I did a thing.
I’ve been itching for a Hi Power. Prices of actual Brownings are borderline retarded since they quit making them, and the new FNs are reportedly a different pistol internally.
I bought one of these cheap Turkish clones that are being imported by EAA. I wasn’t expecting much other than a usable slide and frame that I could either build on, or send off for custom work, so my expectations were/are pretty low for it out of the box. I got their “MC P35 Match,” FWIW. Have not fired it yet, so these are just my initial impressions.
Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the quality considering how cheap these things are. I was kind of kicking myself after ordering it until it came in. I was mostly pleasantly surprised, but at that price point, as to be expected, there were some corners cut and some fit/finish issues. The rear sight was loose right out of the box. I guess they didn’t bother tightening the set screws at the factory, or they loosened up in transit. Easy fix with an Allen wrench, but still… Also, one of the grip screws looked like an untrained chimp screwed it in. The slot is mangled a little. Also easily fixed, but annoying nonetheless for a NIB pistol. Only ships with one mag, which is silly, but I knew that ahead of time.
The trigger pull was better than I was expecting, but I was really expecting a third-world turd. It was somewhat gritty and heavy, but not as bad as I had anticipated. I disassembled it and stoned/polished the lock work where it needed it, and added a chamfer to the sear. The break is now way crisper, and the grittiness is gone, but it’s still pretty heavy, and there’s still a touch of creep right before the wall. Of course, I don’t have any expectations for my trigger job to last very long, I have a hunch the sear is probably not hard enough, but we’ll see. I’m going to send it off for a proper trigger job with some Cylinder & Slide internals anyway.
Internally, it appears to be a MK III clone. There is no magazine disconnect, but weirdly they still installed a roll pin into the hole in the trigger where the mag safety would normally be pinned. They have me scratching my head on that one.
These do have a firing pin block safety, which brings me to my first question:
Does anyone know if you can ditch the FPB spring and run these like an early Mk II? It makes a big difference in the smoothness of the take-up. I would think the firing pin spring would be sufficient to make it drop-safe without the FPB. There are plenty of 1911s floating around that way.
Second question: Does anyone have any recommendations for sights? I’ve always used tritium 3 dot for carry, but I was kind of thinking about the Heinie Straight 8’s. Or a Heinie plain rear with a tritium front. I’ve also kicked around the idea of a gold bead front, but I’ve never used one. Slide is going to have to be milled for the rear sight for pretty much anything I go with.
Third question: Anyone have any recommendations for holsters?
TIA
