Browning HP Discontinued

Perhaps their time has come and gone. I have a T series and a Mark III, they are works of art from a by gone era. I will shoot them and treasure them as long as I live. I also have all the modern poly wonders and enjoy them as well.
I mourn the loss of the High Power, glad I own two
 
drobs said:
Glock killed the Hi Power in Foreign Government Contracts.

Seems the Aussies are still armed with the FN Hi Power.
https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/school...-adf-jump-us-army’s-modular-handgun-bandwagon

I believe India - still issues a licensed copy of of the HP.

The Brits, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Israeli's have jumped to Glock.
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Why would any military or law-enforcment organization use the Browning Hi Power or the 1911? Not just now, but in, I dunno, the past 25 years or so? On the taxpayers' dime? That's just about indefensible.
 
Because those pistols have been in the inventories of those nations for decades. While I do think there are advantages with other designs out there currently, I don't think those differences are so dramatic as to make replacing those pistols a necessity, especially when handguns are relatively far down on the importance list for a military.
 
Why would any military or law-enforcment organization use the Browning Hi Power or the 1911? Not just now, but in, I dunno, the past 25 years or so? On the taxpayers' dime? That's just about indefensible.
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Because those pistols have been in the inventories of those nations for decades. While I do think there are advantages with other designs out there currently, I don't think those differences are so dramatic as to make replacing those pistols a necessity, especially when handguns are relatively far down on the importance list for a military.
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Yeah, police have a legit claim to have a newer, lighter, higher capacity pistol, because that's their primary weapon (although a HP still can function quite well with modern ammo- it's not like they're avoiding the transition to phasers or anything like that!).

Military- inventory and budget plays a big role in things. We used the 1911 long after other countries swapped to DA/SA and/or hi-capacity guns. We moved to the Beretta because we moved to 9mm for NATO standardization. Countries using the HP were already using 9mm, so there's no real pressing need to swap it out.

If for whatever reason NATO had gone to .45 acp, we might STILL be using the 1911, and only recently looking to upgrade to a more modern, polymer framed gun. Other countries might be using the Sig P220, but I'd doubt we would have swapped to a similar capacity gun made of metal. The higher capacity Glocks and now Sigs would be the direction we'd be looking.
 
You guys are amusing, talking about these guns as if they are useless antiques.
They will still do everything they ever could do, and better than most "modern" plastic pistols.
Sometimes progress isn't what you think it is!
 
Bill DeShivs said:
You guys are amusing, talking about these guns as if they are useless antiques.
They will still do everything they ever could do, and better than most "modern" plastic pistols.
Sometimes progress isn't what you think it is!
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I own two 1911s, and I agree that they're great to shoot. Anyone who's ever shot one would agree after one or two mags. However ...

Personal/enthusiast ownership and organizational ownership are two different things. A 1911 is a very old design, and the tolerances are loose compared to a modern pistol. In a large service inventory, they require lots of labor (meaning tinkering and hand-fitting) to keep going, and parts don't necessarily swap from one example to another as well as you might expect. Plus, the field-stripping procedure, compared to that of a modern pistol, is just absurd. (A 1911 breaks down into eight parts, double that of a modern gun.) I'm surprised guys in the field don't drop and lose some of the small parts (barrel bushing, slide stop, recoil-spring plug), without which the gun won't go back together operate. That probably actually happens.

All this is time-consuming and expensive. The idea of financing this with taxpayer dollars makes no sense, not in the 21st Century. And the U.S. military didn't adopt the M9 purely to transition to NATO-standard ammunition; they could've switched to 9mm 1911s had they really wanted to. They switched in part because the 1911 design was old, the inventory was rickety, and they needed a modern, high-capacity firearm. (The M9's breakdown/reassembly is a snap compared to that of a 1911, even without a captive recoil spring.)

I don't personally have experience with a Hi Power, but I suspect, from an organizational perspective, that most of the same realities probably apply.
 
