A wasted effort by FN.
Even the older versions had an alloy option.
All steel?
Maybe for a .45.
Not for 9mm.
Browning’s last masterpiece.
Easily the best handgun of WWII. Its 13 round capacity offered far more firepower than anything else at the time and its ergonomic design makes it a joy to shoot. I have a clone - a FEG PJK JHP I run rounds through at the range periodically. I still need to pick up a Tangent sight Nazi Occupation High Power to add to my WWII collection. As usual with Browning designs, it is gorgeous.
This author does not know of what he writes. The standard BHP magazine was always 13 rounds, not 12. The original was always very simple to disassemble for cleaning so there is no significant change there.
It seems that there is a BHP arms race right now. The Turks came out with a faithful clone of the original last year. Then Springfield Armory came out with an improved version at a very reasonable price and fully backwards-compatible with previous models. Now FN has jumped in with another improved version at an outrageous price with “fully ambidextrous controls” which is not really needed except for the thumb safety (maybe) that will not be backwards-compatible.
Before the lake swallowed them up I had an Argentine P-35 military version that I picked up new in the 1980’s for a very reasonable price and a late model FN (assembled in Portugal for God-knows-what reason) that was two tone chrome and blue finish. Both fine guns but not as nice as the original “69” FN version with a ring hammer that I customized and sold at a gun show in Palmer, AK during my wayward youth. I recall looking at an original FN ring hammer at the JC Penney store in Fairbanks in 1976 that was around $175 new. Still kicking myself for not buying that one.
BHPs are fine pistols that feel great in almost everyone’s hand. They do not seem at all heavy for a steel handgun and the recoil of the 9mm is negligible. My first pistol was a Colt 1911 Combat Commander (steel frame) in .45 ACP which I would still have if not for that hungry lake. .45 ACP is a much more serious cartridge than 9mm (although I am not volunteering to be shot by either one). I fire a 1911 regularly because that is the pistol I love, I’m stick-in-the-mud old school, and I’m good with it. I can’t recall when I last fired a BHP.
It’s hard not to like a Hi Power.
And the gritty trigger is overstated IMO. There’s some unsmoothness as you get to the break point, but once you’re there it’s a clean break.
All FN handguns, with the exception of the FN FiveseveN®, are manufactured at the company’s state-of-the art production facility in Columbia, SC. FN America also currently produces the FN 15® series of modern sporting rifles for U.S. consumers and law enforcement, as well as the M4/M4A1 carbines, M16 rifles, MK46, MK48, and M240 machine guns, and the MK19 grenade launcher for the U.S. military
Proud to know that the new and improved FN High Power is manufactured in the great state of South Carolina!
Ping
'How many of those steel parts are cast, rather than forged?'
(A very important question, indeed, at least for the 'purists'! ;>)