Detective Retrospective: Girsan MCP35 PI LW OPS

Forgettable Name, Memorable Pistol

The Browning Hi Power is one of the most successful handgun designs of all time. In the course of its near-century of production, it has been made not just by FN in Belgium, but also across the globe, often under license from FN, but also by simply ripping off the design.

One licensed manufacturer was FM (confusing, we know) of Argentina, which produced a chopped version of the Hi Power with a 3.9-inch barrel that they named the Detective.

Both the complete gun and the shortened slide assembly were available in the United States until the early 2000s, and a small clique of devotees sought to produce what they deemed to be the ultimate carry gun by teaming an FN aluminum frame with a short FM slide. But let’s not go down that rabbit hole. The pistol you see here is a product improved version of the Detective, which seeks to drag the GP35 into the 21st century.

The rollmark on the slide’s right flank reads, “MCP35 PI LW OPS” — a mouthful, but less objectionable than the idiot warning on the frame below it.

MCP35 PI LW OPS SPECS

• CAL: 9mm
• Capacity: 15+1
• Barrel: 3.88″
• Overall Length: 7.5″
• Weight: 1.34 lbs
• MSRP $719

Taking cues from the rabidly loyal aficionados who sought to make their ultimate carry GP35, the frame is aluminum, with a steel, pressed-in cam pin that takes the stresses of locking and unlocking the barrel. Its dustcover area has been thickened to provide room for a three-slot Picatinny rail, which is a hair too short to accommodate an X300 or XC1 weapon light, and in order to provide a third slot it rakes forward, altering the classic Browning lines.

Streamlight’s TLR7 Sub does fit and uses the second Pic rail slot for its recoil lug, rendering the third slot superfluous and leading us to question if the designers haven’t screwed up the aesthetics in this area for naught.

The frame itself incorporates all the features of the original we love, but adds a few others that (with the exception of the dustcover) are significant improvements. We have trouble shooting stock GP35’s — big paws mean hammer bite after a few rounds — but the Girsan solves this with a nicely sculpted beavertail.

There’s a small flare at the bottom of the front strap that locks the master hand in position, and the trigger guard is undercut slightly. Unlike the steel frame of the Belgian gun, this aluminum one looks like it has enough material in the front strap to accept checkering — yay!

But the manufacturer has decided not to add this — boo! (Pretty much all custom Hi Powers are stippled, as checkering would weaken the frame and eventually cause catastrophic failure.) Some kind of texture here would be appreciated, but the gray and black G10 grips do a decent job of providing traction.

Girsan have cleaned up the GP35’s trigger pull by deleting the original’s magazine safety and speccing a straight trigger blade. Due to having to design around his own patents, Browning never surpassed the 1911’s trigger feel and reset, but this one’s decent enough, breaking at 5.5 pounds.

It initially felt much heavier, but settled down after the first 250 rounds or so. If you’re coming to this pistol from a Glock or something with a clicky, tactile reset, you’re going to have to get used to shooting it like a DA revolver, i.e. coming all the way forward on the return stroke, as the pistol gives you no feedback as to when the reset point has been hit.

Guns.com	$550
Palmetto State Armory	$600

Due to its reduced mass compared to a full-sized Hi Power, Girsan have used an old 1911 trick to slow down the slide as it cycles. The firing pin retainer has a very small radius, which means it contacts the hammer a little lower, reducing leverage.

Combined with a heavy hammer spring, this delays unlocking. It also makes the gun harder to rack manually. The rest of the fire control components appear to be of good quality, with a commander-style ring hammer and Mk3-type ambi safety levers.

Takedown is typical Browning. Rack the slide and engage the safety to hold it at the disassembly position. Then, press out the slide stop and run the slide off the rails. To accommodate the reduced space available within the slide’s confines, the Girsan uses a fairly heavy, flat wire recoil spring on a full-length steel guide rod — another departure from tradition. Iron sights consist of a fiber-optic front, secured in a dovetail with a fixed but removable Novak-style rear.

Fortunately, these shot very close to POI and provide a fast sight picture, with plenty of light on either side of the blade. Unscrew a single, Allen-headed fastener and there’s an RMSc footprint optic cut milled into the slide, into which we dropped a C&H Precision EDC-EN enclosed red dot.

This was a bit bigger than ideal for the Girsan’s narrow profile, overhanging the slide a little. But the bigger window was appreciated when it came to rapidly acquiring a sight picture, and its “shake-awake” feature allows for 50,000 hours of battery life.

Browning’s original, two-lug barrel locking system is expensive to machine, which is why most modern handguns — including FN’s modernized “High Power” — use a SIG/Petter lockup on the front edge of the ejection port. Girsan remain faithful to the original, and the barrel locks tightly to the slide for improved accuracy, aided by a tight slide-to-frame fit. We compared it to a full-house custom Hi Power built on an Israeli surplus donor gun, and the Girsan exhibited less slop between its major assemblies, one benefit of modern CNC manufacturing.

ON THE RANGE

Slipping the pistol into a Black Point Tactical AIWB holster, we saddled up and headed to the range to run a few drills from concealment. Using Sellier & Bellot 124-grain ball ammo for most of our test, the Girsan was able to print 2.5-inch size groups offhand at 20 yards, which was more than adequate for training purposes.

We also took the opportunity to asses reliability with defensive ammo, loading its steel MecGar mags with Federal Punch 124-grain hollow points, as well as some now-discontinued Norma 65-grain NXD high-velocity stuff, which it swallowed without complaint. Recoil was a little snappier than with a full-sized Hi Power, but the gun tracked well and was easy enough to shoot, landing hits on an 8-inch steel plate at 50 yards as fast as we could recover the sights.

The only malfunctions encountered were shooter induced. The Girsan keeps Browning’s slide release design, covering the slide’s takedown notch with an extension that sticks out forward of the cam pin, and which on our custom pistol is ground off and reshaped.

If you shoot with high thumbs, it’s easy to inadvertently press down on the extension, which raises the slide release and locks open the pistol. The solution is either to modify your grip or bust out the Dremel.

LOOSE ROUNDS

If we were designing this piece to be our only carry gun, then we’d keep the aluminum frame and optics cut, but add a slimmer red dot, grind off the slide stop extension, and ditch the Pic rail.

In these days, and in our particular set of circumstances, there’s almost no scenario where the additional bulk of a light is worth the tradeoff. Home-defense guns? Absolutely. But part of the allure of Hi Power is its timeless elegance.

For us, adding a rail to the dustcover would be like seeing Audrey Hepburn with massive bolt-ons (and please don’t use AI to conjure up that image). Fortunately, Girsan offers just such a selection, the P35 P1 LW Match, so you can have your cake and eat it.

As it stands, the PI is a competent and worthy alternative for anyone who doesn’t want a n+1 polymer framed, striker fired, disposable, and characterless pistol. As a modern interpretation of a classic, it has good ergonomics, and is well-built, reliable, and accurate, which is about everything you

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