Easy Hi-Power Modiications

Some time back I did a report for Gun Tests magazine on two Hi- Power clones by FÉG and Kareen. They had a few characteristics I didn’t like, such as not being able to drop their magazines freely and too-heavy trigger pulls. After I filed the report I looked at my own Hi-Power clone from Charles Daly.

It has some great features, such as a neat set of express sights consisting of a wide-angle "V" rear and a big round bead in front, a really good two-tone shiny-and-dull blued finish, and a set of Ahrends fancy wood grips that dress up the gun nicely. This is an excellent, quality gun which sold for much less than the Browning version. It needed a bit of work. Those fabulous grips are vintage Kim Ahrends. With this much disassembly you can explore the workings of the disconnect plunger inside the trigger.

However, like the two test pistols, my gun didn’t let its magazine fall freely and it had a too-stout trigger. It also had a few sharp corners here and there that annoyed me. I wanted to take care of those things but had never been inside a Hi-Power before. However, in the course of my report on those two old guns I had to completely disassemble the FÉG Hi-Power to clean out some nasty grit with which it was infused.

In so doing I learned all I needed to know about Hi-Powers, specifically how to disable the magazine disconnect safety "feature", which I badly wanted to do to my Daly HP. I knew this modification would permit the magazine to drop free just like 1911type pistols. It would also allow the gun to be fired with the magazine removed, which I believe is mandatory for any self-defense gun.

Before I go any farther I’ll let myself out of arguments by stating that I will not tolerate any handgun that does not let me shoot it with the magazine removed. You might like that feature, but not I. Doing this sort of modification will surely void any warranty on your gun and may not endear you to some future owner because the gun will no longer be original. That’s just tough, I say. The future owner will end up with a better gun, whether or not he realizes it.

Just be sure to let anyone who handles your modified gun know it’ll fire without the magazine. The Charles Daly HP, I found out, has parts made by FÉG, though the

These are mighty fast to use, though not as precise as Patridge sights. The front bead can’t hold elevation with back light because the white circle disappears. Above center: The top arrow points to what the author calls the sear arm. Driven by the trigger, it links to the sear via a transfer bar in the slide. The bottom arrow points to the spring arm that needs to stay within that notch. Under that the plunger face is visible, still within the trigger. Daly HPs were assembled in the U. S., not Hungary.

So as luck had it, my digging into the old FÉG military beater had told me all I needed to know in precise detail about how my own gun comes apart. The first step was to get my thinking pipe loaded with suitable fodder and get it nicely cooking. This turned out to be a three-pipe problem, with apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but it was a necessary thought process. I was about to altera gun that is no longer made.

While the Daly is not yet a collector’s piece, it could become one some day and all-original guns are always the most sought after. Further, I was going to disconnect one of the safeties on the gun. In a court of law following a justified shooting involving that gun, the removal of a safety device could play against the user of the modified gun. It is also possible that the fact the gun could fire with the magazine removed might be the reason you’re in court instead of the other guy.

After due consideration I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to do nothing irreversible. I’d be sure to store all the parts that I was about to remove in the Daly’s hard case along with the gun, so a future shooter could put all the nonsense—er, safety parts—back in, if desired. The first step was to unload the gun and then entirely disassemble it. But wait right there a minute, pilgrim.

If all you want to do is remove the magazine disconnector there’s no need to take the sear and hammer out of the gun. I wanted to deburr my gun inside and do some work on the trigger pull, so I took everything apart. As it turned out, having those parts out of the gun made it easier to see problem areas and then to deal with all the burrs and rough spots here and there, especially in the magazine chute. The way the magazine disconnector works is easily seen after field stripping the gun.

The back of the trigger holds a plunger. A spring within the plunger forces it outward against the front of the magazine. This acts as a brake and prevents the magazine from falling freely out. Some magazines made for the Belgian Hi-Powers had a spring mechanism in their base that would zing the mag out of the gun when the magazine release button was pressed. I think that’s a dubious design at best.

It could prevent the proper latching of a fresh magazine, which would have to be inserted with extra force to overcome that spring. If you don’t get it right the first time, zip, there’s your magazine on the ground. Once the magazine is removed from the gun the disconnect plunger extends fully and a portion of the plunger forces or cams the sear arm (that’s what I call the thing that connects the trigger with the transfer bar in the slide) forward so it’s out of contact with the transfer bar.

In that position the trigger cannot release the sear and the gun can’t be fired. Watch what happens as you press in on the magazine-discon-

The end near the black arrow is where the sear arm presses upward when pressure is put on the trigger. The white arrow is where the transfer bar presses downward on the sear. There’s a hinge or axle, about where the Vis, through the slide. nect plunger with your finger. The sear arm moves rearward to a position from which it can make contact with the transfer bar in the slide. If you remove the disconnect plunger from the gun, the magazine will drop freely by the force of gravity.

