Sig P6 - how to get mags to sit higher in the frame?

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DarthNul

New member
I recently acquired a Sig P6 built circa 1979, which was well before they redesigned the ramps to feed hollow points.

Of course, I didn't know there was any HP feeding issue with these guns until I took it to the range: At least one round per mag FTF'd. No surprise for the HPs, but I also had a couple of round nose cartridges do the same thing.

All the FTF rounds went straight out of the mag and hit the bottom edge of the feed ramp pretty much dead-center, and stuck there. This happened with all five of my mags, three of which are new (ProMag) and two Sig factory mags.

My local gunsmith polished up the ramps and the chamber before he realized how exactly the rounds were hanging up, then he tuned the feed lips of two of the mags to tip the noses of the rounds up a bit.

I have yet to get to the range, but after manually cycling the slide a couple hundred times with four different types of HP ammo, the tuned mags haven't had any failures.

But here's what's bugging me: I'm having a hard time accepting that all five mags need tuning. And since the same thing happened a few times with round nose bullets, I'm thinking maybe the mag latch in the frame just isn't keeping the mags high enough.

All five mags when latched into the frame, can be easily pushed up at least 1/16 of an inch. I know there's always going to be some wiggle room with mags but pushing up on a loaded "un-tuned" mag puts the noses of the bullets up higher than a tuned mag that's hanging on the latch.

The mag latch doesn't look worn. Maybe it's just out of spec?

I hope to test my theory by simply pushing up on the mags with my support hand when I get to the range (this weekend if the snow stops falling soon), but if that works... Is there some way that I could build up the top of the mag latch as a more permanent fix without buying a welder?
 
JB weld could build up the mag catch.

May also be worth it to replace the recoil spring if you haven't. Slide moving faster than it should be with a worn spring may also be part of the problem, and is a good idea on surplus guns in my mind.

If I were to use a P6 for carry I would invest in the PowerBall ammo or something like that which has a FMJ profile. Getting it to feed HP reliably would worry me.
 
If it's a common problem, maybe someone makes a higher mag follower, to lift the rounds more in line with the chamber.
They're available for other makes and models.
If not, maybe the regular followers could be dimpled from the bottom, like 1911 ones, to do that.
 
The feed ramp mod also makes the feed ramp further away and allow the round to rise further (and higher). Maybe trim some mag lip to allow the round release earlier? Just a theory. I have a P6, but I only shoot FMJs.
 
Update:

I haven't shot the gun (since getting the work done) yet, but I did take a close look at the ramp and clearly my local smith did do the mod. It's not just a polishing job.

The rounds still stuck after the mod because the center of the bullet nose was feeding directly into the front edge of the ramp instead of into the surface of the ramp.

Then my local smith tuned two of the mags by opening up the feed lips just at the front, to angle the noses of the rounds slightly higher. This directs the noses of the rounds into the surface of the ramp.

I just thought it might be easier to bring the entire mag (and the bullet noses with it) up a tad so there's one fix instead "one fix per mag". Right now it's not a big deal to tune the rest of my mags but I tend to collect mags over time so there's no telling how many I could end up with...

The snow hasn't stopped yet but I am still hoping to test both "tuned mags hanging from the mag latch" and "untuned mags shoved all the way up by hand" sometime this weekend before moving forward.

BTW: Sig says the ramp angle of the old design is 54 degrees and the new design is 52. I don't know if that's how many degrees from vertical or horizontal so I don't know know if the new design is steeper or more shallow. The link provided earlier in the this thread shows side by side pics of old and new style ramps, but what I'd really like to see is side by side pics of a stock old ramp and a modded old ramp.
 
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