The Browning Hi Power and +P ammo

Do you shoot +P in your BHP and what is your experience?

  • Own a BHP and have never shot +P because of what I read about possible damage.

    Votes: 10 20.4%

  • Own a BHP and have shot some +P ammo but restrict the diet of +P and have not suffered any damage..

    Votes: 13 26.5%

  • Own a BHP and shoot whatever I want but have not suffered any damage.

    Votes: 24 49.0%

  • Own a BHP & restrict the diet of +P & have experienced damage attributed to high pressure rounds.

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • Own a BHP and shoot whatever I want but have experienced damage attributed to high pressure rounds.

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .
W

WVsig

New member
I know a lot has been written over the years about the BHP not being designed for +P ammo. I have read everything from the late Stephen Camps informative article to Bill Laughridge to Novak to Ayoob etc..

The opinion seems to vary from don't worry about it especially in MKIII guns to the BHP will instantly turn to dust and the locking lugs will deform and the slide will crack if +P is used at all. Of course the truth must lie somewhere in the middle.

I have always heeded the warnings about shooting +P excessively in BHPs especially pre MKIII guns. I used a #18.5 recoil spring but do not use any buffer. Generally speaking I shoot only SAMMI spec FMJ 9mm ammo or standard pressure JHP 124 or 147 grain to be on the safe side. I have however over the years run some RWS & Fiocchi though my BHPs, MKIIs, C Series & MKIIIs, which are closer to Nato or +P spec than say WWB. I personally have never experienced any deformation or damage to the pistols but then again I am not shooting thousands upon thousands of these rounds.

As with many things you hear/read on the internet you hear a lot on this subject. In fact is it rare that the BHP comes up that this "weakness" in the pistol is not brought into the discussion. So my poll question is has anyone ever shot enough +P or high pressure loads through their BHP to cause damage to the locking lugs in the slide and or the barrel? Has anyone ever cracked a slide or frame? Any idea of how many rounds it took before the damage occurred?

I will ask that responses be restricted to people who actually owned a BHP or FN variant. Please respond to the following poll. If you have had an issue with the locking lugs, frame or slide cracking/damage please post what exactly happened and what vintage your BHP was/is. If you have pics of the damage or issues with the gun that would be helpful as well. Thank you in advance.
 
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I think most of us Hi Power owners know about the "weakness" and discount it.

Some +P isn't going to hurt it. If you're doing a lot of +P, I think most of us
realize it doesn't hurt to replace the 17# recoil spring with an 18.5# recoil spring whether or not a Mk III or earlier is used. The Mk III are, of course, stronger.

Most stories probably come from the fact that the British Special Air Services units used BHPs for nearly 50 years and most of the ammo was pretty hot while the guns were mostly WWII vintage of softer steels, just like the 1911s.
Those 1911s with constant use also turned to "mush."

Anyone who gets a vintage Hi Power or 1911 and then hot loads all the time is probably not the brightest. If one must hot rod a gun, then get the ones today with the stronger frames, slides be it a Hi Power or a 1911. And even then be judicious with those hot loads.

Also, when it comes to +P or +P+, really how many of us actually use huge quantities given the extra costs and ready availability.
 
I have shot some Cor-bon ammo, which supposedly reaches "+P velocity" at lower than +P pressure, but very little of that, and no issues.
 
Haven't ever put any +P through my 1970s Hi-Power and don't plan on ever doing shooting any. It's a range-only gun to me (;)), and I'm mindful of the more delicate frames of the older Hi-Powers, so I have both no need and no desire to do so. I just don't see any point to feeding +P to a pistol that, short of unforeseen apocalyptic conditions, is never going to serve as a self-defense weapon in my hands. I do think the gun could handle a restricted diet of +P ammo, but the steel is quite thin in some areas on the older Hi-Powers, so I would be concerned about significantly accelerated wear and decreased longevity with regular use.

I'd feel a lot better shooting +P out of a Mk III, since the steel of the newer cast frames is (1) harder, (2) tougher, and (3) thicker than the steel of the old forged frames, the gun having been redesigned to handle the .40 round.
 
And what do you really gain, if there is so little difference between all the common self defense calibers 9,40,45 then why punish your gun with +P?
 
I regularly shot +P+ 127gn Ranger in my 73 Charley Hipower...mainly because it was the most accurate round I found.
No issues whatsoever.
 
I regularly shot +P+ 127gn Ranger in my 73 Charley Hipower...mainly because it was the most accurate round I found.
No issues whatsoever.
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Do you have an estimated round count of +P+?
 
HP +P

I have never shot any +P out of my 1969C. It's a 45 year old pistol, I have other much newer 9MMs that I can shoot +P out of.
 
I don't drive any of my pistols to the MAX or +P or what ever. I think a hit with a controllable round is better than a miss with a +P+++P+PPPP

BUT, I have run all levels of rounds through my High Power to reach these conclusions. It's fine.

So I don't know how to really answer your poll.
 
BUT, I have run all levels of rounds through my High Power to reach these conclusions. It's fine.

So I don't know how to really answer your poll.
Click to expand...

If you have shot rounds that were between 35k and 38.5K PSI then you have shot +P ammo. If you stayed under 35K then you have not.
 
