Upgrade progress of my TM P226

[Crunchmeister]

OK. As a few of you know from other threads, I was one of the unlucky ones that had a crap P226 whos innner gas block rail wore down quickly, causing the slide to not lock back upon emptying the magazine. Well, these upgrades have solved the problem.

I had a bunch of upgrade parts on the way, plus the seller shipped me a whole new upper slide assembly for my P226 since it had broken so quickly. I received that slide today, and proceeded with the upgrades. It ended well, but I did encounter some issues along the way.

The list of parts I got for it is as follows:

• Creative metal slide and outer barrel (comes with a spring and piston head)
• Guarder steel spring guide
• Guarder enhanced recoil and hammer springs
• Nineball 6.03 mm inner barrel
• King Arms air seal chamber

I THOUGHT I had also ordered a Guarder enhanced nozzle, but it would seem that I didn't order it after all. I'll have to get that next time.

So, I proceeded to install all the parts and lube everything up to get it working nice and smooth. Took all of about 15 minutes to get everything back together again. One thing that had me concerned was the tightness of the new piston head in the chamber. And it turned out I was correct.

I racked the slide back the first time, and OMG... The feel was nice and the sound of the metal was awesome. I took a first shot at my target, and it was very accurate. Pulling the trigger a second time, no BB fired. Same with the 3rd shot. It turns out that the piston head is too tight and doesn't allow the nozzle to move freely.

So I took out the new head and installed the old piston lid. The gun fired hard and straight - but only for about 10 shots. Then, it just drained its gas. I refilled and continued firing. I got about 8 shots that time. I repeated a third time to complete the mag, and upon firing the last round, the slide didn't lock back. I refilled with propane and tried dry-firing and the slide wasn't travelling back far enough to lock it.

I figured the recoil spring was too stiff, so I replaced it with the stock one. This helped improve my gas mileage. I managed to get about 15 shots before the mag drained off. So I replaced the stock hammer spring.

That fixed the problem - at least for now. I can now get off a full mag of BBs on one charge, with enough pressure to lock the slide back when I'm empty. However, these 'downgrades' have robbed it of the extra power my upgrade parts gained it.

Next time I order from eHobby Asia, I'll be ordering that enhanced nozzle I thought I had ordered. perhaps the new piston head will for better with it and help get everything back up to where it should be with all these new parts.

So that's where it is for now. I'll be happy if I can get all those other upgrade parts working with it eventually. I do hope the enhanced nozzle will help. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on what the problem could be, then I'm all ears (or eyes, in this case). But for now, I'm pretty pleased with the gun and its new metal slide.

[pamparius]

wow thanks for the report, it helps me for upgrading my p226, so it's better to use the stock spring, the dude out there was right... guarder enhanced recoil and hammer springs caused cycle problems...

btw where did you buy creation frame and metal?

[Crunchmeister]

I just ordered the Guarder enhanced nozzle from airsoftparts.ca. I'll more than likely have it on Monday and I'll see if that makes a difference and allows me to install the new piston head.

I will say, the difference between the stock piston lid and the new head is night and day in terms of shot power. I do hope this new nozzle allows me to use it.

And I didn't get a metal frame. Just the slide. I got it from Cobra Airsoft.

[Crunchmeister]

Well, I'm pretty discouraged with this gun. I got my new Guarder enhanced nozzle, and makes absolutely no difference.

It seems that other than the nozzle, metal slide, barrel and airseal nozzle, nothing else works on this gun. They're all detrimental to its performance rather than enhancing it as they're supposed to.

As it stands with these upgrades, the gun fired well, but seriously, I think its accuracy is worse than when it was stock, even with the tightbore barrel installed. Stock, I could easily hit 1" groupings in my basement. Even with full hopup, my shots are always low, my groupings are about 3", and I have the occasional shot that goes WAY off mark (no specific direction). I can tell by the sounds that it hits the target a bit harder, but not significantly.

If I install the heavier hammer spring, it drains the gas off before I even have half a mag of BBs fired off. And that's with filling the mag to the max (till propane starts spewing as I fill - about 12 seconds).

If I install either the recoil spring that came with the metal slide or the Guarder spring, the slide won't cycle back all the way, so it will never lock back when the mag is empty. And after about 15 shots, there isn't enough pressure left to cycle the slide back far enough to even load a new BB.

The new piston head simply doesn't fucking fit. Either in the stock nozzle or the enhanced one, it's way too tight. It's useless. The increase in power I get with it is quite substantial, but it's so tight the slide can't cycle back enough to load a new BB.

So yeah, I'm pissed. I really went for the TM P226 because it was apparently one of the most upgradeable guns out there. I've wanted a P226 for a long time, so this seemed the logical choice. But in retrospect, I should have just spend less money on a stock KJW instead of this one.

So if anyone who has experience upgrading the TM P226 can shed some light on this, I'd love to hear some informed opinions on this. I know I performed the installation of the parts correctly. The combination of all these parts theoretically should have increased the power and accuracy of the gun significantly. But its accuracy is now worse, and I don't really see any performance increases.

Honestly, I'm quite frustrated and close to returning this gun to stock form, selling it and its parts, and just get a V2 KJW P226 instead.

[The Saint]

The important lesson to learn here is that upgrading is not an exercise in drop-in fitting.

Take the Creative piston head for example. It (literally) looks like a derivative of the PDI piston head, especially with your report of it being too big. To fix that, try taking off the O-ring and carefully file around the o-ring slot. That should make the O-ring seat deeper into the piston head and increase the clearance. Obviously, you want to do as even (round) a job as possible and to test the fit regularly.

