SIG P225/P6 magazine improvement in one hour or less ... DONE!!

[MCMXI]

SIG P225/P6 magazine improvement.

Here's a simple but effective project that took me less than an hour today (not including the 2 hour oven time to cure the paint). Many P225/P6 owners find that the magazine floorplate gets in the way of establishing a comfortable grip. Smaller "fitted" aluminum magazine floorplates are available for $15 each or thereabouts and they are designed to offer a much closer fit to the P225/P6 butt. However, I have ten magazines and didn't want to spend $150 on ten floorplates. I had bought a used magazine a while back and the previous owner had done a fairly poor job of fitting the floorplate to the butt. I needed to paint a Kimber tactical bump grip safety that came with paint missing in a number of areas so I figured that this would be a good time to get this little project knocked of my growing list of things to do and make it worth the effort of setting up for painting.

I inserted each magazine into one of my P225s, scribed a line with a fine permanent marker, removed the floorplate and used an angle grinder and file to shape the floorplate. I cleaned all the floorplates using rubbing alcohol and an ultrasonic cleaner. I then painted them (over the flat SIG finish) using GUN-KOTE 2400 (flat black) and baked the parts for two hours at 325˚F. Here are some photos. I'm very pleased with the results given that the magazines look good and the pistol is way more comfortable in the hand.

Before .... notice the used magazine at the end

Scribing a line

Grinding, painting and baking complete

Magazines reassembled

Nice fit!

Much more comfortable to grip now

 

[MikePaiN]

Nothing more delicious than baked & shaped base plates ...yummm

and since I'm getting a P6 this month....a big thanks for the excellent idea and pics.

 

[MCMXI]

Nothing more delicious than baked & shaped base plates ...yummm

and since I'm getting a P6 this month....a big thanks for the excellent idea and pics.

Glad to be of help and you're going to love the P6. I could have spent more time getting each floorplate to be a perfect match, but they're close enough and all fit very nicely to either pistol. I wonder if SIG used such a large floorplate due to some P6s having a European style mag release. Some might argue that it's harder to strip the magazine from the pistol with a fitted floorplate in the event of a malfunction, but I'm prepared to take that risk. I've never had a problem with any of my SIGs where I needed to forcibly strip the magazine from the pistol.

I could have grit blasted each floorplate prior to painting but frankly, the SIG coating (blueing/parkerizing) is very flat so why remove it. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes to paint the floorplates again if they get dinged up with use.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Very nice job. The best solution I had seen prior to this had been the aluminum replacement base plates

My only area of concern is that you're removed the ability to strip the mag out of the gun in the instance of a double feed jam. The protruding lip was there to assist in removing the mag in heel release models (it is actually a carryover from the heel-release 220). While not usually needed for a range gun, I do like the ability in a carry weapon

 

[1KPerDay]

Looks good, and +1 what 9mm said.

 

[MCMXI]

My only area of concern is that you're removed the ability to strip the mag out of the gun in the instance of a double feed jam. ... While not usually needed for a range gun, I do like the ability in a carry weapon

Thanks for the positive feedback. I agree that this modification could be a problem given a specific type of malfunction, but it occurred to me that my P239 comes from the factory with magazines that would be very tough to remove given any kind of serious resistance. The factory magazines are contoured to blend with the grip which looks nice and reduces the chances of snagging the pistol on clothing but doesn't help in magazine removal. Also, my Ed Brown Special Forces Carry comes with a flush-fitting, minimal snag magazine making it hard to get a good purchase on it if it needs to be stripped out forcibly. So the question that comes to mind is how much are we prepared to compromise in terms of the ability to strip a magazine (a possible issue) compared to ease of handling (firing), carry or concealment which are always an issue. How many times have you needed to forcibly strip a magazine from a pistol due to a malfunction. A % of number of rounds fired would be interesting. I'm new to competitive pistol shooting and have only shot four matches so far but I've put over 1,000 rounds downrange in those matches and haven't needed to yank a magazine out. I realize that my experience is very limited and that you have a lot more experience so this is why I have a genuine interest in your response.

Here's a photo of the P239 showing the nicely fitted magazine.

Here's a photo of the Ed Brown with its magazine. Not a lot to grab hold of.

 

[9mmepiphany]

The more I look at your pictures, the more I like it....I certainly don't have the skill,maybe it's patience too...to put that nice a finish on my work.

To address your question

The 239 has a plastic base plate that blends nicely with the frontstrap. Folks will sometimes complain why Sig didn't just cut the toe, that extends forward and downward off to make it even more compact. The reason for the recurved toe and it's extension is to allow the mag to be stripped.

It is the same situation with the Brown. That is the amount of floorplate that a "standard" mag would protrude in front of the frontstrap.

It doesn't have to protrude much. Just enough that you can take your support hand finger(s), press them against the frontstrap, and pull them downward (while the mag release is being depressed)...catching the baseplate of the mag and stripping it out of the magwell.

How many times have you needed to forcibly strip a magazine from a pistol due to a malfunction.

There are two reasons a mag will stick and need addition help to be removed from the magwell
1. sticks when ejected
2. double feed jam

Sticking mags:
Well, often enough that you can always tell older 1911 competitive shooters by their mag changes even with newer guns ...when they release their mags, they will flick they wrist outward before bringing it back in to insert the fresh mag. What they are doing throwing the mag out, because they know that single stack mags have more of a tendency to stick than double column mags...the exception at the non-free drop mags of some Glocks

Double feed:
I usually test my equipment before matches, but I was shooting an IDPA match yesterday and just in my squad of 12-15 shooters, I witnessed 5 such jams over 6 stages (~100 rounds)...granted 3 were from the same shooter.., but the other 2 were on different platforms.

I observed, from the reaction of the shooters involved, that the correct response of Lock, Rip, Rotate and Rack; seems to have been replaced by Look, Poke, Lock, Look, Poke, Remove, Shake, Look, Poke...Give Up

 

[MCMXI]

9mmepiphany, thanks for the useful information. In retrospect, I could have left an 1/8" more on the front of the floorplate to aid in stripping the magazine. As it is though, there's a gap between the floorplate and the grip (see photo) that I'm able to get my finger nails in so I'll see how that works out. Anyone thinking of doing this can decide for themselves how important any of this is to them. I can always buy some extra floorplates from Midway (less than $10 each) if I'm sufficiently concerned about the ability to strip the magazine.