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 The gun did not sell well, which should be very surprising – this was a very outdated design by the 1990s and the Mauser name just wasn’t worth much as a value-add.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.
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
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