I Am a Former US Air Force Security Force Officer: There Is Nothing Like the P-35 Browning Hi-Power Even After 91 Years

The late great John Moses Browning is arguably the greatest firearm designer of all-time, and one of his most enduringly popular firearms was indeed the last design of his career before his untimely death: the 9mm Browning Hi-Power semiautomatic pistol, AKA the BHP, P-35, and the “Grande Puissance (GP).” Indeed, though I’m not as big a fanboy of the BHP as I am of, say, the Beretta 92 handgun series or the Makarov pistol, I’m quite fond of the gun nonetheless.

 Quite evidently, quite a few fellow gun enthusiasts share that fondness, as it was for several decades *THE* most widely-issued military and police sidearm in the world – particularly to antiterrorist/counterterrorist units –  and it’s still going strong after 91 years.

A Boy and His Browning: My Personal Experiences with the P-35 

I first learned about the BHP via (1) the Phoenix Force series of action-adventure novels by Gar Wilson and (2) the nonfiction book “The Rescuers: The World’s Top Anti-Terrorist Units” by Leroy Thompson whilst I was in middle school back in 1988. 

I first fired a P-35 in December of the following year, at the tender age of 14; it was a range-rental gun furnished by the sadly now-defunct Santa Anita Firing Range in Monrovia, California.

To be honest, that first experience was a decidedly underwhelming one, but then again, I had only started learning to shoot two months earlier, and my marksmanship skills were a long way from being perfected. 

Browning Hi-Power. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

As time went on, I honed my pistol-shooting skills, and my appreciation for the Browning grew accordingly.

Finally, in 2007, I bought my own Hi-Power from Fowler Gun Room in Orange, California, as a 32nd birthday present to myself. A now deceased buddy of mine (God rest his soul) from my time at HQ Air Mobility Command (AMC) did a serial number look-up for me and determined that it had been made in 1967, which by happy coincidence was the same year that my Ford Mustang—gone but not forgotten—and maternal half-sister were born.

The slide is rollmarked “Browning Arms Company St Louis, Mo. & Montreal P.Q.” Immediately below that, it reads “Made In Belgium,” indicating the gun was built at the Fabrique Nationale (FN) Herstal plant.

The gun is accurate, reliable, and pleasant to shoot.

Alas, during one range session circa 2008, the factory-original front sight sheared off, so my then-local gunsmith, the top-notch Mr. T.J. Jimakas of TJ’s Custom Gunworks, installed a Smith & Wesson revolver-style front sight as a replacement.

T.J. also added stippling to the front strap and refinished the slide in black Parkerizing to replace the less rust-resistant bluing.

I guesstimate I’ve fired around 5,000 rounds through the gun.

Hi-Power History in Brief 

Ironically, John Browning envisioned the BHP as an improvement over one of his other enduringly popular and supremely well-regarded handguns: the legendary M1911 .45 ACP semiauto pistol that served as the U.S. Armed Forces’ standard-issue service pistol for 75 years. 

 Some of the Mr. Browning’s design changes from the 1911 to the BHP included: replacing the swinging barrel link with a more durable fixed locking cam, replacing the sliding trigger with a pivoting trigger – some would also dispute as to whether this constituted a true “improvement” – and doing away with the separate barrel bushing and recoil spring plug; the latter two are a definite improvement when it comes to ease of field-stripping and reassembly IMHO.

Just like the M1911, the Browning Hi-Power is a single-action autopistol, i.e., it cannot be fired with the hammer down.

Like its .45 caliber predecessor, it has a frame-mounted safety catch that permits so-called “cocked & locked” carry, and it’s also ergonomically friendly and instinctive in that the safety is swept **downward** for fire mode and **upward** for safe mode.

For good measure, the safety catch locks the slide in place. 

Its high magazine capacity of 13+1 rounds – which also was the reason for the “Hi-Power” moniker, as opposed to the inherent ballistic capabilities of the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge – was certainly revolutionary for its time.

Sadly, JMB didn’t live long enough to get to see the final finished version of this particular product of his, as he died of a heart attack in 1926 at age 71, nine years before the pistol was perfected and finalized.

So, Belgian gun designer Monsieur Dieudonné Saive carried on Mr. Browning’s legacy and applied the finishing touches, finally doing so in 1935, which explains both the P-35 and Grande Puissance appellations.

The most elite and best-publicized users of the P-35 were the British Special Air Service (SAS) — whom Leroy Thompson highly rated as the top counterterrorist unit in the world — and the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). 

As recently as the1991 Persian Gulf War, AKA Operation Desert Storm, the Hi-Power was once again being wielded by our British and Canadian coalition allies…and on the flip side, was Saddam Hussein’s personal choice of pistol.

BHP at the Movies

Though it doesn’t have the cinematic cultural icon status that the Beretta 92 does—or, for that matter, James Bond’s German-made Walther PPK—the BHP has still appeared in its fair share of movies, with the most famous recent example that comes to mind being “Beverly Hills Cop,” wherein it’s wielded by megastar Eddie Murphy’s wisecracking protagonist Axel Foley. 

Want Your Own?

According to True Gun Value, “A BROWNING HI POWER pistol is currently worth an average price of $899.82 new and $889.68 used.” Meanwhile, Springfield Armory—which ironically made the proverbial “big leagues” of the firearms manufacturing business by churning out M1911s as the first serious peacetime competitor to Colt—makes a high-quality copy of the BHP known as the SA-35, and the Argentines and Hungarians made their own good-quality licensed-built copies of the gun, known as the FM FAP and FEG PJK-9HP FP9, respectively. 

MORE – Why the Glock 17 Just Won’t Go Away 

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (with a concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series,” the second edition of which was recently published.