Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns A beauty of an old Belgian Browning Hi Power

Last month I saw an early C-series Belgian Browning HP for sale.
It was a 1969 or 70. Like this one it was in stellar shape and comes
with the black Browning pouch. Only issue, the guy selling it is asking $1150
After reading this I may get it any way. First I need to call him back
and see if it is still for sale.

ya'll are reminding me I need to send mine to Cylinder & Slide for some fixing up

For a C-series I agree with you for gun show or LGS types of sales, but internet sales hold or increase the value if a 'known' gunsmith does the work (keep the invoice, etc.). Ditto for a sale to a knowledgeable shooter.

I'd leave a T-series alone, but because of that I wouldn't buy a T-series unless I really stole it.

Nice HP, Mackay! You'll rack up epic style points with that!

i wish i could figure out what is wrong with my photobucket site, and i would upload some pictures. Few years ago i ran accross a Austrian P35 made for the Austrian police force circa 1948-1949. Has the austrian crown markings on it. These were imported for a little while

Mackay,

Sorry I�m so late to the dance. That�s a nice C-Series Hi Power indeed, I�d guesstimate the value at right around $1,000.00, perhaps a little more if you find someone who truly appreciates such a fine classic pistol. I believe the red paint on the grips was to protect against �salt wood� that Browning was cursed with at the time. Many Hi Power & Safari series rifles were adversely affected with wood that was �salt cured� which left the wood impregnated with salt. Browning bought a LOT of that wood and it turns out almost all of it was bad. I believe they heat dried the wood and made pistol grips out of what was salvageable and painted the inside of the grips as an additional barrier to corrosion from salt cured wood. Honestly I�ve never seen rust under red grips that was any worse than rust under any other wood grip. Wood grips will retain moisture, simple as that. It seems that the red paint solution was an effective one; I wouldn�t change those grips.

Hey There Kevin!

I was wondering when our resident Hi Power expert was going to make an appearance. I do recall reading about Browning's issues with salt in the wood of rifle stocks. I never considered that there might have been fallout into the handgun line/grips.

That is an interesting observation and makes complete sense. Fortunately there is not a lick of rust on this example. I am guessing if it has not shown up in the last 4 decades, I am reasonably safe.


Doing a little research led me to Stephan Camp's website "Hi Powers and Handguns". Needless to say, perusing that site led me down more than a few rabbit trails about Hi Powers.

Thanks for your observations on the HP Kevin.

MS

Stephen Camp passed away about a year ago. He was a true gentleman in every sense.

JOG,

I was not aware of that. That is unfortunate. There are very few gunwriter types that I care for reading their material. I have enjoyed reading a number of his articles while educating myself a little bit further on Hi Powers.

Now I will make a point to read more of his material.

Stephen and I go back to the early �90�s with one of the first shooting forums, the Prodigy Shooting Sports Bulletin Board. Then we met up again several years back Stephen and I were both member of a Hi Power�s forum that was pretty good. Unfortunately that site was taken down by a very malicious attack and they lacked the funds to get it back running quickly, so most of the forum members sort of dispersed. After that incident, Stephen decided to create Hi Power�s and Handguns which is a great site with some great information; Stephen was a very sharp individual, we�ll always miss him.