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Before the High Power was the FN Grand Rendement (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2022-08-08 12:00:06 +0000 UTCThe Browning High Power story begins with a French 1921 request for a new military pistol. FN engineer Dieudonné Saive developed a double stack, single feed magazine and John Browning adapted a Browning 1903 pistol to use it, and this was sent to France for consideration. This pistol worked well enough, but the French trials board requested changes...and they would continue requesting changes and more trials for the next decade.
By 1931, FN felt that the current iteration of the pistol - while still not meeting all the French requirements - was good enough to stand on its own as a service pistol for the Belgian Army and other clients. They named it the "Grand Rendement" (High Efficiency) and began marketing it. The Belgian Army showed a definite interest, and bought 1,000 pistols for field trials, based on the prototype example we have in today's video. These would become the Grand Puissance, aka the High Power.
For more details on this and other FN Browning pistols, I highly recommend Anthony Vanderlinden's "FN Browning Pistols", soon to be released in its third edition:
https://www.fnbrowning.com/book-fn-browning-pistols-3rd-editio
Comments
Matthew Long
One quick point on language…”rendement” in this context would be better translated as “output” or “capacity” which makes more sense since a key selling point was the number of rounds in the magazine.
Guido Schriewer
they just look very very classic. think the new springfield as cool as brownells retro ar. updated to more usable keeping the flavor. damn I wish they would do that with vehicles!
Ron
And people wonder why a mill-spec hex key costs $124.99.
Paul Beck
A pistol disassembly would have been greatly appreciated!
Martin Morehouse
I wonder what the angled oval insert is that you can see in the right side slide serrations. I see it in other HP's, and haven't' found what it is yet.
ViejoLobo
"High Efficiency" indeed. Execution aside, for a general issue pistol in the 20s, why not a magazine safety? And were I on the job in that era, I'd sell someone else's grandmother to get one. Or two.
Terry
“A weird French rabbit hole”. Are there any other kind?
David K. Jernigan
Beautiful pistol. Seems the French are just too hard to please. It would have made more sense for them to go to 9mm and adopt the high power.
David K. Jernigan
Never have liked magazine disconnects on pistols. It is just another potential point of failure, and a band aid for poor handling of a firearm.
