FEG Factory References and Informations

[ToddSig]

Feb 26, 2021 16:17:29 GMT -5 tpelle said:

I have a somewhat rare and unusual version of the P9. It is what we call an "FEG Counterfeit FN" - that is, an FEG P9 that was sold to Iraq sometime in the 1980's during the Iran/Iraq war. It is actually roll marked as "Fabrique National Herstal Belgique / Browning's Patent Depose", but it carries a serial number of "L 351xx". Other than the roll mark it has other characteristics consistent with the FEG P9. I wonder if you can shed any light on this particular pistol?

Thank you very much for this work in this matter.

Tpelle, bezcl posted on some of the FEG counterfeit FN High Powers in his thread, about halfway down on the second page.

Hopefully bezcl will be by shortly with additional info on your counterfeit FN.

In the meantime some general infoBezcl posted on FEG counterfeits
highpowercollectors.proboards.com/post/7494

and his following post had images of some of the FEG counterfeit roll marks. Link is
highpowercollectors.proboards.com/post/7500

[tpelle]

ToddSig, Yes, I saw that after I posted. For some reason my browser wasn't showing all three pages yet when I started writing my post. Or maybe my eyes were just dazzled by this flood of FEG information, when for years we FEG owners were living in an FEG information drought. These posts have been wonderful!

[ToddSig]

Feb 26, 2021 17:40:19 GMT -5 tpelle said:

ToddSig, Yes, I saw that after I posted. For some reason my browser wasn't showing all three pages yet when I started writing my post. Or maybe my eyes were just dazzled by this flood of FEG information, when for years we FEG owners were living in an FEG information drought. These posts have been wonderful!

Totally agree, after years of wondering in the dark for quality FEG information, in a short period of time we now have the FEG HP clone origin story, production numbers, serial numbers corresponding to date of manufacture, counterfeit info, frame differences, slide differences as well as model information. For those who collect and shoot FEG HP clones, you could not ask for a better or more informative thread.

[beczl]

Feb 26, 2021 16:17:29 GMT -5 tpelle said:

....I have always speculated that the FEG P9 was produced from actual FN engineering information, but I had reasoned that this information arrived at FEG indirectly, by being first confiscated by the German ordnance people when the Germans occupied Belgium in WWII, and it was them sent to the German Waffenamt (War Office) when it was approved to be manufactured at the FN factory for German Wehrmacht use. From there I figured that the engineering package was appropriated by the Russians when they occupied Berlin in the closing days of the European war. I presumed that the information was then given to FEG by the Russians!....

You're almost right.

In May 1940, when German troops occupied Belgium, they also put their hands on arms production. Within a short time, a number of weapons were started, including the “Browning Hochleistungspistole Caliber 9m / m für 13 cartridges”, which was also accepted by the Waffenamt (WaA613) under the name Pistole 640 (b). This happened despite the fact that many of FN’s engineers and key people left Belgium in 1940 at the news of the occupation, and left for Canada along with a number of plans. It is worth mentioning that Canadians were only able to start manufacturing Hi-Power pistols in 1944, due to an issue, that the Belgian plans were in metric units, while in Canada the imperial unit was in use, which made it extremely difficult to start the production.

Returning to the Germans, they manufactured thousands of pistols, until the western front reached Belgium, at which point the machines were dismantled and relocated to Germany, and the design documentation of HP version 1935 for production was secured in Berlin. Where it was found by the Soviet Army in 1945, and as usual at this time it was sent to Moscow along with all other documents. By the way, John M. Browning's patent for the weapon, registered in U.S. Pat.US1618510A is already outdated in 1944 so everybody can produce it but without Browning's name.

Hungarian authorites always seekeing an oppurtinity to mass produce some bigger pistol. On May 4, 1970, Lieutenant General Lajos Czinege, Minister of Defense, and Major General Pál Kovács, Deputy Minister of Defense, led a Hungarian military delegation, together with prominent representatives of the Ministry of Heavy Industry and Foreign Trade, visited the United Arab Emirates and the Syrian Arab Republic. possible to promote Hungarian weapon export. This delegation attended the 25th anniversary of the celebration of the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany on May 9 in Moscow. During the post-ceremony negotiations, the day before the delegation's return home, on 11 May, J. P. Slavsky, the Minister of Central Machinery of the USSR, handed over a document to the delegation which addressed to Ferenc Lévárdi the Hungarian Minister of Heavy Industry. 

In the document, the Minister assured the Hungarian side of his support and sent them a list of industrial patents and designs seized and confiscated from the German by the Soviet troops during the Second World War, with special regard to small arms. The Belgian Fabrique Nationale Hi-Power pistol was also on this list. After reviewing the list, the Hungarian engineers found no suitable weapon because the Hi-Power on the list was the first 1935 version. In 1948, they were Hungary started to bought and produce a lot of old Soviet weapons but thoses quite useless (they can not sell it, only in low price) they did not want produce old weapons. So they decided to get a never version of plans of HP35 from different way.

[tpelle]

Cool! Thank you very much, beczl, for confirming that story. I was pretty close, wasn't I?  It just shows what being retired and having the time to read and to think about things will produce.

By "the first 1935 version" do you mean the version with the humped area around the rear site? It's curious that the Hi Powers with German German markings that I've seen (just pictures on the internet) look like the more modern versions - identical to the Counterfeit FN that I own.

