Nazi Hi Power

[DenverGP]

My father in law has a nazi production FN Hi Power. Much of the finish is warn off, and many of the markings are gone, so it's not worth a bunch. He came up to visit and brought it with him so we could bring it to the range.

I did a field strip to clean it, and function tested it. I found a couple issues.

First, the safety does not function. With the safety on, if I pull the trigger, I hear a click with a slight hammer movement (not down to the half-cock notch), and when I release the trigger at that point, the hammer drops all the way. I saw at least one post mentioning that a gunsmith could add some metal onto the safety to get it to engage the sear more. Does that seem like the right approach? My other thought is to get a replacement sear and have it fitted correctly.

I did test for hammer follow and I could not get the hammer to follow when allowing the slide to slam shut without ammo/mag inserted. So I believe that part at least is good.

He has no intention of ever carrying this gun, so I'm thinking that we could still safely shoot it at the range, with awareness that the safety is not functional.

The next question/possible issue:
I read that hi powers have a magazine disconnect safety. Did the nazi production ones have that as well? This pistol fires with or without the mag inserted. Not sure if they included that feature in these, or if they did, if the "gunsmith" removed/disabled it.

And final minor issue: The mags do not drop freely all the time. With the slide down, hammer cocked, the mag will drop free. With slide back, the mag does not drop free. With slide down, hammer down, the mag will not drop free. Not a big deal, and sounds like it is not uncommon.

[Wulf202]

Mags not dropping free would lead me to believe that the mag safety is at least partially intact

[DenverGP]

Doing additional reading, I found several people saying that the German's deleted the magazine safety in the later production years to simplify production. This one is a 1943 production, so no mag safety would appear correct.

I suspect maybe the mag drop issue is the sear spring is making slight contact with the magazine.

[DenverGP]

Some pics:




Pic of the trigger, showing no hole for a pin that would have been used for a magazine safety.


Pic of what I think is a worn away acceptance stamp (WaA140 was common). Not sure if it was intentionally removed or just wear.

[Nagant1984]

Congratulations. That’s a sweet piece of history. I regret selling my Nazi p38 and Nazi luger a few years back when I was a bit strapped. Eventually I’ll get another Luger. That’s a fun gun to shoot.