I have no reason to use +P in my HP. The only reason I would use +P ammo is for self/home defense, and I don't use my HP for that. It's a gun I inherited and I just use it as a range gun sometimes or just caress and admire it. :) Why should I run it hard for no reason?
 
I believe that I had some lug warping just from using full power loads with HS6 and 115 lead. They were running almost 100 fps over projection. It hwas a bit twitchy when it was eventually stolen, I had never gone through a full exam. the trouble may have just been needing a thorough cleaning, but it could have been some sort of damage. I ran thousands of rounds, mostly lead, and probably ran an entire thousand of the high power hs6 rounds.

Not +p loads, just full loads.
 
Total count of +P+ 127gn Ranger was 300, along with many rounds of every other description.
I did use an 18.5lb spring, based on the writing of Stephan Camp.

To those who say "use a bigger gun", well...it wouldn't be a Browning HiPower 9mm then, would it?
 
How about "Own a BHP and have never shot +P because I don't have any +P to shoot through it"? Dunno what or where you read, but I've never read anything (that I can recall) suggesting that you can't shoot +P through a Hi-Power. If you can shoot .40 S&W I don't see how ever +P 9mm could do it much harm.
 
Aquila,
The Mark III in 9 and .40 are stronger than all their predecessors and so less
chance of faster or as much wearing with +P.

The fear isn't the gun is going to fall apart but that it'll wear faster with a steady diet of +P. Just as using full house .357s will wear a Model 686 faster than something a little less than full house or even hot .38s. And ditto for a lot of other caliber/gun combinations up to and including rifles.

It's better to never use the hotter loads just for the majority of training hours.

The poll's second choice seems to me to be the judicious choice.
 
How about "Own a BHP and have never shot +P because I don't have any +P to shoot through it"? Dunno what or where you read, but I've never read anything (that I can recall) suggesting that you can't shoot +P through a Hi-Power. If you can shoot .40 S&W I don't see how ever +P 9mm could do it much harm.
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I think I detailed where a lot of the info regarding +P ammo in BHPs came from. If you know the history of the BHP you know that the MKIII is the only version of the gun that shares a frame and construction associated with the 40 S&W round. BHPs prior to and a few MKIIIs IIRC have forged frames which had issues with the pressures associated with the 40 S&W round. Most MKIII frames are cast and are stronger and are said to be able to handle more rounds than their forged counterparts but even that is a point of debate.

These are just a few examples of the BHP +P discussions:

The late Stephen Camps website:

http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/BHPandHighPressureAmmo.htm

Then there is the article written by Ayoob which sites BIll Laughridge of Cylinder and Slide which was originally published in Guns Magazine
February 2004.

For me the comments of Bill Laughridge who is one of the worlds best BHP smiths have to be taken into consideration. When a pistol smith of his stature makes a recommendation about one of the guns he built his reputation on one should listen. One might not agree or follow that advice but it is hard to ignore. I bolded the most relevant part of the statement.

http://www.cylinder-slide.com/bhptoday.shtml

Shortcomings One Must Live With:

Col. Cooper said the only problem with the Browning was its caliber. That has been solved in a couple of ways. Today's 9mm defense ammo is not your father's 9mm Luger round. If modern 9mm +P+ ammo had been available in Jeff's formative years, handgun history might have changed, because 115 grain JHPs at 1,300 fps or so produce autopsy results with phrases like "macerated heart," something you'll never see with a subsonic .45 Auto bullet. If you must have larger bore diameter, Browning brought out the Hi-Power in .40 S&W in the 1990s, and it can still be had. More on that shortly.

There is, however, one other short- coming with the 9mm Browning. The P-35 is not the most rugged of 9mm pistols. It was designed back in the '20s, remember, before using submachine gun ammo in pistols became the military paradigm, and before today's high-pressure self-defense loads. The gun being slim, the parts are relatively small and therefore relatively fragile. In addition, many pistolsmiths consider the Browning's parts comparatively soft in virtually every incarnation of the gun.

From Venezuela to Great Britain; I've seen quantities of broken Brownings in government arsenals whose slides and frames were cracked by the brutal hammering of 9xl9 NATO ammo. +P and +P+ loads also seem to be contraindicated. Listen to Bill Laughridge, who said to me, "Tell your readers in all caps, DON'T USE +P IN HI- POWERS! It's been my experience that even a few magazines of +P will upset the locking lugs."

So to answer your question directly this is the +P issue or limitation I am investigating. From what I have experienced very few actually civilian, non militray non-LEO, owners of the BHP have shot enough hot loaded 9mm, 9mm Nato, 9mm sub gun loads, +P or +P+ ammo to actually damage their pistol. This is far from a scientific poll it is simply an inquiry for my own curiosity. Thanks for playing.... ;)
 
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To those who say "use a bigger gun", well...it wouldn't be a Browning HiPower 9mm then, would it?
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No, it wouldn't

The point being if you think you "need' more power than a standard 9mm, then maybe it's best to use something else rather than push the cartridge and gun to it's limits.
 
The point being if you think you "need' more power than a standard 9mm, then maybe it's best to use something else rather than push the cartridge and gun to it's limits.
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+P is not really pushing 9mm to its limits. It might be the limits of the BHP but there are many 9mms that can handle it without issue. On can even debate if it is the limit for the BHP.
 
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