Browning Hi-Power Mk-III (Heavyweight) - ArniesAirsoft

Author

SamJacksonFan

Registered: February 2007
Posts: 530

Review Date: 21/12/08

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 7

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	excellent quality and finish, very good handling ergonomics, well working sights, ambidextrous savety, mag savety as a nice detail feature
Cons:	Outerbarrel and chamber miss to be metal, flat profile savety lever hard to use, very sensible for different gases, gas loading valve very small, long and hard triggerpull affects accuracy, poorly applied marks on the slide, bad quality

Tanaka FN Hipower MK III Heavy Weight

Packaging
The Hipower comes in a neutral box with standard equipment:
gun
magazine
instruction manual + expoded view
adjustment tool
barrel pin
small bag of BBs

Fist impression
Look is very good and authentic. Quality is high, as you would suppose from a gun by Tanaka. The MK III presents with excellent clean molding and shows no seams or other hints of production.

The tested model is a heavy weight model, so weight is ok but could provide some extra 100 grams to give this "yeah that's it" kind of feeling. The material of slide and frame feels similar to that heavy weight stuff you find on Western Arms guns and some KSC models. Hammer, trigger, savety leaver slide catch and mag catch are made from metal, plus some of the interior parts. A pitty outerbarrel and chamber are not.

The heavy mag gives a lot of weight, so the Hipower doesn't provide the best balance. But the MK III feels very good in the hand, comfortable, easy to grip, ergonomic but a bit thicker, as it is designed as a double stack model like the hicapacity models by ParaOrdnance. The upward end lip of the frame provides a very high grip position, almost comparable to a Glock. It feels to give better control over the gun.

Though being a double stacker design, the Hipower even feels a bit more compact and slim compared to a 1911, mostly because of the slide shape and some other small details. The MK III makes good impression on the first look and feel.

Details
The back of the hammer is serated. Outerbarrel and chamber are made from plastic. The innerbarrel meets perfectly with the outerbarrel at the muzzle and seems to provide good and firm alignment.

Unlike the CZ75 and partially some 1911A1 the hammer of the MK III is well shaped and doesn't give a pinch to the hand, even when applied a extremly high grip.

The Hipower only provides a thumb savety. It works ambidextrous, but misses any clear point when engaged. On a 1911 you can feel and hear that click, when engaging thumb savety. The flat lever is serated but difficult to use. This is a weakpoint especially for gaming situations when things have to go fast.

Grips are well shaped and provide good grip with the checkering and the partially ergonomic lines for the thumb.

Marks
On my model the marks were quite dissapointing. From Tanaka I honestly expected more detail and quality. It looked like the marks were quickly burned into the slide because the outlines are significantly unequal, partially edgy, partially blury. And the slide showed some flaws in the finish, like it partially had contact with something hot. It looks like someone grabed the slide with greasy fingers.

For the quality claims of Tanaka, this is very dissapointing, but could be a production problem only with my specific gun. Though this sould not happen with a manufacturer claiming on perfect japanese quality standards and controls.

The 9mm marks on the chamber and the frame are properly done. The marks are not identical to the orginal Hipower. It is not perfectly authentic here what may only bother collectors with a boundary for hundered percent detail.

Function
The Hipower is a single action gun as the 1911. One obvious difference can be found with the trigger. Though it is a different style of trigger mechanism it also operates different in save mode. While on a 1911 the trigger is blogged directly (you cannot push it), on the Hipower you can push the trigger to the trigger point until it gets blogged.

Nice feature: with the mag not installed, the trigger is completely disconnected and cannot release a cocked hammer until the mag is applied again.

The trigger action on the Hipower is different from a 1911, too. For a single action it is supprisingly heavy and you have to pull the trigger way through until you reach the trigger point and the shot goes off. This may affect the accurracy and grouping of the shots.

Field stripping
This works similar to a 1911. Uninstall the slide catch and detatch the barrel from the slide. It is even easier compared to a 1911 as you don't have to mess with deinstallation of a barrel bushing.

Sights
The MK III is provided with excellent tactical sights. The white (quared) marks on rear and front sights show a good sight picture and enable the shooter to align the gun properly in different light situations. To me this is a great benefit of the Hipower. I wish I had those sights on my 1911A1.

Mag
Here is where light and shadow meet. Tanaka mags are said to be quite problematic in terms of leaking. My Hipower mag still works well and without a problem yet. A good feature also known from mags by Western Arms: a blocking mechanism keeps the valve open when gas tank is empty.

Down points: the injection valve is very small. And the mag tempts to show cool down effect very quickly.

Built quality of the mag seems rather fair and cannot keep up the looks of the gun.
Mag capacity is 20 BBs. I'd recommend to load 18 to not overstress the spring.
I got 20 to 25 shots out of one mag until I had to refill. Depends on the shooting speed.

Action
With gas there is an interesting issue: Normally japanese Guns (especially Tanakas are only to be used with 134a gas. So I did. And the gun wouldn't work properly at all. When I switched to Abbey Ultra (a bit more power than 134a) the MK III would work. Not absolutely perfect but the way a GBB is supposed to work.