And with the plunger gone, the gun can be fired with the magazine out. So getting rid of that plunger is what While you’re looking at the guts of your gun before beginning work you’ll see a small wire spring in a notch of what I’ve called the sear arm. That little wire spring is what presses the sear arm rearward and back into play so it can contact the transfer bar in the slide and fire the gun. That wire spring rides in a notch.

Be sure that little wire spring gets back into that notch when you put the trigger back into the frame. Field stripping one of these guns is easy and I don’t need to explain how. Be sure the gun is completely unloaded before you begin. That can’t be said often enough. The next step beyond field stripping is to remove the grip panels. That’s not absolutely necessary if you’re only going after the plunger inside the trigger but removal will keep them safe.

Also, if all you want to we’re going to do here. do is remove the plunger there’s no need to even take the barrel out of the slide. On my gun the slide was mighty slick inside and I did not need to do anything to it. To continue with full disassembly, make sure the hammer is uncocked and drift out the sear pin, right to left. The sear will jump forward out of the gun.

By slightly pulling on the hammer to get the hammer spring out of the way, you can remove the long, flat sear spring from its recess in the bottom of the grip where the pressure of the uncocked hammer spring traps it. Next, tip or rotate the ejector plate forward and downward as far as it’ll go and then push out the safety axle. If your gun has an ambi safety you’ll have to remove the right side first. The axle should go easily out the left side.

The little ejector plate will fall out and then you can pull the hammer and its spring out. I saw no reason to remove the spring strut from the hammer nor the spring from its strut. Next is the trigger. While it’s easy to get out, it’s not easy to get back in. But hey, you’re clever, and if I can do it, so can you. The trigger pin has a detent in its middle. A good solid whack with a light hammer and a brass rod to direct the blow will get it started, again right to left.

Then you can shove or tap it out with a suitable punch. The trigger will move rearward slightly from spring pressure. That’s a clue to getting it back into the gun, by the way. Going back in, you’ll have to overcome that light spring pressure to line up the axle holes. But that comes later. Far This lets the sear arm move rearward to contact the transfer bar.

It has to go back in the same way. A sharp tap on this will free the pin from the detaining spring that rides in a groove in the center of the pin and then the pin can be shoved out. Above center: This is the same picture either right before taking the trigger out or right after getting it started back in. If you’re taking the trigger out, just pull out the punch.

If you’re putting it back in, a finger needs to be inside the gun to make sure the parts stay in place while you put the trigger pin back in from the left side. The trigger comes out more easily with the plunger removed, as shown. If you’re putting the trigger back in, put it in only as far as shown. Get the sear arm positioned correctly, put a finger inside to hold it all, and move the assembly back into position. Insert a loose punch through the frame to hold it all until you can put the axle back in.

With the trigger’s hinge pin out of the gun, rotate the rear of the trigger downward until the whole mechanism is sitting within the trigger guard, just dangling there, and then it’s possible to get the assembly out of the gun with some deft wiggling. The groove in the axle keeps the pin in the gun by pressure from the hairpin trigger spring. If it’s not staked it could lead to grief. On the Daly the axle for the trigger’s hairpin spring is staked to keep it in place.

If yours is not, it might be a good idea to do so, to make sure that axle doesn’t fall out. It can’t, inside the gun, but on your workbench it just could. And it’s tiny. The little odd-shaped sear-transfer pin or sear arm, as I shall call it, will probably fall out of its recess in the trigger assembly as the trigger comes out. Don’t fret, just make sure you realize what the sear arm does and where and how it fits before you actually remove the trigger.

Getting the sear arm back in is the only hard part of this job. To clarify, what I’m calling the sear arm lives in the gun in a vertical position. It is driven upward by the trigger when the trigger is pressed rearward. It transfers your pressure on the trigger to pressure on the sear through a captive, pivoted arm within the slide, which I call the transfer bar.

These are kept in the gun’s case for possible later reinstallation. The lower end of the sear arm has a short stub axle which fits into a recess in the trigger so it easily falls out when the trigger comes out of the gun. Got that? A good look at the parts in your gun will make it all clear. You can also remove the magazine latch from the frame, which I did to make it easier to slick up the magazine well. The mag latch comes out just like the one on a 1911.

Press on the button and turn the tiny screw counterclockwise to lock the Move it forward, push out the safety, and out comes the hammer. thing so you can remove the assembly. On the FÉG I worked on, the parts were old and battered and did not want to turn at all. On both the FÉG and the Daly I found it did not take much pressure on the button to line up the slot with the lock, so take it easy here and don’t damage the slot in the small screw.

