The P220 was originally produced in 9mm around 1975, and became adopted by many police agencies and militaries in Europe, and later in Asia I believe. I think they stopped producing them in 9mm sometime during the 80's, but don't quote me on that. The P220 was chambered from the factory in 9mm, .30 Luger, 45acp, .38 Super, and from what I've seen there were even some in .22lr I believe but I think those are really rare.
The P220 9mm isn't rare per se. The Sig P6 (p225) is definitely more common as ex-Police P6's have been imported in mass quantities in the past few years. P220 9mm's are a bit hard to find though, I wouldn't call them rare. Typically they usually seem to go for anywhere from $400-600, sometimes a bit more if it's a rare version. One thing many people aren't aware of is, sometime in the early 90's I believe it was, the P220 9mm was imported to the US as an "American" version and actually had a button release instead of the heel release. These are pretty hard to find and command a premium price over the euros.
Are there any questions you have about the P220 9mm? I may be able to answer some of them. I haven't ever really seen any one good source of info on them. Mostly it's just been random posts, and mostly on the Sig forum. This
Remtek page has some info on the history of the P220, which touches a bit on the 9mm and other P220 stuff.
Here's a thread I put up on my own forum:
Link
I'm doing a 9mm conversion on my 45acp P220, which basically consists of mixing and matching the parts from a euro P220 9mm (still trying to find a decent condition one) into my 45acp P220. From what I've seen and heard, there are enough similarities between the 2 that you can simply swap the 9mm locking block, and possibly a few other small components into the 45 frame, then slap the assembled 9mm slide on the 45 frame and you're good to go. I haven't done the conversion yet, so there may be some kinks to work out. The one thing I've found so far (and is mentioned in detail in that thread) is that the 9mm mags are nearly identical in exterior dimensions, and they do in fact work in the 45 frame. Anyways, there's some info there in case you are interested. My whole deal is I really wanted the button mag release.
Oh, one more thing that you may find VERY interesting. It has been found that the P220 9mm barrels are literally IDENTICAL to P226 9mm barrels! Everything about them is identical, the barrel hood, locking lugs, etc. There are people using P226 barrels in their P220 9mm and a few are using them in their P220 .38 Supers to convert to 9mm. The pics comparing the barrels are on Sig Forum somewhere. The sweet thing about that is that means you could buy a P226 "tactical" threaded barrel, swap it in, and then you'd be good to go for a suppressor (if those are legal in your state of course). It's what I plan on doing when I reach that point.
