I NEVER fired +P ammo. I've always been opposed to the idea of "+P". If you have a gun that needs so much extra power that the pressure curves approach dangerous levels -- or even just pressure levels that accelerate wear and tear on the gun, then what you really need is a bigger, more powerful gun. Duhh . . .
I have to be honest: a good deal of the ammo I shot was actually pretty mild. They were mostly handloads that consisted of a 124 gr. cast round nose lead bullet and 4.0 grains of HP-38 (WW-231). According to my loading logs, I put about 40,000 rounds through that particular gun. But the balance of 65,000 rounds were factory equivalent handloads with 115 and 124 gr. jacketed bullets loaded to "normal" velocities.
When shooting the wimpy handloads, I employed a 15 pound recoil spring. And I was always careful to replace it with a standard 17 pound spring before putting "carry loads" back into the gun. I change my recoil springs religiously every 5,000 rounds.
These days I've given up the wimpy lead bulleted loads. They were used for training my wife and several of her friends, and I needed loads with recoil that wouldn't intimidate and scare them off.
The Hi Power is no more or less fragile than any other reputable, proven handgun. And I'm of the opinion that the Hi Power was a big improvement over the vaunted 1911. While most people think of it as John M. Browning's last design, the majority of the Hi Power design should actually be credited to Diodonné Saive, a respected gun designer in his own right. (Saive went on to design the FN/FAL, known as "The Right Arm of Europe" widely considered to be one of the finest battle rifle designs ever conceived.)
