The FN High Power pistol began with a request for a new French Army pistol. The initial design was done by John Browning, with later iterations and improvements from his protege Dieudonne Saive at FN. After several years of French trials, FN decided that the gun was well-developed enough for international sales, and split the project into two tracks. One continued to work with French military requests, which ultimately came to naught with the adoption of the Mle 1935 pistols. The other track found interests in the Belgian military, which eventually adopted a later iteration of the gun as the GP35 – aka the Browning High Power.
Many thanks to the Ars Mechanica Foundation for giving me access to this unique pistol to film for you! You can find their history book here:
https://amzn.to/3SojgM3
FN Grand Rendement: https://youtu.be/9KxwOQUCgxM
Belgian GP35: https://youtu.be/vzwQUjYcfQE
Hats off Mr.Elbert Searle…
very cool
so many questions though
I can see the attraction of the removable breech block from a manufacturing POV
it would make the machining.of the slide and breech block soo much easier.
however
it was Browning who (had) owned the patent for the one piece, combined slide and breech bolt
which is why guns like the Savage pistols, had to use a 2 piece assembly.
what happened here? had Colt bought the patent and woulddn’t let FN use it?
I remember that Savage pistol “Sort of Luger looking, was it; forgot.” had that sort of removable bolt face, thing. Can’t help you with the rest of your questions much though sorry, as if I had any such questions – I would be like, Kieth in England would know. Would said attraction still be… In your opinion, be of benefit today? If Patents et al have lapsed, if so, how would you go about it… A sort of cross between the slide pin and said breach thinghi ma jig, or?
search for the Savage. 45
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/?s=Savage+45
Aye that, so Kieth in England, is it better as Storm says “Manufacturing wise, and you alluded to, to do this now.” if so, what do we do?
Can we combine the usual now pin, with the removable breech… For example, and that stock/tube lark. If its better, you’d know than now. Lets get on with it.
Keith, sorry.
Saive has set the gun up for controlled feed
IIRC, all of the hi powers that I’ve seen were push feed
the bolt face is clearly going to be easier to machine accurately and smoothly with the removable breech bolt, than with the one piece bolt and slide.
I wonder whether it was difficulty in machining the one piece slide as controlled feed, the reliability benefits of push feed, or, difficulty in fitting a suitable controlled feed extractor on the one piece slide?
incidentally
that extractor looks like it has drawn on stocks of Belgian model 1889 mausee rifle spare extractors
Well, i got the push feed thing wrong
current breech faces are still flat, but the extractor claw is positioned higher up and is narrower so it doesn’t catch the case rim until late in the feed cycle
Not wrong… All double row feeding magazine using pistols are in “Push Feed” cathegory…
what keeps the breech block from rotating when the pistol is cycling?
is the magazine indexing it whilst the hammer is at full cock and the slide at full rearward travel?
The stocked pistol carbine/ pdw seems to have been a theme back then
Several of the Petter patents also show carbines with Petter’s take on the Browning tilting barrel locking system.
and, of course there are the beautiful earlier carbines built on Luger and mauser C96 actions, and the artillery Luger.
at what point does anyone dare to put forward a blowback pistol calibre carbine made with tubing from a bicycle or a cheap bed frame, rather than beautifully machined from solid?
Whats crazy, today maybe its easier and cheaper to cnc machine it/something from stock, then to add/weld all the ancillaries to tube.
Could it be cheaper? If it might be easier etc…
C96 Stock holster thing, artillery Lugers… You and Storm should knock one up “Tubes, stock etc” I wouldn’t be much help. I dreamt of an intersting gast gun style mortar last night, woke up thinking… That is a telescopic round. Wish I could think of something else to be honest, not Musks flying car. But something else; Homer Simpson dream “Everyone has one of these, these things you invented!” Hee…
Mortar was a bit of a shocker, internal tube mags inside a rectangle; barrels either side, hydropnematic recoil thing, was a fair big fecker but nasty.
Oh, that was it, the arse end “Were you put the charges over on a mortar, is a telescopic 40mm round… Is a sabot. Could have just been me. Dreams, eh. Had four barrels to start with. Maybe I was half asleep. Weeeee! Flying car.
Pdb, for your loghorreical transgressions, you will end up in weapons hell where you would fire mortar round sized rifle grenades stuck on C-96 barrel end ! 🙂
He he…
“(…)intersting gast gun style mortar(…)”
Unless intentional show of disdain: Gast.
Mortars use relatively small powder charge (for their caliber), therefore there is not need to use plurality of barrels, even in fast firing ones like 5 cm Machinengranatwerfer M19 https://www.landmarkscout.com/5-cm-machinengranatwerfer-m19-german-automatic-mortar/
The war starting in ’39 doubtless had a lot to do with bed frames and bike parts becoming parts of weapons, no? A highly unaesthetic side-effect of what ol’ Rene Guenon called ‘the reign of quantity.’
Probably… Church bells in the English civil war.
Anyway, can you help Keith or Storm this manufacturing lark.
Well I never knew any of that, bar; I once saw a unstocked Hi power on a website with the tangent sight, think it was a de-act, and thought well that was being “Optimistic” as a pistol I did then gather; it was supposed to have a stock. But overall, I had no idea; sort of a PDW then really.
I really like that stock, I have converted it to a 10mm Glock extended mag version in my head already; who wouldn’t like that – We just straighten out the lines, extend the grip etc, for better asthetics… If you will.
If one could almost flush fit that, to arse end of a 10mm Glock; pig hunter folks or something – All nice lines, asthetically pleasing; and it doesn’t snap, that must sell now – Surely. I mean it is good, it would actually be of use, useable etc.
New lower basically… So all the angles are like; to do the stock thing; while allowing it to function as per. Like it, I do.
10mm hk mp5 mag, even; angles… Mess around; be away.
That would explain “The Pdw” lark, why it was the first to have a (Big) mag. I think… Carbine lark, thinking.
SPRUNG!! Like a fecking Umbrella heavy duty locks, ace product. Pops out. Premium product – Already heavy customised 10mm Glocks; amazing lower change thus. That will sell even for 300 bux, be like that. Mofos going this is fecking ace BANG!! BANGGG!!! IN 10MM Works. BANG!!! BANG!!! LOVE IT, DROPPING SHIT MILES AWAY. Etc.
Well, actually HP locking is not cammed on a slide stop pin, but it still has a locking insert in the frame SEPARATE from a slide-stop pin. Actually it came very handy in 1947, when a slight change in its measurement allowed FN to sell thousands of new pistols, despite having 350 k German and 200?k Canadian ones in circulation. They simply re-dimensioned the insert and half a milion old pistols went overboard, cut off from spare bbls
reference to a statement ca. 10:30 into the movie
Btw. isnt precursor a word connected to chemistry, not mechanics ?
It is pretty common in mechanics. I am used to seeing it in literature about vintage planes. It is a synonym of ‘forerunner’ and can be used with people or things. How would one use it in chemistry? I barely scraped by in that class.