Hi Power safety problems

[303hunter]

Picked up this FN Hi Power recently, and discovered a problem with the safety. With the safety on the hammer drops when I pull the trigger. What could the problem be? This is my first Hi Power and I’m not familiar with the platform. It shoots great, but I want the safety to work.

 

[Friday]

@wvsig

 

[wvsig]

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Picked up this FN Hi Power recently, and discovered a problem with the safety. With the safety on the hammer drops when I pull the trigger. What could the problem be? This is my first Hi Power and I’m not familiar with the platform. It shoots great, but I want the safety to work.

If I had to guess someone messed with the sear, hammer and safety engagement trying to lighten the trigger. The front of the safety is slipping off the sear allowing it to go forward instead of blocking it. Most likely someone polish the face of the sear and or the face of the thumb safety too aggressively. If it were me I would replace the hammer sear and safety. You could try doing just the safety. PM me I have a pre MKII thumb safety in the parts bin. EGW sears are the best inexpensive sear but are out of stock. They run $28. The other option is a hammer and sear set from C&S. https://cylinder-slide.com/Item/CS0282

Look at the video below and you can see how it is supposed to work.

 

[wvsig]

So I have a safety in the parts bin I am sending to @303hunter to see if that will solve the issue. He sent me a pic of the other side of the pistol to see if I could tell him when it was built. I saw a tell tale sign of something interesting. I am posting what I saw with his permission.

Looking at these 2 pics I realized that this gun was not build by FN. It was built by FEG.

The first tell was the L in the 5 digit serial number with an external extractor. FN only used number only serial numbers in early internal extractors guns. They also never used a L in the serial number. Looking closer at the rollmark in the pic from the OP you can see the font is off just a little bit. The rollmarks is similar to one used by FN for military contract MKIIs. The tell in that pic is that the second line iBROWINING PATENT DEPOSE is too close to the first line. On a FN MKII the circular part of the slide stop is much closer to the 2nd line of the rollmark. The gun also has an MKII style hog nose bushing which is FEG like. I am willing to bet the rear sight has a u notch.

This is a pic of the real FN rollmark for MKIIs of this Era.

There are lots of stories about where these came from and why. The one I believe to be true is that Iraq wanted to buy FN BHPs Saddam was a big fan. FN could not or would not sell them to him but FEG would. So not only did they sell him BHP clones they faked the rollmarks as well. No one knows how many were made. Most of them made their way into the US as Israeli Surplus. Most parts interchange with FN OEM parts and aftermarket parts just like other FEG BHP clones. FEG made a decent clone. These fakes are by all accounts extremely good copies of the FN gun. Some people like these and value them higher than your standard FEG because of the story.

Here is a link to an old thread posted by Stephen Camp who knew more about BHPs than most. I learned a lot reading his posts and his website.

https://www.defensivecarry.com/threads/counterfeit-fn-hi-power.15918/

 

[rufrdr]

I had one with a pitted bore. I dropped a used Regent HP barrel right in, perfect function.

 

[303hunter]

This one is actually pretty accurate and fitted tightly. The outside finish is pretty worn, but the inside is nicely machined. @Etruett take a look at this.