Featured Gun: The Hi-Standard Pistol

The story of the Hi-Standard Pistol starts with the gun that inspired it: The Colt Woodsman.

The Colt pistol was created by none other that John Moses Browning. 

Browning filed for his patent on March 30th, 1917. He was awarded patent number 1276716 just before the end of WWI on August 27th, 1918.

Browning had sold the design to Colt before getting a patent and in 1915 the first Colt Woodsman pistols were being shipped out of Hartford.

During this time a Colt employee by the name of Lucius M. Diehm decided to create his own .22 semi-auto pistol.

On August 6th, 1921 Mr. Diehm filed for a patent on his design, it was awarded patent number 15111510 on Oct 14th, 1924.

 

In 1925 Diehm, armed with his new patent, started his own company: The Hartford Arms Company.
Success eluded Mr. Diehm and the company was in financial trouble by 1931 (it was the Great Depression after all).

 The Hartford Arms pistol:


Enter Carl Swebilius:
Carl Gustav Swebilius emigrated to the United States as a young man from a small town in Sweden due west of Stockholm.  

Carl "Gus" Swebilius at work at the bench

Swebilius was born the son of a watch maker and learned the art of working with small finely machined parts from his Father. When he emigrated to America he went to live with his Aunt (or Sister, not sure which), who just happened to live in gun central: New Haven Connecticut.

In 1896, at the age of 17, Carl went to work for Marlin in New Haven as a barrel driller, eventually working his way up to Chief Engineer and Gun Designer.
Sometime in the mid 20's Carl left Marlin and worked briefly at Winchester. During that time (circa 1926) Carl formed the High Standard Manufacturing Company to make tools for gun making and other industries.


Swebilius ventured back into the gun making business in 1932 when he heard about the Hartford Arms and Equipment Company may be for sale. He rallied some investors (made up of current and former co-workers) and with $800 they purchased the assets and patents. That is the equivalent of $13,229 today.
There were enough parts in the inventory to complete 800 pistols.

See my post on the Hartford Arms and Equipment Company here. 

The company was doing well and the demand for the model B pistol required relocation. In 1935 Swebilius merged his two operations into a building at 61 Foote Street in New Haven, the location is now the Wexler-Grant School. Sometime in the early '50s High Standard relocated again, this time up the road to Hamden. The new factory carried the address of 1811, 1817 and 1818 Dixwell Ave, Hamden, CT.

You may notice that the guns feature the name Hi-Standard, while the company name is High Standard. Perhaps this was to keep the gun making separate from the other items manufactured by High Standard?

As stated the gun was a copy of Colt Woodsman pistol, you can see the similarities in the photo below (courtesy of The Unblinking Eye) on top is the Colt, on bottom is the Hi-Standard model B

The Hartford Arms model 1925 target pistol, became the Hi-Standard model B.

You might make the assumption that the Model A would have been the first model, but as it turns out the Model B was first, having been adapted from the Hartford Arms model 1925 Target.
The Model A was a Model B with a longer grip frame which was cut flat to be parallel with the top of the slide

The pistols morphed into different models over the years. Model A, B, D & E. Then there were the external hammer models: H-A, H-B, H-D and H-E models. In 1942 the A,D & E models were discontinued, but carried on in the H- models.

During World War II, High Standard supplied .22 pistols for basic pistol training and familiarization to the armed forces.
At the request of The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), High Standard working with Bell Labs created 2,600 flashless/silent pistols. Actual numbers are unknown as most if not all of them lacked serial numbers. The most famous of which was recovered by the Soviets after U2 Pilot Gary Powers was captured in 1960.


Rumor has it that many of them are still in "unofficial" service by various alphabet agencies.

Later came the Sport King, Flight King, Field King, Olympic, Supermatic & Duramatic. 

For a while High Standard marketed a .380 caliber version of the pistol, called the G 380

For the purpose of this post we will focus on the H-D Military.

The H-D model was born on January 29, 1940 and was produced until 1950. There were about 150,000 of the HD Military pistols produced. The earlier models had checked plastic grips, the later ones checkered walnut.

Specs
Operation: Semi-automatic, blow back
Length: 8 1/2" or 11"
Height: 5"
Weight: 2lbs. 12oz.
Barrel length: 4 1/2 or 6 3/4"
Magazine Capacity: 10 rounds
Stocks: Checkered Walnut

 

In 1968  High Standard was acquired by an investment company called "The Leisure Group". Operations were moved to East Hartford in 1976. In 1978 the company was purchased the managers, led by company president Clem Confessore.
By 1984 the company was in trouble and its assets were auctioned off. Gordon Elliot who was the National Parts parts distributor for High Standard was the winning bidder. Although he only purchased some of the product lines and the name trademarks.
In early 1993 a new company was formed in Texas to acquire the trademarks and .22 pistol line. The assets including tooling were moved to Houston in July of 1993 and the first of the Houston made guns shipped in March of 1994.

A version of the pistol is still being made, see the website here

 

In 1999 the Dixwell Ave. factory caught fire and the buildings torn down and property sold.

The location is now a Home Depot, see my post on High Standard for more info

photos courtesy of Lt. Jeff Pechmann of the Hamden Fire Department

The gun that inspired this post, it is an HD Military with a 6 3/4" barrel, it was made in the New Haven plant on Foote Street between 1945 and 1950.

References
Wikipedia 
The Unblinking Eye

Small Arms Review


Hamden Fire Retirees
Hi Standard Manuals
Guns
Breach, Bang, Clear


Ayoob, M. (2012), Massad Ayoob's Greatest Handguns of the World, Vol.2. Lola, WI: Krause Publications


Brophy, W. S. (1989). Marlin Firearms: A History of the Guns and the Company That Made Them. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.