Avoid upgraded hammer springs, they can severely increase gas consumption by retarding the rearward motion of the slide. They should only be used when lightstrikings are being experienced.

Make sure you warm up your gas and mags before doing any tests. Doing upgrade testing in winter can lead false failures due to temperature.

[Crunchmeister]

Yeah, I'm seeing that just installing parts isn't all its cracked up to be.

I'll pick up a small file and see if that helps on the piston. It seemed to help increase the power pretty drastically over the stock piston lid.

I will stick with the stock hammer spring, as it seems to work fine. Ditto for the recoil spring, unless I see the new piston head helps increase the power enough to make it feasible to use.

Now I just have to figure out why the hell its less accurate than it was before I installed the tightbore barrel.

I'm open to any other suggestions here that could help out. Yeah, I'm a noob and have a lot to learn, but I learn quick and would love to have more input on this. And I'm sure a few others are looking at this thread too looking for answers, as I know I'm not alone with these P226 upgrade woes.

[The Saint]

Check to see if the inner barrel is centered inside the outer barrel. Sometimes the outer barrel leaves too much space inside for the inner barrel to move around. Same with inner barrel inside the slide. Try cleaning the tightbore. Are you clamping the gun down during the accuracy test? Because the recoil characteristics changed when you put the metal slide on.

[Crunchmeister]

I'm not clamping to test. But my shooting is consistent enough that I can hit a 1" spot on a target in my basement with little effort with any of my other guns. I could do it consistently with the 226 when it was stock too. I'd accept some deviation from that with the harder kick from the metal slide, but not to the extent I'm seeing some of these deviations. I'm not able to hit that 1" bullseye. Some hit, but most land to the left, right, etc. And most are too low, so I have to compensate by aiming higher. The stray rounds can easily drift 5-6" (no shit) from the center in any random direction. I've tried cleaning the barrel, but that hasn't made any difference either.

I'll try checking for centering of the inner barrel. Any suggestions on what to do if it isn't correctly centred? I did look at it to see if the fit could be the problem, but it seemed fine and centered, at least from the quick inspection I gave it. I'll check again to make certain.

I'll also try replacing the new airseal chamber with the stock hopup rubber just in case it may be the problem. I find that the nozzle seems to seal FAR too tightly with the rubber now, with either the stock nozzle or the new enhanced one. If I don't manually rack the slide rapidly to load the first shot, the nozzle actually gets completely stuck in the chamber. It sticks in there during normal operation of the gun, but does release eventually during the cycling of the slide. I guess this is the point of the AIR SEAL chamber, but still, I'm suspecting it may be an issue.

I 99% certain the hopup unit is correctly installed, and looking inside the chamber, I can see the effect of adding or removing hopup to it. It's physically doing what it's supposed to, but doesn't appear to have any effect on the backspin on the BB.

If the hopup fix doesn't work, I'll try reinstalling the stock inner barrel to see of that helps at all. I don't understand the lack of hopup. I think that may be what's affecting my accuracy. WHether the hopup is on full or not at all, I see no difference in accuracy, and shots are always low by about the same amount.

In case someone suggests it may be the BBs - I tried with Metal Tech .20, and with KSC Perfect .20, and same results with both. I have a Madbull tightbore in my Glock, and the Metal Tech BBs perform perfectly in that gun.

[The Saint]

If it's not centered, a little bit of electrical tape generally does the trick, so long as it doesn't impede any forward-backward movement.

Have you lubed the inner barrel and hopup yet? It takes a couple mags for the grouping to stablize if you did. If you haven't lubed it, try doing so.

[Crunchmeister]

I have lubed it, and I've fired off about 6 mags' worth of BBs, and no real change in the (lack of) hopup. I checked the barrel and it's as centered as it will get. It's a really good fit between the inner and outer barrel. There's no play whatsoever in the inner barrel, and the inner barrel moves inside the outer barrel unimpeded.

I'll try swapping the hopup in a bit when I have more time and see if that helps.

[Griffin]

Only thing I have not installed yet crunch on my 226 is the Creation metal slide/outer barrel which CP is still processing. I did add to the gun a guarder nozzle, PDI 6.01 inner barrel, a PDI piston head, and have a Guarder 150% recoil/hammer spring sitting in a box. With the stock spring the gun will not lock back still when dry fired. When I fire off a full mag I would say that 4 out of 5 mags will lock back with the stock recoil spring and slide. Now if I installed the guarder 150% one, it will lock back all the time when dry fired etc but I noticed some damage pretty quickly to the slide notch of the stock slide.

Hopefully when I get the new Creation slide/outer barrel installed, the slide will lock back. I am worried though about gas consumption once the slide is installed will see. As for accuracy I am finding with no hopup on, my shots are high but still get a pretty good grouping.

[The Saint]

I'm probably going to cut my Guarder 150% down a ring or two when I get it. I'd have preferred a lower rated spring, but they're hard to find.

[Crunchmeister]

With the stock springs, gas consumption is fine, actually. I can get a full mag without problems.

[peacekeeper]

what bb's are you using ? i get better consistancy with .25 or .28 bb's

[Crunchmeister]

I'm using Metal Tech and KSC Perfect .20. I go have like 100 .25s that came with one of my guns. I'll give them a try to see what they're like too. Got tied up recording tracks for my band's CD last night, so didn't get to swapping the hopup like I had planned. Hope to do that tonight if I don't get hit with the urge to play music again.