Our book on Hungarian AKs, “Rifles on the Danube”, is available here:
https://www.headstamppublishing.com/danube-book
In the 1980s, the Mauser company was completely adrift, without any real plans or goals or good leadership. They had been trying to get by on relaunched old designs, and not been very successful. By the late 80s they move on to just buying guns from other companies (like Renato Gamba) and relabelling them as Mauser. One of these partnerships was with FEG in Hungary.
In 1990, Mauser contracted with FEG to buy Browning High Power copies. FEG had actually licensed the high Power design from FN back in the 1970s, and was already tooled up for production, so they just added a Mauser roll mark and called the gun the M80. It was a straight copy of the High Power, except for the omission of the magazine safety. Production ran from 1990 until 1995, with only 3,200 made. The gun did not sell well, which should be very surprising – this was a very outdated design by the 1990s and the Mauser name just wasn’t worth much as a value-add.
Perhaps I misunderstood, but how is this one of the last vestiges of Mauser small arms production? Rifles under the Mauser brand are still made and sold.
From what Ian said, he was talking about the original company, not newer companies that simply own the right to the name.
I think he’s referring to the use of the Mauser name, rather than products originating at that sprawling Oberndorf complex. Kind of like Spandau.
The lack of the magazine safety is interesting in that the actual FEG-branded High Power, the PJK-9HP, still has it firmly in residence.
I bought one over a quarter-century ago for $225, brand new. It has worked perfectly well all this time.
One peculiarity is that in 1996, FN’s High Power (actually manufactured in Portugal since the late 1970s) acquired a 15-shot 9mm magazine and a 1/4″ longer butt to go with it. As such, post-1996 FN made High powers cannot use the original 13-shot 9mm magazine; it won’t go in far enough to catch, or feed.
The FEG made version retained the original-sized magazine well and the original 13-shot 9mm magazine. Which means that it can use any HP magazine made since the original introduction. The late FN production cannot.
One little-known fact about the 9mm High Power is that it can use any magazine made for any 9mm Beretta M92 version, including the Brazilian-made Taurus PT-92/99 series. All that is required is cutting a magazine catch notch in the Beretta magazine tube to match the one for the High Power. Since the magazine catches are in different places relative to the magazine tube, this in no way prevents the modified magazine from being use in its original weapon.
This is due to the original Beretta M92 magazine prototype in 1972 being simply two High Power magazine bodies, cut in two at different points and then the two “long” pieces being welded together. At the time, the only other double-column 9 x 19mm magazines in existence were those of the American S&W M59 and the French MAB P-15. Beretta concluded the HP magazine was a better candidate.
Considering the number of 20+ round 9mm magazines available for the Beretta M92 “family”, this gives the petite’ HP a fearsome firepower potential, exceeded only by some of the more emphatic 9mm SMGs.
clear ether
eon
I know Ian is not a fan of drum magazines, but —– https://themagshack.com/shop/pistol-magazines/9mm/promag-browning-hi-power-9mm-50-round-drum-magazine/
Well said. The FEG wasn’t the jewel a Browning Hi-Power is but before moving to a Glock I carried one for personal protection. It was no more ‘out-dated’ than other SA semiautos, just not at the height of fashion
Having dealt with the Inglis HP years ago, I’d rate the FEG as better than what became the standard British Army sidearm by default.
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/inglis-high-power-how-a-chinese-whim-became-a-british-service-pistol/
The Argentine made commercial High Powers weren’t bad, but with their “simplified” slides without the scallops on each side at the front they looked a bit strange, like a weird hybrid of the HP and the 1911.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/media/c3rpdynf/artv2711-ihtog-fmfap-9.jpg?quality=60
Then there was the “Pindad” made in Indonesia. My limited experience with one of those back in the Seventies led me to suspect that the steel in them was a bit “soft”, or rather was softer than the average Spanish-made pistols before WW2.
