BHP questions

A

ar-180

New member
Does a trigger job on a HP require removing the magazine safety feature? I bought a new .40 that came with a absolutely terrible trigger, really heavy and creepy. I would like to keep the magazine safety and have a decent trigger as well, is this at all possible? Thanks for your help...
 
No it does not. Good trigger jobs can be done to the BHP and the safety left in place. I have a 9mm BHP that has an excellent trigger job done by Alpha Precision. Jim Stroh there told me the 40cal BHP is harder to do a trigger job on but they can be done.
 
While I suppose you can leave the mag safety in place when doing a trigger job, there is no way you'll end up with as nice a trigger with that chunk of metal dragging on the magazine.

Just curious, why do you want to keep the magazine safety?
 
You can get a good crisp letoff with or without the magazine safety in place. Start by polishing the face of the magazine safety and making sure the safety moves freely within the trigger. A small amount of polishing there ( on the mag safety plunger) won't hurt if the finish is rough or the part has tool marks. This engages the front of your magazines ( you can see a bright spot on your mags) when pulling the trigger until the notch comes to a point where the trigger bar can move into the straight up position to engage the transfer bar. This should improve things a bit.

The pressure during the "takeup" that you feel is from the mag safety and spring combined with the trigger spring. Once it is removed, there is no pressure there, only free movement and trigger spring pressure. Once you get to the point where the sear breaks and the hammer falls, the trigger feel will be the same whether or not you have a mag safety. It only feels different when you remove the mag safety because you aren't feeling the takeup anymore, giving the impression of a lighter trigger.
 
Having just recently acquired a BHP, how does one polish the magazine safety? Do you have to remove it first. There doesn't appear to be a lot of room to work with it.

I certainly am impressed with the BHP. It shoots great considering I haven't had that much time with it. I'll work on that,
 
Hello. Mr. Bloom. Yes, you'll have to remove the magazine
disconnect to polish it. (Once removed, one could toss it....just a thought.) I think they lost the archives here when the system crashed, so if you'll go over to http://www.fnhipower.com and do a search on "magazine safety," I'm sure you'll find how this is accomplished. I recall writing out instructions and believe others have as well.

Best.
 
I figure that it takes less effort to pitch the usless extra so called "safty" parts then messing with them to get a trigger set up as it should be.:) But some figure it could be a legal problem with having a gun with a deleated "saftey". My thought is if it dont do me any good I dont want it, Kind of like having a ex-wife in the house because the house always had her there after you bought it.:)
 
Lets get back to reality folks! Disabling a firearms safety can cause serious liability. just my 2 cents!
 
Hello. Yes, that's often mentioned and I suspect that it could be used in a tort case against you. The last 5 years that I worked as a police officer, my BHP (w/o mag disconnect) was my duty gun. How much of this is true and how much urban legend, I don't know. It's an individual choice. I do not see that removing this thing makes the gun any less safe than Colt, Springfield Armory, Kimber, SIG-Sauer, Glock, etc.

Best.
 
AR-180: Kurt Wickmann ( http://www.kwgw.com/ ) can put a trigger on a Hi-Power that is perfect and he can do it without disconnecting the magazine safety.

If you've got more time than money the method Redlg155 mentions works very well also. In fact, even if you do nothing, your trigger pull will gradually get better as the magazine disconnect and magazines wear down and polish each other through regular use.

As liability issues go, I don't suspect that anybody is going to jail over having disabled their magazine disconnect unless their lawyer is so incompetent that they are likely headed to jail anyway. However, you probably will have to address the issue in court and in the subsequent civil lawsuit you are likely to see.

While I imagine a good defensive use of the gun will easily be justifiable, plan on spending a little extra money for "expert witnesses" and paying the lawyer a few extra hours for research. I figure that sending the gun off for full-on customization by a pro that leaves the mag disconnect intact is probably cheaper than spending the money on a lawyer should the unlikely event ever be necessary. As a bonus, I get to divert money from lawyers to gunsmiths and that is certainly a worthy cause :)
 
Wow, this has become a pretty popular topic! The reason that I would like to keep the safety is because being able to drop the mag and render the gun somewhat "safe" makes my family more comfortable with using the gun. I would rather keep the safety and have them be comfortable with the gun that drop it and have my family become reluctant. Sounds like I need to contact Kurt Wickman, Thanks again guys..
 
The only way I can imagine the magazine disconnect being a tort issue would be because someone got shot when someone thought they couldn't be shot because the magazine was not inserted.

In other words, your buddy (who is familiar enough with High Powers to know that standard HPs have the mag disconnect feature) picks up your HP without realizing that yours has the mag disconnect removed. He drops the mag, and then pulls the trigger causing the chambered round to fire, blowing off his foot. He then sues you for removing the mag disconnect which he assumed the pistol had.

If you use your HP in a defensive situation, the miscreant (or surviving relatives) will be suing you for shooting him intentionally. The safeties on the gun will be irrelevant.

