The FN High Power pistol began with a request for a new French Army pistol. The initial design was done by John Browning, with later iterations and improvements from his protege Dieudonne Saive at FN. After several years of French trials, FN decided that the gun was well-developed enough for international sales, and split the project into two tracks. One continued to work with French military requests, which ultimately came to naught with the adoption of the Mle 1935 pistols. The other track found interests in the Belgian military, which eventually adopted a later iteration of the gun as the GP35 – aka the Browning High Power.
Many thanks to the Ars Mechanica Foundation for giving me access to this unique pistol to film for you! You can find their history book here:
https://amzn.to/3SojgM3
FN Grand Rendement: https://youtu.be/9KxwOQUCgxM
Belgian GP35: https://youtu.be/vzwQUjYcfQE