I’d say that like most John Moses Browning designs, it is hard to manufacture a truly bad 9mm High Power, but that apparently didn’t stop some people from trying.
cheers
eon
the “softness” is by design
All Hi Powers are “soft”.
So long as there is sufficient surface area in the key high stress areas, such as locking ribs and the cam below the barrel, then there are significant advantages in using a lower carbon and lower alloy steel and tempering it to lower hardness, or even leaving all but the key stress areas un-hardened, for example by using induction heating for just those key areas
Advantages include less distortion, less risk of cracking an otherwise finished piece during hardening, and better resistance to fatigue.
as a gross generalisation, lower alloy and lower carbon steels are often quicker and easier to machine and give less tool wear than the higher carbon and higher alloy steels.
The S&W 9mm double stack mags were also compatible with the Hi Power
The mag on the 9mm Ruger Camp Carbine was also a shorter version of the S&W mag. I just can’t remember how short, 9 or 10 rounds?
I do remember noticing the similarity and cutting a fresh slot in a Hi Power mag for the Ruger’s mag catch. It worked well.
apologies
RugerMarlin camp carbine.one error I can’t blame auto-incorrect for
I think many other of the era (80s, 90s) wonder nines use basicly almost a straight copy of that magazine. Iirc its (was) patented also
A small correction: FÉG’s Hi-Power is P9M, not simply P9. (And the FÉG P9R and P9RK are the copy of the Smith & Wesson M59.)
A small extra information: the “Hungarian proofmark” is one of the C.I.P.-accepted Hungarian proofmarks. This shield with “N” means that this firearm is tested for smokeless powder: N = “nitro”.
I never realised that FEG had an actual license and (presumably) the data pack
so, presumably there mat be some parts interchangeability with other metric Hi Powers?
may
Once upon a time, I saw a Hi-Power prototype collection at a gun show. One of the more memorable pieces in that collection was a striker-fired version that I vaguely remember as being described as for either a French or Swiss contract. The guy running the display didn’t know all that much about the pistol, but from what I saw, it was basically a very early version of the whole Glock idea of putting as little as possible between the shooter and shooting someone: No safety on the damn thing, at all.
I remember looking at it, thinking “Yeah, that’s interesting… I need to look that up, later…”, and then being unable to find a damn thing on anything that looked like it, later on.
TBH, I’m not even all that sure it was FN; it had a Hi-Power look to it, and there were Belgian proof marks on it (per the guy who displayed it…), but…
Interesting thing. I owned a Hi-Power for a couple of years, early 1980s version made in Portugal, but I really couldn’t bring myself to rely on the Hi-Power safety system. Carrying cocked-and-locked, at that point, was a bridge too far for me.
JMB’s (or was it Saivre’s) patent for the Hi Power, showed a single action striker fired pistol.
the striker mechanism was like a baby Browning.
Amazing to see one in the flesh
I think Ian did a series a few years back on the Hi Power prototypes and development
Unless intentional show of disdain: Saive
“(…)striker-fired(…)Hi-Power look(…)”
You probably have encountered Grande Rendement which https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/exploded-view-high-power-pistol/ describes as follows
…Browning started by creating a staggered double-column magazine that held 16 rounds, unheard of for a flush-fitting unit. As development progressed, Browning conceived of the basic shape of the pistol and its breech-locking system in which the rear of the barrel cammed down to disengage dorsal lugs from recesses in the slide.
Working with an FN design team that included Saive, Browning ultimately produced a pistol called the Model 1927 Grande Rendement. However, Browning passed away in 1926—at FN in Herstal—still awaiting the pistol’s patent, which was not issued until the next year.
Despite Browning’s and FN’s efforts, the Grande Rendement was found wanting; it was considered to be too large and heavy for its intended purpose. It fell to Saive to re-work the design and produce a gun that satisfied the desires of the military.
