FN High Power

Lore & Background

In 2022, FN announced they would resume production of the Browning Hi-Power. The new FN High Power incorporated a number of entirely new features such as a fully ambidextrous slide lock, simplified takedown method, enlarged ejection port, reversible magazine release, wider slide serrations, different colored finish offerings, and 17-round magazines. In contrast to popular belief, the new FN High Power might resemble a modern Hi-Power, but it is, in fact, a different design. One of the noticeable details is the lack of Browning-style locking lugs. The original Browning Hi-Power had been discontinued in early 2018 by Browning Arms after 82 years of continuous production. From 2019 to 2022, with new Belgian Hi-Powers no longer being built, new clones were designed by various firearm companies to fill the void, including GİRSAN, TİSAŞ, and Springfield Armory, Inc. These new Hi-Power clones began competing with each other by offering new finishes, enhanced sights, redesigned hammers, bevelled magazine wells, improved trigger, and increased magazine capacity.

Reader's Guide

The FN High Power represents a significant evolution of the Browning Hi-Power lineage, which had been one of the most widely used military pistols in history, having been used by the armed forces of over 50 countries. The original Hi-Power was notable for its 13-round double-stack magazine, which was almost twice the capacity of contemporary designs like the Walther P38 or Colt M1911, and it was the only 9mm semi-automatic pistol with such a magazine from 1935 until 1966. The 2022 FN High Power updates this legacy with a 17-round magazine and modern ergonomic and functional improvements, while being a fundamentally different design internally. Its introduction came after a period when clones from other manufacturers had filled the market gap left by the original's discontinuation, and it re-established FN's direct presence in the Hi-Power market with a pistol that retains the classic appearance but incorporates contemporary features.

Did You Know?

• The 2022 FN High Power is a different design from the original Browning Hi-Power, lacking Browning-style locking lugs.
• The original Browning Hi-Power was discontinued in early 2018 after 82 years of continuous production.
• From 2019 to 2022, clones of the Hi-Power were produced by companies including GİRSAN, TİSAŞ, and Springfield Armory.
• The new FN High Power features a 17-round magazine, an increase over the original's 13-round capacity.

From French Specification to Belgian Standard

The Hi-Power's origins trace to a French military specification demanding a compact, robust sidearm with at least ten rounds of capacity, an external hammer, a safety catch, and a magazine disconnect. The French also required the weapon to be lethal at fifty meters, a threshold that effectively mandated a 9mm cartridge with roughly 120-grain projectiles traveling at 1,100 feet per second, all within a one-kilogram weight limit. FN tasked John Browning with the project, but because he had already sold his M1911 patents to Colt, he had to engineer a completely new mechanism. He produced two prototypes in Utah—one blowback, one locked-breech—both incorporating Dieudonné Saive's staggered magazine concept, which doubled capacity without ballooning the grip. The locked-breech version, initially striker-fired with a 16-round magazine, was selected for further refinement. After the Colt patents lapsed in 1928, Saive wove in the 1911's barrel bushing and takedown sequence. By 1931 the design had settled on a 13-round magazine and an integral barrel bushing, and the Belgian Army purchased a thousand for field trials. France ultimately passed, choosing the lower-capacity Modèle 1935, but Belgium adopted the pistol as its P-35 in 1935.

A Pistol on Both Sides of the Trench

When German forces occupied Belgium in 1940, the FN Herstal factory fell under Wehrmacht control, and the Hi-Power was pressed into Axis service under the designation Pistole 640(b), the "b" standing for belgisch. Simultaneously, FN engineers relocated their production line to a John Inglis and Company plant in Canada, where the pistol was manufactured for Allied forces. It was in this Canadian context that the name "Hi-Power" was formally adopted, a label that persisted even after manufacturing returned to Belgian soil following the war. The pistol accumulated a rich vocabulary of nicknames over the decades—HP, BHP, P-35, HP-35, GP (from the French grande puissance), and BAP (Browning Automatic Pistol)—reflecting its many national adoptions and the 1935 introduction date. Despite the wartime split, the Hi-Power's 13-round double-stack magazine remained unmatched in the 9mm semi-automatic world from 1935 until the MAB PA-15 appeared in 1966, giving it a nearly three-decade head start over competitors like the Walther P38 and Colt M1911.

Adoption Across More Than Fifty Nations

The Hi-Power's reach across the globe is one of the most remarkable aspects of its story. It served as a standard-issue sidearm in the armed forces of more than fifty nations, a breadth of adoption that places it among the most widely fielded military pistols ever produced. While the majority of examples were manufactured in Belgium by FN Herstal, licensed and unlicensed copies were produced in countries including Argentina, Hungary, India, Bulgaria, and Israel, spreading the design's mechanical DNA far beyond its European origins. The pistol's single-action, semi-automatic action in 9×19mm Parabellum and later .40 S&W gave it a universal appeal across different military doctrines. Its 13-round magazine capacity was nearly double that of contemporaries like the Walther P38 and the Colt M1911, a practical advantage in combat that helped cement its reputation. The sheer number of nations that trusted the Hi-Power in the line of duty speaks to a design that balanced reliability, capacity, and serviceability in a way few competing pistols of its era could match.

Eighty-Two Years, a Gap, and a Reinvention

After eighty-two years of continuous production, the Hi-Power's original run came to an end in early 2018 when Browning Arms discontinued the model. The sudden absence of a new Belgian Hi-Power created a conspicuous gap in the market, and between 2019 and 2022, several manufacturers—including GİRSAN, TİSAŞ, and Springfield Armory—rushed to fill it with their own clones. These newcomers competed aggressively, differentiating themselves through new finishes, enhanced sights, redesigned hammers, bevelled magazine wells, improved triggers, and increased magazine capacities. Then in 2022, FN announced its own return to the Hi-Power name. However, the 2022 "FN High Power" is, contrary to popular assumption, not merely a refresh of the classic design but a fundamentally different pistol. It features a fully ambidextrous slide lock, a simplified takedown method, an enlarged ejection port, a reversible magazine release, wider slide serrations, multiple finish options, and 17-round magazines. Most tellingly, it lacks the Browning-style locking lugs that defined the original, marking a clear philosophical break with the 1935 architecture.