They will still do everything they ever could do, and better than most "modern" plastic pistols. Sometimes progress isn't what you think it is!
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That's the thing though - FN marketed it as an "agency" pistol to military and police bureaucracies. The categories that matter to those agencies are initial cost, maintenance cost and service life. The Hi-Power is inferior in every one of those categories not just to one or two modern pistols but at least a dozen. FN was trying to run a motorcross rally with a European roadster.

The smart way to market it would have been to play to its strengths and compete in the areas that it did have an advantage over modern polymer pistols - the thin rounded slide that makes it a breeze to carry concealed, the potential (often untapped in the production pistols) for a very nice single action trigger, the great ergonomics. They needed to market it to the enthusiast a long time ago; but they never did fully commit and now there is no point in keeping a low-margin product that competes (albeit poorly) with your own better, higher margin products for agency sales.

At least my take, though as I mentioned both Charles Daly and FN (With the comped model) made some efforts to go that route and weren't successful. So I may be full of it there.
 
In a large service inventory, they require lots of labor (meaning tinkering and hand-fitting) to keep going, and parts don't necessarily swap from one example to another as well as you might expect.
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And you get this idea about the 1911A1 from????

I was part of the support teams for two brigades of the US Army during the mid 1970s. Does that qualify as a "large service inventory"?

We didn't need to do ANY "tinkering and hand fitting", and I would bet you a large amount of money that you could have taken every one of those pistols, detail stripped them, put all the parts in a pile, stirred the pile and then rebuilt all of them from randomly chosen parts, and they would have assembled without issue and would have WORKED!

GI guns, built to GI specs (and inspected to ensure they met those specs) simply do that. Other people's "1911s" particularly those the maker "improved" or "tweaked", not so much.
 
44 AMP said:
I was part of the support teams for two brigades of the US Army during the mid 1970s. Does that qualify as a "large service inventory"?

We didn't need to do ANY "tinkering and hand fitting", and I would bet you a large amount of money that you could have taken every one of those pistols, detail stripped them, put all the parts in a pile, stirred the pile and then rebuilt all of them from randomly chosen parts, and they would have assembled without issue and would have WORKED!
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I think some folks get that impression based on stories about some WWII weapons -- like the Lugers that were made new or carried over from earlier times. Many of those guns had many of their internal parts NUMBERED (to match the last digits of the serial number), so that fitted parts could be kept together when they were serviced or re-arsenaled.

That wasn't necessary with the G.I.-spec 1911s, nor was it required with many of the guns developed right before or during WWII, guns like the P-35 (HP) or the P-38 -- ditto rifles and machine guns. (Technology had advanced greatly between WWI and WWII.) With the later guns, you couldn't always tell if the parts weren't original to the gun -- and with many of the WWII long guns that made their way to civilian use, the parts often were obviously mixed and matched -- but not serialized. Serialization was no longer required. Not all of these guns were as tightly fitted as many modern (bullseye or Target) guns, but they were reliable and always functioned -- and when used in combat that's what mattered.

With regard to guns made to spec:

One of the things that the companies that made metal frames for Glock competition guns (a fad that seems to have cooled off a bit) explained on their websites was that MANY! of the after-market parts used in Glocks wouldn't work in the metal framed versions of the guns. That was because there was so much variance in the after-market parts (specs and quality control were sort of ignored.)

Apparently, the design of the polymer-framed Glock is a very forgiving one and allows the guns to function even when parts aren't exactly made to spec. The metal framed versions of the Glock weren't that forgiving.
 
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"Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon... for a more civilized age." —Obi-Wan
 
bricz75 said:
As crazy as this sounds, I think this guy is a convicted felon. Not sure, though.
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The owner is Chuck Warner. Chuck had some legal troubles IIRC when his previous gunsmithing business when bankrupt. Again IIRC there were accusations of deposits not being refunded and property, pistols and parts, not being returned to their proper owners. That is what I remember hearing but I have never heard him referred to as a felon. I cannot say what is or is not true but he is running a full custom shop these days and I have heard decent things about him but there are too many great reliable smiths with impeccable reps to take a chance IMHO.