Saive made numerous crucial changes to the pistol, dispensing with its complicated contours, removable plate-mounted lockwork, interrupted screw breechbolt and internal striker. He also reduced the dimensions of the gun and the capacity of the magazine…
Ian’s piece on the Grand Rendement.
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/before-the-high-power-was-the-fn-grand-rendement/
Whatever that pistol was, I wish I’d gotten a better look at it. The guy who had the display told me he’d gotten it off of someone who’d found it in Europe after WWII, and that it was a GI bring-back. Past that, he knew Jack and squat.
From what I remember, it wasn’t that Grande Rendement, but something else. Had the distinctive Hi-Power profile to the grips, but different, smoother? It was one of those things you experience where at the time you know there’s something there, in the way of “weird”, and you just don’t realize what you’re seeing is potentially “very weird and interesting”.
Hell, for all I know, it could have been someone’s attempt at repairing a Hi-Power, or some inventors idea of improving one. All I know for sure is “came out of WWII Europe”, and since the actual guy who picked it up was dead…? The collector who had the display had picked it up at a random estate sale, and by sheer accident. All the family could tell him was “Grampy’s gun, and he brought it back from the war…”
Just weird little memory that came back for me, watching Ian’s video. At the time, there wasn’t a hell of a lot in the way of FN references out there, so I spent some time just trying to find something that might have gone over that era of Hi-Power development.
In my younger days I took Jeff Cooper as gospel. He said cooked and locked was safe so I said ‘Hallelujah, Col/Rev!’Then Glock said ‘We’re simpler’ and I said ‘Austria akhbar!’Safety is mostly a matter of pay attention:simple but not therefore easy
“Mauser”, was indeed a pretty crap businesses the late 80s and early 90s
a bit like Colt, Winchester, Remington and S&W in that time period too
I remember looking at the “mauser” badge engineered open bolt .22rf
I think it was probably made by German Voere?
I know that the mags wouldn’t interchange with a Gevarm.
I visited the British import agent in about 1988.
They’d only just stopped importing them.
Apparently the agent was having to do all sorts of work to get them to work properly, like a whole morning of gunsmith’s time getting one to feed
With the typically British bureaucracy involved in a fire arms certificate, simply replacing the gun, with another would have been a bureaucratic pain requiring the poor bugger who’d bought it to notify the cops of its disposal, the police to vary the buyers certificate to acquire the new gun, the importer having to notify the police of the return of the faulty gun and “gift” of the fresh one…
bullshit all around and the importer as poor piggy in the middle
come to think of it, there were several other copies of the Gevarm open bolt .22 rifles, even including an Argentine one.
Did 1980’s “Mauser” put its stamp on the cheapest version they could find?
Kind of like a promoter buying rights to a classic rock band’s name then touring with a pack of scurvy almost-musicians
‘ this was a very outdated design by the 1990s’
Thems fightin’ words
I’ve carried a FN (Belgium) since 1975 – you can keep yer plastic toy almost guns!
Seriously, what can they do the HP can’t? And if you need more than 13 rounds you either need an eye exam or need some time on the range.
My HP was my go to war side arm for 25 years and went with me to the Two Way Range in Kuwait in 91-92.
ps- This Stones fan would NOT be happy for such a substitution…
Could be he meant ‘outmoded’ in the literal sense of ‘out of fashi on.’A gun that remains perfectly useful but is no longer trendy. Marketers worry about that; shooters as such, not
Later on and under Sigarms, the brand resurfaced with the Mauser M2. Eventhough was a badtard child born of the Sauer factory machinery, the quirky attempt flopped badly.
‘ this was a very outdated design by the 1990s’
Thems fightin’ words
I’ve carried a FN (Belgium) since 1975 – you can keep yer plastic toy almost guns!
Seriously, what can they do the HP can’t? And if you need more than 13 rounds you either need an eye exam or need some time on the range.
My HP was my go to war side arm for 25 years and went with me to the Two Way Range in Kuwait in 91-92.