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I just took delivery of a Wayne Novak full house custom BHP. Bar-sto barrel, all the bells and whistles (and Frenched borders too, gotta love it!)

The instructions from my Editor are simple: "Shoot it until it breaks."

So, from the assembled congnocsenti, what should I expect to fall off first, and how soon? The gun will not see +P or +P+ except to chronograph some. The rest of its all-too-brief life will be spent digesting vanilla-plain 115 and 125 grain ammo, and a five-gallon bucket of 147 grain cast flatpoints I have holding down my floor. I have a fistfull of 18.5# springs from Wolff, and an SDM spring tester I plan to modiy to take BHP springs for testing. We'll see how long each spring lasts, the gun lasts, accuracy lasts (I have a Ransom rest) and write it all up.

My previous experience withthe BHP is from the very early 1980s, when we tried to make them shoot 9mm Major. (Can you say "Belgian Hand grenade?")

Now if I can just figure out photo posting, so you can see what it looks like while it is still pretty...

The balance of your bank account, unless the editor is supplying the ammo.........

Looking forward to your report.

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CT Brian Custom
'Blending Art With Firepower'

Pat, if it doesn't go quietly of its won accord, can we help it along with some destructive testing? I mean, starting out mild with say a case of this Hirt stuff that's going around, it's so hot I sold the rest of mine to a subgunner..... then, some underwater shooting maybe, then some mud and sand...?

If you would like me to precisely measure some things for some before and after charting, send 'er over after say 2-300 rounds so that things have sorta settled in.

I'm trying to keep my options open for the future. If it does quietly expire, I think I'd then do an article on getting it ressurrected. And for destructive tests, I think I'd rather just buy a surplus Argentine and try it under water, in mud, sand, etc, to save the heartbreak of watching such a nice pistol as this be so abused.

Part of the point of the test is to see how much the improvements FN made as a result of the 40 BHP experience have increased the 9mm in durability.

If I could lay hands on an old "T" series pistol, and a Rockwell hardness test rig for an afternoon......

And there is already an impressive stack of 9mm ammo on hand, sent to me for this project. It's good to be the King!

King? Hell Patrick, I'd like to be court jester and just get to play with the BHP for a little bit! Seriously, it will be very interesting to see your results. I do however, regret that such a fine weapon must give it's all so that we may be enlightened.

Your trigger finger. How soon it will fall off depends entirely on your age and physical condition. Please do include a section on the Browning Hi-Power in the next edition of your home pistolsmithing book, before your finger falls off of course.

Finger falling off? Ned, he's never seen a bunch of bowling pin shooters at work, has he?

Now if there is anyone who makes a .22LR conversion besides Ceiner, I've got two chapters in GS: Pistols & Revolvers, 3rd Ed.

My HiPowers develop issues with the recoil spring guide after many rounds easily replaced and on you go.The firing pin retaining plate and barrel lugs are other issues with high round counts and of course the extractor.The BHP is not quite as tough as the 1911 despite that i favor the BHP and it should last 40-50k i would guess if your not blasting thru lots of plus P stuff lots of them around in the Brit military when i was in with big rounds (including SMG stuff) rattled like crazy but functional.

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"The sunshine bores the daylights outta me....."

Keith Richards

It's my understanding that the SAS used the 2Z load (a factory proof load) in their BHPs to get more velocity and try to increase stopping power. Know anything about that?

And if I'm still trying to get the gun to break at the 40K mark, then the test is a success.

I don't know if that is a fact but I do know that the NATO 9MM is roughly equal in power to our commerical +P ammo.

Well, this Hirt stuff that's going so cheap sure is hot. Has the NATO headstamp but seems a lot stouter than milspec ammo, comparing it to some Lake City NATO stuff. I am sure that the days of 9mm ammo made specifically for SMG's is long gone, at least in the NATO context.

When i was in (but not SAS) they offered up whatever flavor the QM felt fit to offer.The Regiment were able to scrounge better kit and use it by the standard Brit method of 'aquiring' it from many sources.......mostly if it was left unattended or not nailed down

That said many SAS SBS and other elements carried the PPK 'back in the day' into some pretty hairy situations and remained 'effective'.Its often about the shooter not the gun/round.

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"The sunshine bores the daylights outta me....."

Keith Richards

So far, so good. 600 rounds, more or less, with only a malf'd magazine (weak spring) and one smokestack from a softy-load commercial reload 147 grain round. Spring replaced, softy load relegated to use in other 9mms.

I found out that the serial number of this particular pistol is a prime number. So, from now on, its name is "Prime."

Tomorrow Prime goes to the range for Ransom testing, to determine a baseline accuracy level. Once I have three or four loads that shoot the best, I'll stash the rest of those batches on the shelf. At 5,000, 10K, 15K, etc I'll repeat the Ransom test with those loads and see what we get.

