Plastic made the impossible possible. During much of the 20th century shooters had two choices, a .45 ACP Colt 1911 with a 7-shot magazine or the 9mm Browning and its 13-rounds. Both of these great semiautos had their highly vocal supporters — and detractors. One could have the legendary power of the .45 or the high capacity of the 9mm, but not both. If only there was some way to combine the two ideas into one. Without a minor miracle it simply could not be done without coming up with a pistol only someone with the hands of Andre the Giant could handle. The miracle did arrive and that miracle was plastic, or more correctly polymer.

The latest .45 ACP is from the American counterpart of the company to offer the first high capacity semiauto, the Browning Hi-Power 9mm, which goes all the way back to 1935. Belgium’s Fabrique Nationale, or FN, that original manufacturer, has a legendary reputation for quality. The first thing most knowledgeable prospective buyers of a Hi-Power look for is the “Made in Belgium” marking. The American version of Fabrique Nationale is FN HERSTAL, with offices in Virginia, and manufacturing facilities in South Carolina. Herstal is the name of the suburb of Liege Belgium where the parent FN plant is located, and this newest semiauto polymer-framed pistol is the FNP-45.

FN HERSTAL is owned by the HERSTAL Group, which also owns Browning and Winchester. HERSTAL is a good guy/bad guy. The bad guy shut down the Winchester plant in New Haven a few years back ending the manufacture of “The Rifleman’s Rifle,” the Winchester Model 70. It was something that was simply unthinkable and came close to ending civilization as we know it. However, they are now the good guy, as the Winchester Model 70 is in production once again. This is not a foreign-built Model 70, but rather an improved and totally American made, high quality rifle from the HERSTAL FN plant in Columbia South Carolina, operating under the original name of Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was surprising to me to also find out FN supplies 70-percent of the small arms, including the M16, used by the U.S. Military. They know how to make guns!

Plastic Power

Steel and walnut may be the natural materials for creating sixguns and semiautos, but in today’s world polymer is where it’s at. Polymer is not only strong enough to be used as a semiauto frame, it can also be molded to serve as both grip frame and grip and do it with the smallest possible size. It took me a long time to accept the “Tupperware guns,” the so-called plastic pistols which ignorant lawmakers in the 1980s claimed were undetectable by airport screeners. The truth is the modern semiautos have polymer frames but more than a pound of steel in slide and barrel making them easily detectable.

The polymer frame not only makes high-capacity possible, it also reduces weight. The FNP-45 joins the long list of polymer frame .45 pistols like the Glock 21SF, Springfield XD, S&W M&P and Taurus 24/7 I’ve been privileged to test and use over the past couple years. With its 4.5” steel barrel and slide, the resulting unloaded weight of the FNP-45 is just under 33 ounces with an empty magazine in place. Add a full magazine of 14 rounds, plus one in the chamber, and the actual carry weight is nine ounces more.

The molded polymer grip frame provides a very secure gripping surface with checkering molded into both grip panels and serrations on the front and back straps. Not everyone has the same length fingers nor the same subjective feeling of what the shape of the back strap should be. To address these personal differences, FNH provides two easily interchangeable back straps, one curved and one with a flat contour. I normally prefer flat back straps on semiautos so the flat version installed at the factory was left in place and I never found any reason to try the alternative.

Even with a 14-round magazine, the grip frame measures just under 1.25” in width, which feels very comfortable to me, and also has a grip frame-width semi-beavertail at the top. This aids greatly in the feeling of comfort as well as making the FNP-45 very controllable and easy to shoot — and this .45 is very easy to shoot. Even with my relatively short fingers I have no problem reaching the trigger when the FNP-45 is in its initial double action mode.

Stylish

The FNP-45 not only feels good it also looks very attractive with its black grip frame, stainless steel slide and Commander-style hammer. The trigger guard is large enough to allow the use of gloves when shooting. There are some semiauto pistols with a trigger guard so small the bottom of my trigger finger is irritated when a large number of rounds have been fired. This does not happen with the FNP-45 as there is about a .25” clearance between the bottom of my trigger finger and the inside of the trigger guard.

Interestingly, there are none of the often-encountered warning labels on this .45 ACP pistol. On the left side we find “.45 ACP,” “FNP-45” and the FN logo; while the right side of the slide is marked with “STAINLESS STEEL”, “FNH USA Fredericksburg VA” and “MADE IN USA.”

As with most semiautos today, the FNP-45 has a rail in front of the trigger guard for installing a tactical laser sight or light. For my use I installed a LaserMax Unimax Green Laser Sight. This very compact green laser sight adds an insignificant amount of weight or bulk, weighing-in at only .5 ounces and a very svelt .5” x 1” x 2”. It attaches with one screw and provides an activation switch on both sides, which is easily reached even with my relatively short trigger finger. The Unimax Green Laser Light was used to fire rapid-fire groups at 20 yards as quickly as I could align the pulsating dot on target. Results are in the accompanying table. The mating of FNP-45 and Unimax makes for a superb self-defense combination.