The FN/Browning High Power-Revisited Part One
As many of you know, I've been a long-time High Power owner and user; all of mine have been .40s. The High Power (and info nugget: High Powers made, rollmarked and marketed by FN themselves are termed "High Power;" those made by FN, but rollmarked and marketed by Browning are termed "Hi Power." Guess it's an American advertising sorta thing...
Back on track. While the High Power is somewhat obsolescent in some key areas, it's hardly obselete, and still a very viable handgun, albeit one that can be improved in certain ways. I like the OEM profile of the gun, so the modifications I make tend to be internal, and grips, but there are certainly other very viable improvement options, as we've seen from Yost, Novak, Garthwaite, Williams, Sokol,and Nighthawk Custom et al.
Springs for the High Power are critical items. For years, I ran replacement recoil springs from Wolff, but over time I came to be highly suspect of them. Mine being a .40 necessitated the 20 lb spring, and the Wolff ones were suspiciously easy to install, and did not seem to maintain their tensility long; I strongly suspect that my first Hi Power (a polished blued Standard, upgraded by Kurt Wickmann at Novak's) suffered from battering incurred by a too-light Wolff recoil spring, resulting in hammer follow, necessitating a sear replacement from Browning Repair. Unfortunately, the action after the repair no longer had the superb triggerpull characteristics that Kurt Wickmann felt was the best he'd ever felt.
Until recently, I used only Browning's replacement .40 recoil springs, which were certainly up to snuff (and difficult to install, field-strip and remove...). However, I became familiar with a company called BH Spring Solutions LLC. In speaking at length with partner Mark Allen, I've pretty much ascertained the following:
BHSS seemingly came about in conjunction with the Bulgarian production of the Arcus 94, a Bulgarian clone/modification of the Mk III High Power. I suspect that they were the OEM spring producers for that gun, and then subsequently branched out, concerning themselves with replacement and improved springs for the High Power itself, CZ 75, Makarov and of course the Arcus 94s.
Essentially, they've concentrated on niche production of a better spring set for the platforms they're concerned with, and have correspondingly branched out into providing related tools, punches, grips and other similar components.
After procuring a replacement recoil spring for my Mk III .40, I was favorably impressed, and Mark Allen and I engaged in discussions. The upshot was this: They were interested my my testing and discussing their products (I was particularly interested in their new dual-stage recoil reduction buffering guide rod), but to establish a fair starting point, they felt that I should replace all the OEM springs with theirs, which I was willing to do (my original thought was just to replace the slide springs, but since everything interrelates, they really wanted me to go with the full program with the receiver as well). To facilitate this, Mark and Slav (his Bulgarian partner) provided me with the following:
-The complete BHSS .40 spring kit, providing me with a 20-24 lb recoil spring, a 30lb reduced power and a 32lb standard power mainspring, a safety lever spring, a sear lever spring, a magazine latch spring, a firing pin spring (light), and a Hi-Power trigger optimization spring kit (providing 2 strengths of trigger return springs and a reduced power disconnector spring).
-Their Master Tool Kit, which consisted of a complete set of Wilde punches, roll pin punches, a 2 punch trigger pin removal punch set, a mainspring removal/installation tool, a firing pin retaining plate removal/installation tool, a "third hand" tool (for hammer positioning facilitating both disassembly and reassembly), and a polishing cloth.
Additionally, I already had on hand a set of Lynman's standard and roll pin pistol punches, dual-headed gunsmithing hammer, and a Wheeler urethane Universal Bench Block. The bench block was essential for the project.
So, my long standing friend and shooting accomplice Rick gathered at my workshop (aka kitchen island granite countertop, with my wife's grudging acquiescence-she wisely departed on an extended shopping expedition once we were situated...) and with Stephen Camp's Hi Power disassembly guide, J.B. Wood's disassembly/reassembly guide, and BHSS's excellent YouTube guide, we proceeded onward. I'd previously field-stripped the gun, cleaned/de-lubed, and removed the grips from the receiver, so we were able to jump into things immediately.
From the onset, it became clear that a detailed disassembly of a High Power was of a significantly different magnitude of difficulty than that of a Glock (and not because a High Power has significantly more components-my .40 Mk III only has some 45 components). Some background: My High Power was obtained BNIB, and is a MX code Mk III .40, with a production date of 2003. The only changes I've applied have been recoil spring replacements, painting the sight blocks, and adding a Buffer Technologies polymer recoil spring buffer, and replacing the grips with a set of Hogue G10 checkered grips). Cleaning and lubrication was performed after each use, and my estimated roundcount on the gun is around 3,000 rounds, while I like it, it was used and carried most heavily during the last ammunition shortage, when .40 was pretty much the only quality factory stuff I could get consistently and in needed quantities at a reasonable price; this went on for about 6 months as I recall.
FN uses roll pins, which I generally despise, as they're relatively easily deformed in removal and installation-but they're pretty much the only game in town...The slide roll pins (for the sear and extractor) were very tightly installed, and difficult to remove. In fact, ALL the FN's pins, except ironically for the dreaded trigger pin, were extremely tight and difficult to remove-and that's with the proper tools on hand...(but I only needed to replace one pin in the process-the extractor pin, which fortunately I had a OEM spare on hand).
