An interesting platform

[john1125]

Hello all, 

Kinda new to the hi power platform , but definitely not to the shooting sports . My Dad bought a NIB  T series back in the 60's , I forget the year , my brother still has that gun and the box and original receipt . I believe it shows $68 .


I have put together a few 1911s and always wanted to get a HP , I opted for a FEG to get acquainted with the workings of the Browning . I must say its not a 1911 by any stretch of the imagination . And of course I thought I could just work over the sear / hammer like and 1911 and all would be good. I was wrong .

Here's what I started with :  

I cleaned things up a bit : 



I got hold of a hammer and sear from Chuck Warner , and bought some of Cylinder and slide's parts to upgrade a little on these guns: 

I am learning how to get a good trigger pull and did a little reparking on the 2 FN's 

Here's the feg all cleaned up with a set of cheap ebay grips that I spent a couple of hours on reshaping and a fresh park job and some novak cuts  . I will probably go with a C&S hammer and sear or EGW sears seem about the same quality . May replace the barrel as the lock up on this one is kinda funky but with one of the FN barrels things shoot much better and even the slide to frame fit is much better .  The extended target thumb safety is a must for me also and I will get it fit at some point .
It has been challenging since there really doesn't seem to be a great deal of info out there on the hammer / sear work for these guns . And if there is , the guys who know are keeping it to themselves . A power custom sear jig is a big help and some trial and error . Also learned that a bent sear pin makes for a gun that follows no matter what . The sear spring is basically non-adjustable! 

A thanks to BHPspringsollutions for really good service and a great mainspring tool and excellent springs for replacement / upgrade. 

Oh and you need a big hammer for a virgin trigger pin . 

Thanks for Looking , 

Kirk 

[jaypee]

First, welcome to the Forum, John1125. You are obviously a skilled workman and it really shows in the work you've done in this thread. Very impressive, Sir. We love to see this kind of workmanship.

Since you're new to the platform and are having trouble getting some of the information you need, I'll pass on several experiences I've had with the fire control systems of the BHP and FEG HP's to see if that might help. In each case I ran up against a problem, got advice from other owners, and went on to make the repairs myself. I am a hobbyist with no professional gunsmithing experience at all.

First, in order to get a smooth trigger pull in this platform, the mating surfaces between the face of the upper end of the sear spring and the rear mating surface of the sear must be smooth and preferably lubed, but definitely smooth. Sometimes they come from the factory somewhat rough and need to be smoothed up. The recommended cure is simply to smooth up both surfaces with very fine sand paper and then grease both before reassembling them. The magazine safety usually gets all the blame for scratchy triggers in this platform, but the sear spring/sear interface contributes its fair share too. I go ahead and automatically do this whenever I have occasion to remove the sear and spring from one of my Hi Power pistols that hasn't had it done yet. 

With regard to the sear spring - the spring must have a certain amount of "bend" in it in order to properly power the sear. Sometimes the factories don't get it quite right and the hammer starts following the slide down. I had a brand-new, in-the-box FEG PJK9HP start doing that after only about 100 rounds. When I removed the sear spring I found that it had almost no bend in it at all. So in order to determine the correct amount of "bend" I removed the sear spring from a good-functioning Browning High Power, laid the sear spring on its side and traced its shape onto a piece of tablet paper. I then placed the FEG's sear spring up against the tracing and saw that it was well out of specs. So I secured the spring with two pairs of locking pliers, one on each side of the bend and right up against the bend point, and carefully duplicated the amount of bend in the BHP spring tracing. The gun has performed properly ever since, having fired about 200 rounds without a problem since I made the adjustment.
 
The next issue involves trying to fit a Browning safety lever to a FEG Hi Power pistol. Generally, most FEG owners who try this find that the left side frame hole in the FEG is just a bit too tight to accept the Browning safety lever. I ran into this on a FEG P9M and managed to fit a Browning ambi safety by carefully polishing the safety lever's left side short shaft using oiled 600 Wet or Dry sand paper. It really doesn't take much. We talked about this technique in this thread: highpowercollectors.proboards.com/thread/84/fitting-bhp-ambi-safety-power. 

The last issue concerns the correct height of the trigger lever when the trigger is fully forward.  I once bought a FEG PJK9HP off of Gunbroker that arrived with a thoroughly butchered fire control group. It was so bad the trigger had to be all the way back against the frame in order to fire the gun, and after only a few rounds the trigger stopped working at all. Come to find out, the previous owner had, among other things and for some unknown reason, shortened the trigger lever by darn near a quarter inch. I contacted our resident armorer, Bob Reed, who told me I had to replace the trigger lever, and that its correct maximum height with the trigger fully forward was just a few thousandths of an inch below the right side frame rail. I fitted the new trigger lever the way he told me and it worked just fine from then on. 

So I hope some of this helps. We look forward to seeing more of your work here on the Forum, Sir. You do nice work indeed.

JayPee

[Carolinaman]

Hello john1125,

Excellent work sir and I chose the FEG pjk9hp as my first "sortie" into the world of working on the Browning designed pistol. Your work is excellent and I commend you for posting the great photo's here.

Hang around. This is a great place with lot's of great members!

Best,

Chris

[john1125]

I ran into the issue with the thumb safety frame hole in the FEG, it measures .250 and the FNs measure about .254 . The standard FN pin or hub on their safety is right at .250 so it obviously doesn't go into the FEG. C&S deals with this issue by just making theirs at .242 or so . This sounds kinda sloppy in an FN but the mainspring tension makes things work. 

Thanks for the tip on the interface between the sear and sear spring , I guess it does pivot and rub there. I have been concentrating on the relationship between the sear and hammer notch . Playing with hook height and relief cut on the sear . I would also agree that a really good grease is helpful. I got some of the Mobil 28 , it does in fact make a little bit of difference, I have always used a molybdenum type grease from brownells but the mobile seems a little better.  

I had bought some polishing paper that has an adhesive backing for polishing knife blades years ago  , and I have it all the way down to 14000 microns and have been using that to polish the sear face and hammer hooks to a perfect clear mirror finish by sticking some to my ceramic stones . 

One tip that I read somewhere was to make a simple little clip out of some small steel wire , just bend a small u shape to stick through the grip screw holes to hold the sear spring in place until you get the sear / sear pin where they belong , it alleviates the need for a third or forth hand .  

Really enjoying learning about the HP and look forward learning more. They are a pleasure to shoot . 

Thanks , 
Kirk 

[hanshi]

That is now one fine looking HP.  I'd say you do exceptional work.  I'm new here, too; but I'm gonna stay a while.

[jaypee]

Jul 23, 2017 15:20:35 GMT -5 hanshi said:

That is now one fine looking HP.  I'd say you do exceptional work.  I'm new here, too; but I'm gonna stay a while.

We're glad to have you, Sir. Stick around and teach us something. 

JP

[tomb]

John I'd say you have just a bit of talent, nice work and well done!

[che]

Jul 16, 2017 18:30:07 GMT -5 john1125 said:

Here's what I started with :   

.


Great work. I would like to have a HP with the Luger rollmark. OTOH I loved the finish project with the "clean" slide.  

[huntershooter]

John-

EGW's sears are preferable to C&S's- who's are substantially rougher.

For the best possible "trigger", Warner's "True Radius" sears with his or Garthwaite's hammers are at the top of the heap.
As I'm sure you've deduced; it will be necessary to tweak/back tension off the sear spring as well, in spite of intenet wisdom.

Nice work so far.

[john1125]

Aug 8, 2017 12:46:50 GMT -5 che said:

Jul 16, 2017 18:30:07 GMT -5 john1125 said:

Here's what I started with :   

.


Great work. I would like to have a HP with the Luger rollmark. OTOH I loved the finish project with the "clean" slide.  

Oh I'm not done yet, still working 😋😋