Once you have the mag catch out of the gun and thus out of the way, you can use sandpaper on a dowel to remove all burrs from the magazine chute. The first thing I did was to deburr the gun internally. I found lots of burrs and sharp edges inside the Daly HP. All they do is collect and hold dirt and cut your fingers when you clean the gun. In the magazine well they might also hinder the free fall of the magazine. In short, they don’t belong there.

I removed these with a file, scraper, and with a small grinding wheel in a Dremel tool. As I carved out the burrs with my Dremel set to a low speed, I recalled the words of my friend Robbie Barrkman, headman of the Robar Companies and inventor of the marvelous NP3 coating. Robbie was my hunting partner in Tanzania in 1995. We were standing on the beach at Dar Es Salaam, waiting for a bush plane to take us to our hunting camp and discussing life in general.

Robbie told me he had been trying to hire some new workmen for his busy company. He was lamenting the lack of skills of the applicants. Of the many unqualified fellows who wanted to work for him, Robbie said if they had a Dremel, they thought they were a gunsmith. But if they had a variable-speed Dremel, ah, then they were master gunsmiths! Now, there is no great need to remove all the burrs, despite what I said, nor is there any need to wash or wax your car.

I thought deburring the gun was a good thing to do while I had all the guts out of the way. I also broke the edges of the magazine well to ease insertion of a magazine. You can’t go very far there because there’s not a lot of metal around the magazine opening and you don’t want to make it a knife edge. Be sure to check the top edges of your magazines to make sure they don’t have sharp edges that can catch on the mag opening.

I bought two Mec-Gar magazines (Brownells has 10-, 13-, and 15-round versions of these) and they were OK on top but the original Daly magazine needed some slicking up. When I was all done grinding, sanding, filing, and scraping I anointed the bare steel with my favorite cold blue from Brownells, Formula 44/40. With the trigger assembly out of the gun, removal of the magazine discon nect is

One can’t go too far here or a knife edge will result. Be sure to slick up the magazine tops as well. "—Robbie Barkmann. easy. The plunger is held in the trigger by a small pin. I drilled a small hole in a block of wood to catch that pin and then put the trigger on the wood block with the retaining pin directly over the hole. A tap with an appropriate punch drove the small pin out of the trigger and into the hole. I left the punch stuck through the trigger to control things.

I then depressed the plunger against its spring force, carefully withdrew the punch, the plunger, and its tiny coil spring, all under good control. I keep the three removed parts in a small plastic bag in the gun’s case so that if anyone ever wants to restore the gun to original specs the parts are right there. My Charles Daly HP had a creepy 6.5-pound trigger and I didn’t like that. The contact point of the sear was not quite square with the hammer and it didn’t make full contact. The fix was simple.

I put the hammer in a small, hardened, square vise (Brown and Sharpe Model 752). With the offending portion of the sear surface just barely exposed I used a diamond hone to true up the contact area and then put a mirror polish on it with appropriate stones. I also did the sear. I ended up with a clean five-pound trigger. Reassembling the trigger required learning atrick. After what seemed like several hours struggling with the trigger assembly I hit upon the method.

I put the trigger almost into place, resting inside the trigger guard and up somewhat into the gun, but without the sear arm in place. I positioned the trigger so the rounded cutout for the sear arm was just visible and made sure the curved front end of the trigger’s little wire spring was inside the frame at the front of the trigger. This was easily corrected, resulting in a much better trigger.

I then came from the inside and fitted the sear arm into its little socket on the trigger and put the wire spring into its proper notch. With a finger inside the gun, I held the sear arm in place while I moved the trigger assembly the last little bit upward into the gun. Then I gently pressed the assembly forward until the axle hole in the trigger lined up with the hole in the frame. Then I inserted a punch through the frame and trigger.

The punch was a loose fit but it held everything in place so I could insert the trigger’s correct axle pin from the left side to displace the punch, then seat the axle pin properly home. The trigger axle has a tapered end that points to the right. When the axle is fully home the left side is just about flush with the frame and the pointed end protrudes slightly. The finger of my left hand was key to the process. It held the sear arm in place all during the final positioning of the trigger assembly.

It’s easier than it sounds and the more you do it the easier it gets. Be sure to double check the position of the little sear arm’s wire spring before you try to move the trigger. Well, we’re done. The rest of the reassembly was pretty simple, generally a reversal of the steps needed to get it all apart. If you’ve come this far I don’t really need to explain it all to you. What I ended up with was a Hi-Power that has an acceptable trigger pull and has all its sharp edges and burrs removed.

The best improvements are that the magazines fly out of the gun for fast reloading and the gun can now be fired with the magazine out. These simple things make me like my Hi- Power a whole lot more. I’d like better accuracy but that’s a subject for another day. AG