P226 .40 conversion to 9mm

[zoglog]

Hey,

I read around that this is possible w/ the replacement of the barrel/recoil spring and 9mm magazines.

I'm planning on doing this with a .40 P226 Homeland security (DAK trigger) I'm getting along with a barrel ordered from barsto (http://www.barsto.com/)

Anyone done this before? Wondering if there are any issues or any pointers of things I may encounter.

[gorenut]

I haven't personally done this.. but when I was interested in doing this, I read up on it thoroughly on multiple forums. When it came down to, a lot of times its a gamble due to the extra space there'll be ini the slide. So pretty much for full reliability, you need to get the barrel custom matched to the slide or get a matching slide for the 9mm. I've heard of people having both good and bad experiences with the bar-sto used in this manner. If its a range gun and you have the money, go for it. I personally just stuck to swapping 357Sig and 40SW

EDIT: Forgot to mention recoil springs as well as per below V

[himurax13]

I did this conversion with my P229 so it stands to reason that the P226 should be able to do this as well. You need a 9mm conversion barrel and 9mm mags to make it work. Some people have ftf or fte because the Recoil spring on the .40 S&W is heavier than the 15 lb spring that is on the 9mm. So you mak have to swap out the Recoil spring as well. I noticed that with the 9mm conversion barrel installed that my shots are a tad lower than they are with the regular .40 barrel on. The one complaint I have heard about Barsto barrels are their super tight chambers, especialy people who shoot lead instead of FMJ. Some people have sent the barrels back for reaming.

[SJgunguy24]

Ideally you'd want a complete upper to be 100% reliable but there are dimensional differences between the 40 and 9mm frame rails. Conversion barrel is the way to go but please don't ever trust your life to that combo.

[zoglog]

Hmm, well if I did get the barrel from barsto I would send in my gun to have it custom fitted (doesnt really cost more apparently)

Anyone know of another outfit that is better than barsto for this kind of work?
This will only be for the range, so not gonna trust my life on the combo .

The other alternative would be for me to just go and buy another p226 9mm, which might not be bad since I wouldn't mind getting a DA/SA one as well, but the cost will be much greater.

also just to confirm, p226 .40 mags will not work with 9mm correct? I heard they work for the sig pro.

[SIGSHOOTR]

Hey,

I read around that this is possible w/ the replacement of the barrel/recoil spring and 9mm magazines.

I'm planning on doing this with a .40 P226 Homeland security (DAK trigger) I'm getting along with a barrel ordered from barsto (http://www.barsto.com/)

Anyone done this before? Wondering if there are any issues or any pointers of things I may encounter.

Hi-- can I ask why you decided to go down to a 9?

[himurax13]

Hmm, well if I did get the barrel from barsto I would send in my gun to have it custom fitted (doesnt really cost more apparently)

Anyone know of another outfit that is better than barsto for this kind of work?
This will only be for the range, so not gonna trust my life on the combo .

also just to confirm, p226 .40 mags will not work with 9mm correct? I heard they work for the sig pro.

Well I highly suggest avoiding the EFK Firedragon barrels. Although of the 3 I own, the only reliable one I have is my Sig 9mm conversion barrel. I am sure there are at least one or 2 other places that sell conversion barrels for a bit less than what the Barsto ones cost. Its not like you need a competition barrel for this. With My Sig 229 conversion, the .40 mags do not work properly with 9mm rounds. The angle on the feed lips are different.

There are many reasons to have a 9mm conversion. The first is cost, 9mm is much cheaper than .40. Also, people who reload with progressive presses would rather reload the same caliber instead of changing everything out.

[zoglog]

Hi-- can I ask why you decided to go down to a 9?

Well the fact is I actually never intended to get a .40, but the price was too good to pass up.

and I did half decide on it because I heard you can go from .40 to 9mm but not the other way around. So If I ever wanted to shoot .40 in the future I could ( I do not own any .40 now)

But yeah .40 is expensive, so .45 is already my expensive vice so I didn't want to stock up on anymore calibers.

[rdmax]

I have the Barstow 9mm conversion barrel for my P229 .40. I did not change out the original spring and used the same .40 mags for the 9mm. Everything functioned perfectly fine with WWW full metal jacket ammo. It was not as accurate, but maybe just due to the ammo used. I did a lot of research on this and a high percentage found the same results. I would thoroughly test the ammo you intend to use and use a mag made for the 9mm if you want to use it for self defense. Even then, I would just put the .40 barrel back in for that purpose. 9mm ammo is 20% cheaper than .40.

[slo_guy]

I too order a Bar Sto barrel and chose the "match target" option instead of the "semi drop in". 70% success rate for matching is a little too low for me, and I'm just going to have a good gun smith match up the bull barrel with the slide.

[jtzshooters]

I have a 229 & got a Bar Sto drop in and got some 9mm mags & haven't had any trouble .

[zoglog]

I too order a Bar Sto barrel and chose the "match target" option instead of the "semi drop in". 70% success rate for matching is a little too low for me, and I'm just going to have a good gun smith match up the bull barrel with the slide.

the match target option, you send in your slide and they custom make it to fit correct?
And so far that's mainly 229's instead of 226's people seem to be converting . Any reason for that?

[kenjimatic]

Another 229 owner here. barsto 9mm drop in barrel works flawlessly. I just bought the .40 parts kit from topgunsupply.com and swapped out all the springs and shooting 9mm(with the conversion barrel) I had no problem even with the new .40 recoil spring. I've tried shooting 9mm with the 357/40 mags and it seems to work but got a couple fte/ftf, so I bought a couple of 9mm mags.