The forecast for tomorrow is sunny, breezy, 60ish with frequent small groups.

And a new "King of the Hill" for hot ammo: Cor-bon 125 JHP +P load, going 1335 fps. That's right, a 9mm that makes Major with store-bought ammo.

Any updates or pic's?

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"Semper Fi"

Now, how did you figure that out? Just fiddlin' with math tables?

Really, I'm curious...

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"Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came?
Why then, the war would come to you!"
(Bertolt Brecht)

Lets hear an update. I'm looking forward to seeing how it holds up to such a high round count.

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Hard work pays off

Looking back at this remove, I did a web search for prime number calculators and listings. I substituted the letters for the number of that letter in progression in the alphabet.

I had to send in the article without breaking the BHP. (I hit the deadline before the gun did.) 23,000+ rounds, of which a case or so were +P and +P+. And the two malfs I reported earlier were the only two.

I replaced springs every 4,000 rounds, only because the 18.5 pound springs were by then recording close to 17 pounds in strength. The article is off to the Editor, and will be in either a Handguns, or a speciality pub form Primedia. (they don't always tell me which it will be.)

One detail: load all the mags and shoot them. (200+ rounds.) By the time you have loaded all the mags again, the pistol is still too hot to handle by the slide. Halfway through the second full set of mags the frame starts to get real hot at the top. You can raise a blister if you're not careful.

23,000 rounds and only two malfunctions?!? That is outstanding. Good old JMB sure knew what he was doing when he designed it.

Wen you find out what publication the article will be in, please let us know. I'd really like to read about your experiences with a BHP and such a high round count.

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Hard work pays off

Yup...that's the hi-power for you.

It always amazes me how people discount the gun. It's one of the best things out there.

I'm a generation Glocker though. I was raised to believe the 1911 and BHP are outdated, unreliable, and not tough at all. I have slowly seen the light over the last year.

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Hard work pays off

Not to dis the Glock, but the "cement mixer test" always makes me smile. OK, so your pistol can survive being run through an empty cement mixer. Can you? If a pistol keeps working through anything I can survive, I'm happy.

And yes, 2 malfs in 23,000+ rounds is a pretty good record.

I always considered reliability jobs on BHP's to be superfluous as they are generally uber-reliable out of the box.

23,000 rounds and two malfs.
I have never heard of anything performing that well.
Good show!

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"The most effective armor is to keep out of range"-Italian proverb

CHECK OUT MY CUSTOM 1911 BLOG
http://thearsenalofdemocracy.blogspot.com

That's great to hear. Maybe, just maybe, this will quiet some of those stories flying around saying that the HiPower isn't a very durable gun. That seemed to have really taken off a couple of years ago after a certain article appeared in a certain magazine (which is about Guns- ahem).

...many moons ago we did a high round test of a BDM, and as I recall it was awesome. It does get boring after a while...lol. Got to be there for part of the glock test for the state of South Carolina. Pallet of .40 ammo was impressive. Hope your wrist holds up Mr. Sweeney...

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http://www.warnerpistols.com/
cvwinabq@live.com
Rio Rancho New Mexico

"I like double barrels....Aprilia, Ducati, and sxs rifles"

I have owned a BUNCH of Hi-Powers over the past 25 years or so, and I have never personally shot one to destruction.....not for lack of shooting, though.

About 15 years ago, a friend of mine was given a case of the old IMI "Black Tip" Uzi ammunition and shot a T-series Belgian Hi-Power into a rattling piece of junk inside of a year. Nothing broke, but he ended up sending it to Novak for a complete make-over, which included a Bar-Sto barrel, overall tightening and new C&S internals. It came back better than new. Ten years after it was rebuilt, it was stolen when his house was robbed and was recovered about a year later. Not only did they get his Hi-Power, they got all of his factory hi-cap mags as well. While he got the pistol back, they recovered no mags with it. He is still torqued about that....

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Wayne Miller

I'd be, too. A pistol without mags is a clumsy single-shot. The ones I used were a mixture of factory ten-shot, factory hi-cap, Mec-Gar 10-shot and hi-cap and twenty-round mags. I even snatched the magazine out of my crusty old Inglis to test. It worked fine.

If the magazine springs date back to the Eisenhower administration, or you've shot it enough to have to replace the barrel, get new mag springs.

Other than that, keep it clean.

Patrick,

Great article in the Annual detailing your exploits with "Prime". I enjoyed reading the article and there was a bunch of practical information for those of us who are going to carry our "high mileage" HPs. Very Well Done.

I'm not sure if the article was already in another issue or not. I don't usually get gun mags, but HP testing caught my eye. And if you've never read it, then it is new to you.

Which Annual is it in?