Hey guys... hope everyone is doing alright. I’ve got a 226 that has some play in it. When disassembled, the barrel rotated or shifts side to side in the slide. Is this an issue? when it’s assembled there’s no play unless I really try to shift it. Thanks for the help

"When disassembled"? What does this really mean in the context of your question?

He means when the slide/barrel assembly is off the frame.

I'm moving this thread to the Pistols section

If so, that's quite an odd question to me. You would expect things to move around, when taken apart, no? And, when the gun is fully assembled, there shouldn't be any play, except maybe slide-to-frame play in most guns.

Let's help the man, please, not give him a hard time. Not everyone is a handgun expert. Be polite to my guests, please.

OP, if you mean that when you take apart the slide and remove the spring and recoil rod, that the barrel will wiggle a little to either side of the slide, then yes that’s normal.

When the slide is put back together and the frame is on the slide, there shouldn’t be any movement of the muzzle of the barrel while 5e gun is in battery. If the slide is locked to the rear there will be a lot of slop as the barrel is no longer locked into the slide.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the help. Yes I mean when the slide and barrel is apart from
The frame. I’ve seen posts and videos showing where the barrel has little to no play “disassembled”. Meanwhile others have significant side to side movement. When barrel, slide, and frame are assembled the only movement I can get is a slight shift that is extremely forced. Thanks for clarification... just wanted to make sure I didn’t have something to worry about.

Many gun types have that issue but it is not a problem. It is hard to kill a Sig 226 and welcome to the forum.

quote:

Originally posted by patw:
Many gun types have that issue but it is not a problem. It is hard to kill a Sig 226 and welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the help. I’ve reach mixed reviews on it so figured I’d ask. Mine moves a full cm side to side when barre is locked back into the frame. I’ve attached a link to a vid that brought my attention to it originally.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XMskvtITUPU

It moves a centimeter side-to-side? So about 5 mm each side?

Not sure why my post isn’t showing. Hahaha! My bad not cm. I meant 1mm, there’s 10 mm in a 1 cm

How does the pistol shoot?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
How does the pistol shoot?

It fires fine for as far as I can tell. I’ve not had malfunctions yet I’m not an expert shot or anything. I guess I’m more worried about unnecessary wear.

Roll your target out to 20 yards or thereabouts. Firing from a rest, take careful aim and very slowly, shoot five rounds. If you can cover the group with your hand, I wouldn't be concerned about any play in the pistol.

I’ve got two P229s. One I’ve put thousands and thousands of rounds through. It was my EDC, 3-gun competition pistol; my go-to. It’s always rattled and been loose. The other was my dads. He gave it to me when he knew he was never gonna shoot it again, but he never did to begin with. Has probably had no more than 300 rounds through it. Real tight gun.

Here’s their barrels (loose on left, tight on right):



The breech area is where the lockup occurs (well, and the locking block). The well used, loose one has less wear on the breech.

Then if we look at the frames:

You can see the loose, well-used one actually shows little to no frame wear while the tight one shows some finish wear on the back of the frame rails after just a couple hundred rounds. The barrel and guide rod are almost polished from wear, so you can see its been shot quite a bit. The other has more wear on the breech, but barely any on the barrel and guide rod.

They both shoot like lasers. So put your mind at ease, you’re not going to wear your pistol out. If you were to, you’d have spent 2-3x (probably more) the cost of the pistol in ammo. Enjoy the pistol, lube it right, and don’t worry about it. It’ll still be great when you’re ready to pass it down to your kids.

Yeah, the pictures are bad, even for me, but I’m not gonna take them back out to retake.

Had to do a bunch of edits to clean up my post but one last one: none of the above wear is any problem or cause for concern. All perfectly normal.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BuddyChryst,

If you want to talk about having some play in a barrel/slide, Beretta is notorious for it but it does not mean it is not a good gun as they are excellent and very accurate. It is just part of the design.

Like others have said, if it functions fine,don't worry about it. Sigs are also known for getting "smilies" on their barrels, like the above picture shows and that is also quite normal. I remember when mine was new, just racking the slide would cause some wear/"smilies".

You don't want too tight tolerances on a gun as it can affect function and longevity. Just keep your pistol lubed and change some springs according to the manufacturer and you shouldn't have a problem.

Thanks for the reassurance all. I’ll try the accuracy test and let you know how it goes.

Going to the range today to check the accuracy. I wanted to add some more information. The barrel lug has started peening on either side where it locks to the frame. Also, I assembled the firearm fully and can push side to side on the barrel hood and get movement. It is a lot less assembled, but you can actually see it and hear the clicking side to side, again this is fully assembled.

I went ahead and contacted Sig and they had me send them a video. They state the barrel locks up at the front of the slide and that the movement was normal. I really dont understand.. can someone confirm that this movement when fully assembled is normal?

I looked up the same issue on a P226 I owned and believe there was a post on Brian Enos' forum about slide play when assembled. The P226 slide visibly moved side-to-side just from my picking it up out of the box from my dealer (bought it used from online source).

The recommendation was to use a heavier grease intentionally formulated for what was called 'loose top end'.

I'll look it up again to make sure my recall is correct. (see next post)