Browning Bda Views

General Goods

The Browning BDA is a 9mm semi-automatic pistol developed in the early 1980s at the Belgian Fabrique Nationale arms factory in Herstal. The pistol was conceived in 1983 to compete in the U.S. bid for a new sidearm chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge that would equip all the branches of the United States armed forces (ultimately, the Italian Beretta 92F would emerge as the winner). The weapon was however accepted into service with the Finnish Defence Forces as their general service pistol under the designation 9.00 PIST 80 and 9.00 PIST 80-91.

The overall design layout of all versions of the pistol is based on the Browning Hi-Power, but the firearm features significant ergonomic improvements designed to update the weapon to modern battlefield requirements. The BDA’s name is an abbreviation for Browning Double Action . The pistol was marketed in Europe as the HP-DA.

A variant of the BDA is the BDAO pistol (short for Browning Double Action Only ), which received a different trigger mechanism that cocks and then releases the hammer which is automatically decocked following each shot. Presently, Fabrique Nationale no longer advertises the pistols in their sales offerings.

The Browning BDA 380 pistol was introduced in 1980 or so as a compact and lightweight pistol for police and civilian use. The gun was manufactured in Italy under contract from FN Herstal (Belgium) and marketed as FN model 140DA (in Europe) or Browning BDA 380 (in USA). Some sources said that BDA 380 is a copy of Beretta 84, but close inspection shows some differences (i.e. Beretta 84 has frame mounted safety while BDA 380 has slide mounted safety). The manufacture of the BDA 380 was ceased circa 1997. It was adopted by Belgian police.