1938 "Mexican" Browning High-Power Turned in at LA "buyback" in May, 2014

Gun Watch ^ | 7 July, 2015 | Dean Weingarten

[Dusty Road]

I collect old Hi-Powers, have 27 that are 100% original and many more that are parts guns. The problem you speak of is easy to solve. Remove the disconnect pin in the trigger and then the disconnect, a bonus with this modification is a lighter trigger pull. My favorite Hi-Power is a stock MK II, it’s been riding in my truck since the mid 80’s. My newest Hi-Power is a MK III that was originally in 40 cal but is now chambered for 357 SIG.

[Lurker]

That would be the problem.

LOL

[wastoute]

I know a guy who has a modified BMG “Ma Deuce” so it will cycle faster. One could run up national debt level figures with that thing!

[Lurker]

That stuff is what, like 5 bucks a round? That’s why my choice is a BAR. Changing magazines will slow me down a bit, and the rate of fire isn’t horrendously fast.

Have a good day.

L

[wastoute]

It is expensive. 600 per min. Was not enough, I guess.

[archy]

I suppose the Belgian, forget his name, that finished up Browning’s pistol was afraid a noob would forget about a round in the chamber and thinking the dropped mag made it safe, shoot himself.

That feller's name would be Dieudonné Saive a true design and materials genius, responsible also for the SAFN Mle 49 rifle and the FN-FAL. John Moses Browning was so impressed with the modifications Saive had made to Browning's *baby* Browning .25 auto pistol for FN production that he accepted the offer to collaborate on the design for a new Belgian 9mm Para service pistol with Saive. DJS passed away in 1973, but was still living when I visited the FN plant in conjunction with the NATO Leclerc military marksmanship matches. backstory *here*.

Some gun writer recently wrote (`Guns’?) that the Browning P-35 will handle hollowpoints. I don’t believe it. Or maybe because it’s a military pistol all I’ve shot through it has been FMJ.

Your circa 1965 GP [internal extractor, or the *modernized* *external slide cut* extractor; and does it have the number C65 as the first three digits of its serial number?] likely has the two-piece barrel, some of which will happily feed some hollowpoint designs all day, and others, not so much. Other guns like issue ball ammo only, as you observe, which was the case with my Belgian Force Publique GP I carried in Zaire and Vietnam, but not so the superb 69C GP that replaced it: it would feed ANYTHING, including empty cases, and one of my fav handloads for it was a .38 Special 148-grain hollowbase lead wadcutter loaded backwards, with the hollow base facing out. I had in excess of 240,000 rounds through it when I finally replaced it with a stainless Bar-Sto fitted by Irv Stone hisself, much of which was Shelbyville Super-Vel hollowpoint and softpoint, which fed just fine, and were a great improvement over the previous state of the art, but 9mm bullet development still had a long way to go back then. Anyway, give some nice JHP rounds a try [Remington 9BP usually feeds in about anything, even Walther P.38s and P1s and early S&W M39s; or give some of the Black Hills 115 grain loads a tryout]

Note that the Brits routinely experienced cracked slides with the L9A1 with late-type pivoting extractor cut when subjected to amounts of ball loaded hot to keep Sten and Sterling SMGs going, and the Pakistanis experienced the same problem with Belgium-supplied guns. The Israelis used lighter loads, downloaded to lessen muzzle flash at night, and happily found it worked well in GPs, P38s, WWII Polish Vis pistols, and Uzis...as well as old US S&W revolvers rechambered to 9mm from the British .38/200 [US .38 S&W] cartridge. The Brit problems with the slides letting go was one reason the SAS initially switched over to the SIG226, and now the Brit Army has gone to the gen 4 Glock 17, AKA the L131A1 , with a reported 25,000 in the initial test lot a couple of years back.

[archy]

When I live in a Class III state I shall own a Belgian version of the BAR chambered in 7.62 NATO. I don’t care what it costs.

If you do, you may have to play with magazines a bit. The one I've got [FN Model D] will accept FAL magazines, but feeds much, MUCH better with 8mm/7,92mm magazines, which are less expensive in any event, but a bit harder to find. I'd suggest you start looking now, and collect FAL mags as well.

[archy]

Ping early High-Power

That's not an early High-Power, mate! THIS is an EARLY hi-power!

[archy]

I wonder if the pistol came to Mexico with a German fleeing from the end of WWII.

I'd wonder if it might have made its way north from Argentina just before or after WWII. The Argentines had produced the DGFM version of the 1911A1 [Argie Modelo 1927] and the simplified Hafdasa/ Balester-Molina, both in .45 and using the 1911 magazine. But for someone who wanted a 9mm P at that time, or had access to a 9mm SMG and ammo, the idea of common ammunition might have been an attractive one. Argentina was a supposed neutral through most of WWII, not having declared war against the Axis until March of 1945, and Juan Domingo Peron took over in Argentina on 04 June 1946. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to extrapolate a German-sympathetic fellow who chose to leave post-war Argentina as a matter of health, and took his faithful travelling companion along with him...or her. It'd make a dandy plot for a W.ER.B. Griffith book....

And in Mexico, circa the late 1920s, the Christero War that some have described as the final stage of the Mexican Revolution was still noisy at least until 1929. It does not take to much of a stretch to also or istead imagine that a veterano of that conflict- of either side- might want a very effective personal weapon, even five years, or ten, or twenty, after the shooting had -officially- stopped. The Mexicans still take matters of honour and revenge very seriously, and perhaps did so even a bit more then. Ah, if only they could talk.

I once knew a fellow who might have been a good one to ask about it, having been an importer of *Mexican Rugers*,among a great many other things but he is no longer with us, since 1998.

[archy]

I know a guy who has a modified BMG “Ma Deuce” so it will cycle faster. One could run up national debt level figures with that thing!

Easy to do, using lighter weight/ faster recoiling .50 aircraft gun parts.

I did the other route for a pal with six excess aircraft guns, turning them into M2 heavy barrel guns a little more appropriate to ground vehicle use. But some WWII tank crews filched aircraft guns as *roof guns* for their Shermans and tank destroyers, and found they were actually more effective for use on fast-moving targets like probing enemy armored cars.

Oh, the leftover parts. Pieces of two of them are in here.

[Sir_Ed]

Demilled or actual CIII .50’s??

Thanks,

Ed