BHSS has an excellent video covering their design, intent, and replacement of all the High Power's springs-covering their philosophy, manufacturing design improvements, and the spring interrelationships. It's very helpful operationally, and in determination of the best combination of spring options to be used.
After (finally) getting successfully through the slide spring replacement process, (and I strongly appreciated and recommended their firing pin retention plate tool for firing pin, firing pin spring, and firing pin retention plate removal and re-installation a snap), we moved on the receiver.....
The FN/Browning High Power-Revisited Part Two
Moving on to the receiver, and using the BHSS third hand tool and mainspring tool we found that that portions of the disassembly process was actually easily accomplished-the sear pin, sear spring, hammer assembly, and (surprisingly) trigger assembly were all removed. The mainspring tool was exceptionally useful in dismounting the mainspring, which was replaced by the slightly lighter 30# BHSS (OEM mainspring was 32#; earlier High Powers originally came with 26# mainsprings, but FN had upgraded the mainspring weight to 32# some years ago), we'll see how the lighter mainspring performs; if there's an issue, I'll switch to the BHSS 32# one. While the trigger assembly came out (the BHSS trigger removal pin punch set was absolutely superb for this), I simply was unable to dislodge the trigger return spring pin and the disconnector retaining pin spring.
At that point, I determined that things needed to be presented to an experience gunsmith, so I went to C.a.R Firearms in Kent, WA, with whom I've been very pleased with previously with work they've provided to me on my Beretta 92D and 1911s. The gunsmith was very experienced on High Power vicissitudes, and was quickly able to take care of the trigger group for me (replacing the OEM trigger return spring with BHSS's 2-coil Tactical TRS (providing a more powerful reset), and recommending removal of the magazine disconnector/safety plunger mechanism. For years, I've run all of mine with it, but he felt that it would reduce trigger creep significantly, lighten the triggerpull weight by at least a half pound, and would not adversely effect the trigger return, so for the first time, I decided to try it (especially since IDPA rules were modified several years ago to allow for magazine disconnector/safety removals without penalization, and the late Stephen Camp's endorsement of the merits of the removal).
My thoughts on the completed package:
-If nothing else, BHSS's tool are exceptionally well thought out and executed, and are a huge advantage in expediting detailed disassembly and re-assembly.
-I'm impressed with BHSS'a intent and integrated philosophy regarding their spring design, execution, and synchronization. Now I'll see how they work; initially, I'm impressed with the improved triggerpull on my High Power
-The High Power's disassembly beyond basic field-stripping and firing pin/firing pin spring removal and replacement is not for the faint-hearted, and you really need proper tools to acomplish things. For me, after a certain point, as I discussed, I needed to turn things over to a professional gunsmith to finalize the spring replacement process, particularly for the trigger group assembly.
-Have spare OEM roll pins on hand, you'll likely need them. 'Nuff said
-There was amazingly little accumulated GSR in either slide and/or receiver, and/or on slide/receiver components; the High Power is a well designed and internally sealed platform; other than for routine replacements of firing pin and extractor springs, I don't see much of a need to go into those recesses at all.
-Spring wise, I've gone with the following:
BHSS 20-24# recoil spring;
BHSS light firing pin spring;
BHSS optimized sear lever spring (which is lighter than the OEM one);
BHSS extractor spring (significantly heavier than the OEM extractor spring);
BHSS magazine latch spring (which is heavier than the OEM one);
BHSS 30# mainspring (lighter than the OEM 32# one);
BHSS safety lever spring (heavier and product-improved compared to the OEM one);
BHSS Tactical 2-coil tactical trigger reset spring.
If I do decide to re-install the magazine safety/disconnector plunger, I'll use the BHSS reduced power plunger spring.
How long did things take? Until we were stymied by the trigger group's pins, about 2-2.5 hours, and that was moving slowly, deliberately, and with frequent referrals to the various disassembly media resources that we had on hand. If the trigger pins had been more cooperative, we probably could have easily finished the entire project within 3 hours.
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be running the High Power in this weekend's IDPA match, which should give me a pretty good test as to how things work out...but to be on the safe side, I'll probably bring one of my other .40 platforms as back-up if needed...
Is the project worthwhile? Ultimately, that remains to be seen, particularly through the empirical results of actual use. BHSS makes a compelling case for programmed spring replacement intervals, and for the superiority of their springs as replacements. I already agree on that regarding BHSS versus Wolff; now we'll see how things shake out empirically on BHSS versus OEM FN.
Other potentially worthwhile esoterica of interest:
Lubrication: Grease: Lucas Red "N" Tacky #2; Oil: Weapon Shield and Lucas Extreme Gun Oil
Ammunition: Sellier & Bellot 1809 gr ball
Gunsmith: C.a.R. Firearms, Kent, WA https://carfirearms.com/
Bench Block: Wheeler Engineering Universal
Punches: Lyman (regular and roll pin) Wilde (regular, roll pin, and concave (for trigger pin removal)
BHSS sites:
Basic: https://bhspringsolutions.com/
BHSS YouTube submissions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH-..._as=subscriber
As this project progressed, I'll continue to provide comments and my feedback (as well as welcoming that of others here on p-f).
It looks like 2020 will be significantly dedicated to the SIG P320 and the FN High Power for me....
Best, Jon