Browning HP 35

[Cristi]

Both Brownings( the unslotted belongs to my brother)

[PhilOhio]

Your tangent sight sight Hi-Power brings back memories of a beautiful one I once owned, and foolishly sold because I thought it was not very accurate. I had been shooting a box of old surplus ammo and, in retrospect, that was the problem.

It was the late 1950s, and I was a young college student in Toledo, Ohio. Scanning the "for sale" section of the newspaper one day, I saw a Hi-Power privately advertised at less than $100. I called and got directions to the east side ethnic working class neighborhood where I could see it. I was greeted by a young man of Polish origin who was living with his elderly father, who spoke broken English.

The pistol was beautiful, in nearly mint condition, slotted, with tangent sight, and with all the Nazi Waffen markings. They sort of hated to sell it, but needed the money and were not collectors or shooters. I quickly bought it.

Then the elderly father told me about his sentimental attachment to the gun. During WW-II, he had been a slave laborer in the Belgian factory where they were making the guns. At the end of the war, somehow he managed to smuggle one back to the U.S. I didn't ask how. But now he was getting old and was ready to say goodbye to it, wanting the money more than the gun.

Yes, I let it get away, selling it a year or so later for maybe $100, after shooting less than one box of surplus ammo through it, one time, out in a woods some three miles from where I sit right now.

Ah, to turn back the clock. Enjoy your Hi-Power, Cristi. I have a finely made Hungarian FEG clone, but it is not the same as my Nazi 1935, once owned by one of the men forced to make them.

[Douglas Jr.]

Phil,

Nice story!

Here is mine, made probably in March, 1944 if I remember correctly. Fixed sights, "b" block, rough finish. Really like this one.

Douglas.