Blowback
The blowback of the MK III is nice but not impressive compared to my Tokyo Marui 1911A1 and especially not compared to the performance of Western Arms GBBs. Though it is quite fun to shoot the Hipower.

Shooting impressions
The original MK III is issued as a combat pistol. So it has not to provide the accuracy of a target pistol anyway. With this in mind, I didn't expect the Tanaka to be a bull's eye hitter. But for a high quality GBB from a well nown maker I expect a solid precission and accurate grouping.

The following tests were performed from a distance of 5 meters, target on shoulder height, , .23 g BBs b Extreme, Cybergun APS gas, shooting bothhanded and freestanding without aiming help.

Accuracy test
Speed was no criteria, each shot was taken within 5 seconds. Results show the effect of the hard trigger pull, but the accuracy meets my expectations.

Corner test
Target was excecuted from top left to bottom right. This target is an adition to the first one in terms of different contrast and target style, with maximum 2 seconds per shot more upspeed than the first test. Results here were satisfying, too.

Speed test
Here recoil and trigger come into play, as each shot was taken within a second. Fast shooting sequence was a problem with the Hipower and APS-Gas. Slide was too slow and produced an empty shot. Later with Abbey Ultra the gun performed better.

Speed target test
A combination of the before tests. 12 shots where taken, from top left to bottom right, 1/2 second per shot. Performance and results of the MK III were good.

Upgrade
Characteristic for Tanaka there's not much going on with aftermarket parts if you compare it to supply for Western Arms and Tokyo Marui models. Though there are some metal kits by Prime available. But very expensive.

Rating

Pros
+ excellent quality and finish
+ very good handling ergonomics
+ well working sights
+ ambidextrous savety
+ mag savety as a nice detail feature

Cons
- Outerbarrel and chamber miss to be metal
- flat profile savety lever hard to use
- very sensible for different gases
- gas loading valve very small
- long and hard triggerpull affects accuracy
- poorly applied marks on the slide, bad quality

I like the Hipower, but it could not meet my high expectations I had on a Tanaka GBB (the first one I tested). It is definitely an excellent collectors piece and able to perform properly on occasional target shooting or as secondary for a gamer with British Military Outfit. But it is definitely not a working horse like a Marui Hicapa or KSC Glocks in game action. But anyway I guess that's not what the guys over by Tanaka intended.

The Tanaka Hipower MK III Heavy Weight is a very nice rebuilt of the originial that will find its fans.

As a further and more qualified opinion I recommend to read the review Snowman did on the Tanaka Hipower MK III on justpistols.co.uk.

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Credo of young soldiers: brave action for fame and glory.
Credo of old soldiers: low profile to tell the story �

PenGun

Registered: October 2004
Location: Dublin
Posts: 549

Review Date: 5/1/09

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �120.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Its a Browning! Balance, build quality, ambi safety
Cons:	Its a Tanaka! Dodgy magazine, troublesome in cold weather or on 134a

Well the only viable High Powers out there so far in the airsoft world are the Tanaka versions, although TM are supposedly working on one...I'll believe that when I see it Wink

The FN High Power (or GP35) is pretty much the granddaddy of all 9mm high capacity pistols so it really set the standard for all that followed.
The Mk-III was introduced in the 1980s as an updated military version of the classic M1935.

You get a remarkably slender 1911-style slide on a wider grip and frame without the stupid grip safety of the 1911 and an ambidextrous safety lever (great for us lefties!).
The gun is very slender compared to, say, a Glock, and points very naturally.
All the controls are easily found and quite intuitive...not suprising given John Browning and his protege Dieudonne Saive were aiming to better the classic 1911 and produce the ultimate fighting pistol.

The Tanaka version uses the Magna blowback system of older Western Arms guns, but mine has proven a little patchy in reliability. One magazine works perfectly but the other causes misfiring, double-feeds or vents all its gas at once.
With the reliable magazine and 134a (it seems to like Green in winter) the gun is quite fun to shoot, apart from the heavy trigger which takes a bit of getting used to.
Its not bad, certainly a lot better than Marui triggers, but is certainly heavier than most, but is also crisp enough to permit fast firing.
The original M1935 has a magazine disconnect meaning you cannot pull the trigger when the magazine is out of the gun. However this is pretty easy to fix and involves a little surgery to the trigger mechanism...just remove one little spring and glue the disconnector in position and the gun can be dry-fired for storage. Its a simple fix!

Build quality is very good, as with all Tanaka guns with the finish being similar to the raven black found on Western Arms Berettas but a little more matte in appearance. It looks quite like parkerizing which is in keeping with the military theme of the pistol.
Sights are good too, with square dots as opposed to the more common round ones, but equally effective nonetheless.

The High Power is more of a collectors piece than a true skirmishers gun. Power is ok, accuracy good, but the dodgy magazines make it a poor choice for the field.
Which is a terrible shame as the M1935 has armed something like 75% of the armies of the free world since WW2 and at the moment is underrepresented on the airsoft field Sad

It is a very agreeable handgun to use and if Tanaka could make it a little tougher and sort the reliability issues out then many more airsofters might use one.

Until TM announces their Browning, there is High Power shaped hole in every airsofters heart Smile

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