Back to the range today with the 28lb mainspring.

I put about 75 rounds of the CCI primed reloads and a mag ful of the WWB factory stuff through it. Even some right-hand only and left-hand only in there. My son shot it. My FIL shot it. It fired every time, and cycled perfectly. Absolutely flawless.

So what am I dealing with here? Could it be headspace if it's firing consistently with the heavier spring? Or did it really just need a litte more force behind that hammer to get the job done?

Do I keep messing with it or call it good? I still have a 26lb mainspring handy that I haven't tried...do I try to split the difference to get a slightly lighter trigger pull and hope the reliability is retained?

Having two different used P228 barrels and both of them having headspace concerns is certainly possible, but highly unlikely.
I might try the original barrel in the gun and go shoot it again with various ammo/primers.
See if the newly found reliability using the new heavier mainspring is shared across both of your P228 barrels.

Having worn lower locking lugs might cause a slight impact point shift, but should not have any significant direct impact with headspace.
Of course, this is assuming that both barrels lower lugs & locking insert lift the two barrels chamber blocks up into the slide and they both achieve lockup.

Using your heavier weight mainspring, if it continues having good reliability across both barrels, then you will need to make a decision.
What is your intended usage for the P228? If it is just something you shoot at the range, perhaps try a slightly lighter mainspring and see if reliability suffers.
If the planned usage for the P228 is self defense, it may just be easier to sell/trade it away, even at a loss. You can always find something to replace the "Weird Alice" P228.
It is certainly possible it has been a lemon since the original date of manufacture, and has had countless/numerous owners due to the failure to fire condition which so far has no readily identified cause.

I have gotten rid of new and used firearms for less than the trouble you have experienced with this P228. If you can't trust it to go bang when you press the trigger, it's time to move on.

Long ago I had a Magnum Research "Lone Eagle" single shot pistol chambered in 30-06. Rotary artillery breech on the rear of the barrel, and the barrel/breech bolted on top of a polymer grip.
It had an atrocious trigger pull weight. It also experienced a random failure to fire condition, but only below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which is quite common here during firearms deer season.
I worked on it with zero success.
I even replaced the entire polymer grip frame with a redesigned factory unit. The polymer grip housed all the cocking/safety/trigger group components.
Even with the new factory polymer redesigned grip frame, I was never able to get the trigger pull weight below a 8.5 pound pull weight. It was long, gritty, and VERY inconsistent.
Eventually, I admitted defeat and switched to the Thompson/Center Encore pistol platform in 30-06 for my long range handgun deer hunting.
I surely spent a huge amount of time, money, and effort with the Lone Eagle which just was a terribly designed firearm.

quote:

What is your intended usage for the P228? If it is just something you shoot at the range, perhaps try a slightly lighter mainspring and see if reliability suffers.
If the planned usage for the P228 is self defense, it may just be easier to sell/trade it away, even at a loss. You can always find something to replace the "Weird Alice" P228.

Really, I don't have a use for it anymore. I bought it because I'd always wanted a P228, but couldn't find an affordable one. When I got it, it had issues, and then I stumbled across a used P229 SAS, which is better in every way, so the P228 no longer really has a purpose...besides being a P228.

I enjoy tinkering, and it's been kind of a fun project to troubleshoot (thankfully it's not a gun I "need", because that would have made it not fun), but I'm not sure I want to sink the money into it at this point that it will take to get it perfect. I actually had it listed for sale for a little bit on a local board, and had a guy who was kinda interested, but when the light strikes re-surfaced I couldn't in good conscience sell it to him.

My inherent curiosity makes me want to find a definitive answer to the problem, but I don't want to spend $75-90 on gauges that will likely never get used again, just to likely have to turn around and spend $200 on a new barrel.

I'm now at a junction where I have to make a decision...do I go all out and try to make it really good (probably going to require at least a new barrel and a trip to CCR), or just be happy that it's functional and sell it at a loss with full disclosure?


While I'm pondering my bad life decisions, I'll probably swap in that 26lb spring. I already have it so it costs me nothing but time and ammo, and we'll see where that takes us.

The locking block for my P226 project is supposed to be here tomorrow, so I went ahead and swapped out the mainspring on the P228 for the 26lb one. Figure that gun can join us on the range and see if it'll run with that mainspring.

While I was at it, I decided to investigate this headpace thing further. I got all of my P22X 9mm barrels and put a factory round in the chamber and measured the headspace. There's wuite a bit of variance...you can actually see the difference:



From left to right:

P226 Barrel from the Matrix Precision build project: 0.0025"
P229-1 Barrel from my P229SAS: .004"
P228 replacement barrel from Apex (the one I've been having issues with): 0.013"
P228 original factory barrel (serialized to gun): 0.014"
P225 replacement barrel for P6 (to fix feed-ramp issues related to hollowpoints. This barrel has had issues with light strikes in the past): 0.0095"
P6 original barrel serialized to the gun: 0.002"

Clearly there is a wide range of tolerances here. Interstingly, the tightest headpsace is in the oldest barrel (from the 1979 P6). The newer production barrels (P226 and P229-1) seem to be pretty tight as well.

Got out to the range for a bit today after work with the 26lb mainspring installed. I didn't have as much time as I wanted...only about 40 minutes until sundown when all shooting has to stop, and I needed to confirm zero on my .223 bolt-action, break in the P226, and test the P228.

I put about 50 rounds through it, both factory WWB and my CCI-primed reloads, and experienced zero malfunctions. The gun ran great, and the trigger is actually pretty decent...definitely better than the Revenant arms trigger in the P226. It's not enough rounds for me to feel comfortable giving it a clean bill of health just yet, but it's a definite improvement over where I was at before.

That is good news! ^

Something I thought about with your photo two posts up. ^^
It seems you have six separate loaded rounds of factory ammo in the chambers of your 9mm pistol barrels.
Even with new factory brass, it's possible that there is variation in case length.

How about repeating that test again across all six barrels using only one round of factory ammo?
Use the same round of factory ammo as a "headspace gauge" across all the barrels.
Then case length variation will not be artificially included in your measurements.

Using digital/dial/vernier calipers, you should be able to measure the case length on a new factory loaded round. (using the sharp tips of the external measurement caliper jaws)
Select the factory loaded round case length that falls somewhat midway in the published allowable min/max case length dimensions.
Then repeat your test using the hand selected/measured solo/individual loaded round that has known acceptable case length across all six of your barrels.

I sort of already did that with my initial measurements...I took all of those on multiple barrels using the same bullet. The photo was more just to show them all at once. Trying to measure any of this with handheld calipers isn't going to provide a very precise measurement regardless...but even with the limitations of my measuring technique and any minor variance in the cases, it's obvious to me that there's a significant variance in chamber depth between these 6 9mm Sig barrels. Also, the ones with more headspace have been more prone to light strikes than those with less.

I wanted to revisit this because I think I've got it resolved. I sent the P228 slide out to be refinished in black DLC along with the P226 slide from my recent Revenant Arms build because it was only an extra $50. While it was gone, I swapped the 19lb mainspring back into the frame. When it got back I tried shooting the gun again, and no suprise, more light strikes.

I decided I'm too deep into this thing to give up now, so I spent too much money and ordered a brand new barrel for it. It got here today and I dropped a factory 124Gr HST round in and measured headspace: 0.002". Well, that's a lot better than what I had. I went out and bought a box of factory WWB, the same stuff that was failing before. The gun ate the whole box (100 rounds) without a single hiccup. It also shot my reloads just fine. All that with a 19lb mainspring installed.

I'm gonna call this fixed! Thanks to Chris Orndnorff for putting me on the right track with the headspace question!