Here's my pistol, by the way:

By the way, I purchased this pistol from Cole's Distributing in Scottsville Kentucky, and it was included in a shipment that Cole's purchased from Israel. It appears to have been refinished by the Israelis. I replaced most of the springs in the pistol. removed the magazine disconnect, and replaced the firing pin, which was rusted and pitted, and replaced the grips which were a very worn out set of Pachmayr grips, with a set of FN plastic military grips. I also replaced the barrel with an aftermarket barrel with a straight feed ramp, and replaced the safety with an FN ambidextrous safety converted to single-sided. I've kept all of the original parts so that it could be converted back to the as-received condition.  The pistol had all matching serial numbers.

There is some history in the past life of this pistol, as there is a slight chip on the bottom front of the slide and a chip missing on the notch on the slide into which the hook of the safety lever fits when the safety is on.  It appears that the impact that chipped the bottom front of the slide drove the slide back so that the safety hook actually broke the chip off of the slide.  Both items of damage had the Israeli parkerizing applied over the damage.  I understand that it is common practice within the Israeli Defense Forces to recover enemy weapons from the battlefield, repair them as necessary, and place them into IDF inventory for future use if needed.

The real story, which we will never learn, is how this pistol, originally sold to the government of Iraq, ended up in Israeli hands.

EDIT TO ADD on 3/3/2021:

Beczl,

It just occurred to me what you mean about the difference between the 1935 Hi Power and those that went into production by FEG.  The original Hi Power design incorporated an internal extractor, but this was changed to an external extractor design in approximately 1962.  The external design would be easier and cheaper to manufacture and would not require the hand "tuning" of an internal extractor.  Certainly a reason to want to obtain up to date drawings and tooling in the 1970s.

[glockamolee]

I have a P9M single action version that is in .40 Unlike the FN .40 variant, the slide is NOT beefed up, but, rather they use a S&W barrel lockup (verses the FN style).

A .40 without the beefed up slide. These were made for a Lithuanian police contract that the gov of Lithuania reneged on according to my understanding.

[artimus]

I have a PJK-9HP and serial number begins F19xxx. From what I'm reading it was manufactured in the 1983 - '85 time frame. Correct?

[beczl]

Mar 9, 2021 14:21:06 GMT -5 artimus said:

I have a PJK-9HP and serial number begins F19xxx. From what I'm reading it was manufactured in the 1983 - '85 time frame. Correct?

No.

F18889 started to manufacture on January 01, 1984. 1984 year end serials was F23297, so F19xxx highly possible to manufactured not later than Q1 1984.

[oxxyfx]

It took me a long time to find this article. Thank you - Koszonom szepen Laszlo (vagy Laci?). This put an end to my search of which version is my FEG Budapest pistol. I purchased it not more than 3 months ago here in Canada from a fellow small arms enthusiast, and originally was posted as a P9M, but based on this article I was able to identify correctly as an F9P made in 1981, serial number right in the middle of the lot: F004xx. O loved reading about this, me being a Hungarian from Transylvania and had been in the Romanian army in the 1980's shooting with the Tokarev TT-33, the moment I saw the fellow posting his FEG Budapest 9mm Parabellum, I was hooked and I just had to buy it. Now knowing a lot more about the history of FEG, I am happy I owe this beauty, very good condition. I can barely wait toi go out and shoot it once the Covid related lockdowns will be over.

As for information for Laszlo, publishing a book through Amazon is really easy and please do let me know if you publish yours, I would be the first to buy it - given that it is shipped to Canada. Magyarorszag is almost open now, so it hard copy -or electronic copy - please let me know, I am interested in buying you book. My brother is in Budapest, if you can't ship to Canada he will send it to me.

Also I found another already published book on Amazon about FEG, not sure if you guys are aware of this:

Decoding the FÉG Hi-Power Paperback – Feb. 16 2014
by Jerry Paregien

That has also some useful information, bot not nearly as accurate as the one Laszlo presented here.

Megegyszer koszonom szepen es minden jot!

[ToddSig]

Welcome to our forum oxxyfx. FYI, Jerry Paregian is a founding member of this forum. How about some images of your new FP9.

[oxxyfx]

Thank you,

here are some pictures. I masked the serial number if you don't mind, I do not usually post pictures but here they are. First set of 2.

Attachments:

[oxxyfx]

Second set of 2. This thing is a fingerprint magnet.

Attachments:

[ToddSig]

Thanks for posting the images. You dont see too many of the early variant 1 FP9s with the larger slide stop cutout. Thanks for sharing.



My FP9s are later having a Variant 3 and 4, both with the small slide stop cut out.

[oxxyfx]

May 29, 2021 12:59:00 GMT -5 ToddSig said:

Thanks for posting the images. You dont see too many of the early variant 1 FP9s with the larger slide stop cutout. Thanks for sharing.



My pleasure. According to Laszlo's post on the first page, there are only 887 of these from F000001 to F000887. Mine is in the middle. The one reason I really got this, because this is a collectors item already

[olduke]

Good morning Laszlo. Thank you for the immense contribution you have made to the available knowledge of the FEG Hi Power. Your presense on this site makes a world of difference to those of us who own and love the FEG. I'm wondering if you can estimate the production year of my pistol; the serial number is F 26267. The pistol is in near pristine condition and knowing when it was made would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for any help you can provide, and please keep up the good work !

Kind regards,
   Glenn (olduke).