Browning Announced End Of An Era

By Tom Knighton

The Browning Hi-Power is the original “Wonder Nine.” It’s a venerable piece of hardware, one that’s been popular for years and deeply respected. Then again, it’s a John Moses Browning design, so what else was to be expected?

Now, it appears that Browning is done with the design.

In February 2018, Browning announced its Hi-Power pistols are no longer in production. “Current dealer inventories will be the last available from Browning for the foreseeable future,” the website explains. Supply is scarce, however, because availability to dealers ended sometime in 2017. New Mark IIIs or Standards are easiest to find because they were the last models to come out of the factory.

John Moses Browning’s 1911 handgun design and its subsequent 100 years of popularity cast a long and unearned shadow over his subsequent Hi-Power work. When Browning was commissioned by Belgium’s FN to create a new military sidearm, the design required an all new approach because he’d sold the 1911 patents to Colt. In 1925, he’d completed the work, and a year later he was dead—making this his last gun design. U.S. patent inspectors approved it in 1927, but FN relied on the expertise …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms