I think most aficionados of the FEG Hi Power and Hi Power style pistols marketed in the United States would agree that the FEG conglomerate’s capacity for variations in these pistols was considerable to say the least. Unfortunately, a comprehensive description and explanation of these variations is largely impossible because any documentary evidence on the subject, if it ever existed, died with FEG and its bankrupted importers. About all we can do is formulate some suspicions and opinions based on observations and conversations and little more. So with that apology I’ll offer up some of my ideas on the subject.
First, when considering the number of variations found in these guns, it’s good to remember that FEG was, in the beginning, a Communist business subject to all the inefficiencies of that system and was, in time, forced to compete in a capitalist world that had a huge, advanced, well-funded, gun making industry. And it is now known that throughout most of its business history with the west, FEG was forced to make competitive products with antiquated machinery and very limited working capital. So the FEG conglomerate tried to make good guns under the worst possible conditions of manufacture and business, and I suspect that in doing so probably had to employ some production practices that resulted in noteworthy inconsistencies in its models and their features. With all of that in mind, here are some suspicions and opinions I’ve formed about the way FEG did business. Again, these are just my opinions.
Over the years, I've formed the opinion that FEG, once all of its models were developed, probably offered its Hi Power and Hi Power style pistols in a variety of catalogued configurations or “packages” of features and finishes that volume customers could choose from - much like the way businesses “build” the computers they want when ordering a large number of computers from a manufacturer. This would mean that FEG did not always manufacture all of its models consecutively, as many of us once believed, but actually made pistols with “new” and “old” features concurrently, or alternated back and forth, depending on what the customers ordered. If this is correct, a pistol with the older Browning style slide stop wasn’t necessarily built before the pistol with the “new” FEG slide stop. The gun with the older slide stop could well be the newer gun simply because that particular importer wanted guns with the Browning style unit. A good example of this is the Charles Daly Hi Power – a later series gun with the older Browning style slide stop. As I’ll discuss later, these variations could also have been because FEG had a bunch of the “older” slide stops laying around and had to use them. This helps to make dating these guns truly the impossible dream, as if it wasn’t hard enough already.
This is not to say that the importers always had a choice about which features their next order of pistols would have. A leading importer of these pistols once told me that the importers often had to take the guns the old Commissars at FEG darn well wanted to build at the moment, and that they could be a cantankerous bunch to deal with. So again, the issue of which features came first, which came later, or when a gun with this or that feature was built moves us even further into the realm of “anyone’s guess” – a FEG specialty.
OK, so where did all of the variations come from? Here are several possible explanations I’ll offer up for consideration. Again, they are only opinion.
I suspect that in many cases FEG included into volume orders “other” pistols they had in stock. i.e. unsold, unfinished pistols from disputed or cancelled contracts, contract overruns, and so on. I suspect that if FEG had a quantity of these “other” guns in stock when a large order came in, even though these guns did not match the customer’s specifications, simple economics forced them to finish out the “other” pistols with that customer’s logo and ship them out with the rest of the order. This would explain why small portions of large orders have been seen with features that were consistent within their small group of pistols, but nonetheless different from those of the “standard” pistols found in the bulk of the order. A good example of this is the appearance of guns with a bright finish in the middle of a larger series of guns with more subdued finishes, and vice versa, or pistols with spur hammers in the middle of a larger order having rowel hammers, and so on.
Another suspicion I have is that FEG made good use of any spare parts and assemblies it had on hand to produce pistols that were “close enough” to a customer’s specifications to be included in the order. FEG was in no financial position to “eat” any of its guns or parts. They had to sell them. So if they had to make up “parts guns” and sell them with a regular production series, then I suspect that’s what they did. I believe this helps explain small numbers, even individual pistols, with atypical features within a larger order. i.e. small safety levers or frames with a swell at the bottom front of the magazine well that show up in the middle of a large batch of pistols having extended safety levers and no frame swell, and so on.
Similarly, I have encountered these pistols with non-standard diameter pins, and again I think FEG simply had to use what they had on hand. If specifications called for a 2mm diameter pin and they only had 1.5mm pins in stock, I believe they simply drilled smaller holes and used the smaller pins. I suspect that if an order called for the newer three dot sights and they only had the original small sights on hand, well, guns in that customer’s order probably got the small sights until the three dot sights were back in stock. Both instances would have created variations from the “standard” models. Admittedly this is supposition, but I believe FEG was fervently trying to survive, and desperation is not just the mother of invention, but of adaptation as well.
So I hope you will forgive me for my totally unsupported musings. I just find the mystery of these variations to be very interesting, and I know we’ll never have the answers to them with any degree of certainty. But it’s a fun subject to speculate about.
JayPee