I think he only produced 30 pistols from billet steel. There were issues with the bushing and working with the billet. At one time he was talking about looking at forgings and castings but I do not believe anything has come of it since the 30 billet pistols sold. There was a lot of talk and interest at one time on the 1911 forum but it died off after the billet pistols were produced. They were expensive and again IIRC far from flawless in their execution. I have not heard much about them in about a year.
 
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44AMP-This is a classic case of people not knowing what they are talking about.
You are absolutely correct.
"Modern" and "improved" 1911-style pistols have had the original parts interchangeability "engineered" out of them. Much of the reliability has been engineered out, too.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
44AMP-This is a classic case of people not knowing what they are talking about.
You are absolutely correct.
"Modern" and "improved" 1911-style pistols have had the original parts interchangeability "engineered" out of them. Much of the reliability has been engineered out, too.
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This is true but they are also being made and "redesign" to complete a modified task. Many of the slicked up 1911s of today are not combat GI pistols. They are guns games pistols built for made up game which require speed. Others are being setup to squeeze out every bit of accuracy out of the pistol as possible. This was not the case with your old school USGI Milspec pistol of the past. There was a lot of tolerance built into those pistols and every parts maker adhered to the spec. These days 1911 makers treat the JMB design and spec as more of a suggestion than a a true blueprint because they are looking to make pistols for different purposes, markets and price points. Price point IMHO really drives the changes.

The other point you have to consider is that the 1911 was designed and originally built in a time when hand labor was cheaper than machine labor. The original design was intended to be built in a manner maximizing production of its day. These days machine labor is much cheaper than human hand labor and so the gun in order to keep it cost effective had to be "redesigned" a bit to make it easier to mass produce in todays labor market.

This type of criticism lends itself to the demise of platforms that do not change enough like the BHP. IMHO
 
Bill DeShivs said:
There were no hand-fitted parts on the 1911 and 1911A1 pistols.
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I believe I am being misunderstood. I am not saying that parts were hand fit in a manner that a custom gunsmith like Don Williams or Ted Yost would do today. I am talking about taking parts out of the bin checking their spec and ensuring that they would meet the spec and be interchangeable.

Please correct me if I am wrong but it has always been my understanding that the people on the lines assembling the original guns were also QCing the parts to insure that they would meet the spec. If small changes needed to be made they were made by hand by those who assembled the guns. Is this not the case?

It is also my understanding that Colts were considered tighter and that some of the other manufactures at time had trouble meeting the interchangeability aspect of the spec. So the good old days were not always as good as we remember them.

These days computers, MIM parts, casting and other non-human hands technologies are used to do the QC. The avg line worker picks up part puts part into the gun assuming that the part has passed a computerized QC check. Each manufacturer has "redesigned" the pistol to maximize and leverage their manufacturing technology. For example Ruger relies heavily on casting because they own Pine Tree. Sig & Kimber has chosen to use a lot MIM. Each manufacturer is cutting corners in a different way to maximize their efficiency using modern machine based tech. I really don't think we are disagreeing in the principle being expressed but perhaps just the verbiage.

Again if my understanding of USGI 1911s and 1911A1s is incorrect please enlighten me in a more detailed way then the drive by comment you have already made.
 
As 44AMP said, you could disassemble several 1911s, mix the parts and reassemble the same amount of functioning guns.
There may have been slight variations, but they were not the norm.
Not a drive-by at all. Just a basic statement of facts.
Any in-spec 1911 part would work in any 1911.
 
Iibiglou said:
Just throwing this out.1911 is still being used by our military although in small numbers.
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True, but the number of 1911A1s in use seems to be declining. There are now probably many more Glock 19s and 17s in use than 1911A1s.
 
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