In all the years since 1935, there have been no cases of anyone being sued because the mag disconnect has been removed from the BHP.
 
If you use your HP in a defensive situation, the miscreant (or surviving relatives) will be suing you for shooting him intentionally. The safeties on the gun will be irrelevant.
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Not necessarily true. It is a pretty common practice in civil cases for the plaintiff to claim that the shot was fired unintentionally (even when this is clearly not true). That's one of the reason that cities like New York mandate such heavy trigger pulls on their pistols. In a case like that, the removal of the magazine disconnect could well come up since it:

A) Deactivates a factory-installed safety device
B) Lightens the trigger pull (making an unintentional shooting argument possible)

I think one thing we need to remember is that even in a justifiable shoot, if the bad guy lives he will be enjoying free legal services and ample spare time. Its not inconceivable that he would use these to harass you with any manner of lawsuits regardless of how little basis there is in them.

Even if the bad guy doesn't live, there isn't any shortage of hungry lawyers willing to take the civil case on contingency figuring they can argue a settlement out of it.

According to my CCW class from a year or so back, there had been 44 CCW-related shootings in Texas and 42 no-bills (grand jury ruled it justifiable - one of the ones the grand jury indicted on was later found not guilty, other one hadn't gone to court at the time of the class).

For these 44 shootings, there were 44 civil suits. In one case, the long estranged ex-wife of the deceased scumbag stepped up to sue, hoping to recover child support that the scumbag had never paid and now never would. The cost of defending yourself from grand jury to civil suit ranged between $10,000 and $55,000 for these cases.

In all the years since 1935, there have been no cases of anyone being sued because the mag disconnect has been removed from the BHP.
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I certainly haven't ever heard of anyone being sued because the magazine disconnect on their Browning Hi-Power had been removed; but I do wonder what source you base this statement on? I'd also make the following bet:

Somebody HAS been sued for an otherwise justifiable shooting and an issue that came up in the trial was the removal of a magazine disconnect. The issue may not have been central to the trial verdict but it did cost the defendant money and time.

I'd also note that there is the current lawsuit of "Smith vs. Bryco" where Bryco is being sued for not including a magazine disconnect on their firearms. If an accidental shooting ever took place with a firearm where the magazine disconnect had been removed you would be talking some serious legal exposure.

Take a look at this organization:
http://www.firearmslitigation.org/rtk.html

These are the type of people who will be asking you about the removal of a magazine disconnect in your Hi-Power.
 
While anyone can dream up a scenario where removing the mag disconnect would be a legal problem, for the most part, I think those "legal" opinions are hogwash. First off, if you were involved in a defensive shooting, would you drop your magazine to "safety" the gun? It would be a pretty hollow argument to say that the mag safety was removed, if the magazine was always in the gun! I think we have too many armchair lawyers, and not enough common sense...
 
The liability of disconecting a factory safety device, like a mag safety, has been debated on several firearm sites I visit. Several "posters" have said "show me an actual case, criminal or civil, where this has been an issue." I have yet to hear of such a case. The potential for this to be an issue during a trial is certainly there!
I personaly would not deactivate a factory designed safety feature. I LIKE the BHP mag disconnect. I'm a little guy, and think it not unlikely that I might have to wrestle for possession of the gun. Knowing I can drop the mag and render the weapon useless is a feature I like. Just my HO.
 
All of my BHP's have had the mag safety removed. I don't know of anyone who can show how it can be used against one in court beyond saying that a safety was removed. They cannot then defend the statement that they have made. I even provided a series of questions to the Williamson County, Tx District Attorney Office to pose to an 'expert witness' in the event an investigator used his HP in a shooting and the opposition should be so foolhardy as to try this approach. I think too many people have been reading Massad Ayoob and believed everything that they read.
 
If you're a little guy, and someone larger is taking the gun away from you, I think you're in deep do-do anyway! I doubt that dropping the mag is going to safe your bacon...
 
Don't get me wrong, I think that if it is a justifiable defense shooting (and not an accidental one), that a good lawyer will tear up any attempt to use the removal of the magazine disconnect against you - and then charge you the extra hours for his time.

I also think that a good lawyer pursuing the civil trial against you will likely at least consider the removal of the magazine disconnect an issue and groups like the one I linked to will be pushing him to make it an issue and offering legal help to boot. The issue may get shot down; but he can probably take a shot at it without much risk to the rest of his case.

Personally, I don't consider it worth even one hour of a lawyer's time (at the rate they charge) to have the additional convenience offered by the ability to fire my single remaining round without a magazine. Obviously, that's a decision influenced more by personal taste than anything and others may disagree with my cost/benefits assessment.

I just wanted to share my view that the real issue wasn't that removing the magazine disconnect would get you indicted in an otherwise justified self-defense shooting but that it would almost certainly cost you money (in additional fees to lawyer) during the likely civil suit that followed.
 
Removing the magazine disconnect serves to modernize the BHP, helping to bring it up to the standards set by modern police weaponry like the Glock 17, the Beretta M92, etc.
 
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