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.....