, Super easy take down.
Your not going to find a new browning Hi-power right now unless its on the used market, But quite a few Girsan(Turkish copies) are still in stock I believe, I haven't heard any negative comments on them and it may be your last chance to get a Hi-Power, I'll take a look after and post any links with stock I find.
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That's because of the CF members that have chimed in negatively here.

From some of the folks that carried them offshore, in conflict zones, they were issued New Old Stock pistols that worked very well, as long as their magazines were kept functional and not used for such things as taking the lids off bottles and other such uses.

I have a 1T series pistol and it's never given me any problems, other than one bad magazine. This pistol has over 25K rounds down the barrel, which has been replaced with a commercial barrel out of Europe.

I still have the original barrel but back in the day, I loaned it to a fellow for a three gun shoot and he shot surplus corrosive ammo through it, put it away for a month and came back to a bore almost plugged with rust.

The bore wasn't salvageable IMHO.
 
I had one issued for both runs in Kandahar, left it in KAF sealed in a box to return it clean and unused. Useless as a combat pistol. Only good to go buy cheap rugs at the market or walking around with a coffee in a shoulder holster.

And its heavy to lug around given it’s unreliable track record in environnement outside CFSACK or whatever they call the shooting competition where we get to see that NO ONE uses this paper holder anymore. If you can shoot good, these will do their part on the range. But that’s the only place where they shine. Treat your magazines like they are made of gold, they cause a lot of trouble based on my experience with this.

Better options in both shootability and reliability
 
CF users, in my experience hate them for 2 reasons:

1) they weren't allowed to carry them cocked and locked, like guys using striker fired guns or DA/SA guns, and

2) the widespread issue of ancient and questionable magazines.

For shooting in Canada at a range, it's an amazing pistol. Reliable, nice weight, intuitive ergos. Also, run modern mags, not collectable old john Inglis mags.
 
Per comments above. For modern military use, the FN Browning (or Inglis-made) is dated and hated. It is heavy, usually can't be carried cocked & locked, etc. The ratty used and abused ones (and mags) are no longer a major concern since all the war stock crates have been opened and NOS Brownings have been distributed to units and for deployments. I've shot some pretty decent condition service pistols despite rudimentary sights. Also, a pistol is just a sidearm... ie mostly carried, rarely shot (for most in service). A modern polymer pistol is the obvious answer for military use.

As a personal-owned firearm, it is a classic, especially if one has a FN made Mk III. Mk3 Firearms (USA) has been doing some impressive mods on pistols. I suspect the new SA made SA-35 Hi Power is a pretty decent candidate for such mods.... however, it would be a huge expense for something that a modern firearm can do for less.
 
It fits most hands very well, is accurate and reliable. The bad the magazine disconnect makes the trigger pull much worse but is easily removed. The safety is a bit small. Overall it is one of my favorite pistols. I did serve and as a service pistol in the Canadian Forces it is not awesome. The guns all have the magazine disconnect installed making the trigger pretty awful, the are not allowed to be carried cocked and locked, the pistols are all 80 years old and belong in a collection or a WW2 Museum, and most of the mags are 80 years old as well. But a browning mk 3 with new mags is accurate and reliable.
 
Also carried a HiPo on numerous deployments. It's all in the condition of the magazines. The original Inglis metal follower versions were awful and all shot out.
Was lucky enough to get brand new Meg Gar mags issued (yay 2 CMBG!) prior to my second run in Afghanistan. Was absolutely flawless for me with the Meg Gar mags. Really brought back my faith in the gun, despite it being antiquated.
We trained on the Israeli carry; ie draw, rack, fire. Never had any issues with lots and lots of practice. Just don't ride the slide catch while firing, which was really easy to do going back and forth between a P226 and a HiPo.
In a civvy holster on a range in Canada I'd have no qualms going cocked and locked. Stuffed in a tac vest mag pouch or a drop leg holster get banged into vehicle hatches etc, not a chance.

In personal use where you can mitigate the mags and look after it, I can't imagine you'd have any issues.
 
I'm a fan of the Browning MkIII's.

If I had to carry a pistol for duty use & had a choice, it would be a Glock.

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NAA.
 
Having never used one, but having talked to many CF users and watched many YouTubes....

The biggest complaint everyone has is the magazine 'safety'. It can be removed, and some of the reproductions do not have it. e.g. the new Springfield SA-35 has no magazine 'safety'. IIRC the Girsan MC-P35 has it.

Oh, and the Springfield SA-35 seems to have an extractor issue after about 200 rounds fired. Many early reviewers ran into this problem (most notably GarandThumb). I'm not even sure if the SA-35 made it into Canada before the 'freeze', but I would be hesitant to buy one for this reason.
 
Mk3 all the way if you want a really good ho-power. However, I like them all and have never had an issue with my issued inglis or a couple of private inglis hi-powers.
 
I only have a FEG clone, but it's easy to shoot, low recoil, probably the 2nd most accurate pistol I own.
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Claven2 said:
CF users, in my experience hate them for 2 reasons:

1) they weren't allowed to carry them cocked and locked, like guys using striker fired guns or DA/SA guns, and

2) the widespread issue of ancient and questionable magazines.

For shooting in Canada at a range, it's an amazing pistol. Reliable, nice weight, intuitive ergos. Also, run modern mags, not collectable old john Inglis mags.
Click to expand...

My biggest complaint other then the ones we had were worn to #### was. None of the controls were really glove friendly.

I had a FN and a FEG and never really had issues with those, but those were range guns.
 
Having carried 1 for 20 plus years on numerous deployments these pistols are good under the right conditions. Maybe a little known fact but for most of the Hi-Powers service life up until probably the mid to late 90's it fired the same +P+ ammo that the old SMG's fired. That ammo came in 64 rd boxes for the SMG that used 32 Rd stick mags. Sig Sauer and HK had a warning about firing IVI 9mm produced during this time frame as it accelerated wear and tear on both the Sig P226 and the HK MP5. Yes there are much better pistols out there for duty carry but the Hi-Power, for what it was , was a true work horse. With a never issued pistol and good mags the sky is the limit with these pistols.
 
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