I read an article in American Handgunner back in 1992 I think. The article was about the Stahl Omega. I just had to have one. Being stationed in Germany at the time, I had dreams of going to Pete's house and hammering out the details of my order over a rack of Bitburger stubbies and months later visiting the range with my new toy. That is exactly what they were, dreams. I was only a young married E-3 then, expecting the birth of my first child, and would never be able to afford a custom 10mm built by Peter Stahl. 16 years later, here I am expecting my fourth child (from the same lovely wife praise God!) and I am finally able to realize the 10mm dream that started all those years ago. It's not a Stahl Omega but a high-cap Para Ordnance P16-40. I have been looking for a Razorback or the Para for the right price for a few months now and just completed a buy it now on Gunbroker for $500. I have had so many irons in th fire since June las year that I didn't know if I was going to be able to conserve my spending and buy another complete gun but the timing was perfect. Now I have the base for all of my projects and will be done buying guns for a while because I'm about to drop mass quantities of cash on finishing the projects I have started. I am done with my 338-06 build with the exception of a Decelerator pad. I have to start building my son's 270 deer rifle. I just received my 300RUM last week that I will be rebarreling to 338 Edge. Now I will have the base for my 10mm build. Let the spending begin!

ctrout, Welcome aboard!

Good luck with your P-16 40 to 10mm project. I think Brigadier has done one of those conversions, maybe he will come along an offer some info on what to be on the look out for.

Please post some pics on you progress.

I'm in the process of fitting an aftermarket Bar-Sto 9X25dillon barrel to my S&W1006, I am very close to finishing this project.

Once again best of luck!

I had BarSto make and fit a 5-3/8" barrel to my ParaOrd which projects nicely just beyond the slide and bushing - giving it a nice look, IMO. I added a Cominolli guide rod and I replaced most of the springs with heavier ones. Initially I had some problems that I couldn't figure out but eventually it came down to two things - the magazines needed new springs which seemed to help quite a bit, and the other was that the slide wasn't quite going all the way into battery which wasn't noticeable at first because it was just by a few hundredths of an inch. The gun would shoot, cycle, then - nothing, the hammer was cocked but the trigger seemed frozen. With another upgrade in the recoil spring - 24#, liberal lube, and a few hundred more rounds it all came together. It runs quite well now and makes one hell of a trail gun!

Good luck with your build - here's a little more info on the subject - ParaOrd

Thank you all for all the input on a 10mm conversion. I had a gunsmith here in Southern California work a P-16 Limited to a 10mm Limited. I left the stock barrel and had it reamed. I used an AFTEC extractor, EGW flat bottom firing pin stop, a 22# recoil spring, a 24# strut spring, and a stronger strut. I installed a Dawson Fiber optic front site. I had him replace the trigger, sear, and hammer, and tune for a 3# trigger. He has done three of my IPSC pistols, so I couldn't resist the action job. Well, it worked right out of the gate. I could shoot steel profiles at 115 yards and hit them 4 out of 5 times with my reloads @ 1200fps. I didn't restamp the barrel so I can let my friends shoot my .40. This is a great bowling pin combo. 5 pins in 4.17 from a table. I didn't win, but I put some holes in that Canadian wood. Thanks all!

I was at a gun show on Sunday but no P16-40's were to be had. If anyone knows of one reasonable, please let me know. I want to do this conversion. However, I did pick up a used Hornady Projector with alot of extra goodies (lots of shell plates) for $150. Quite the find. I have her all cleaned up and will be replacing some small pieces and she will be like new.

I have been looking for a while and have found that they usually go for $700 or more on the usual auction ad for sale boards. I saw one a few weeks ago for $475 and emailed the guy like 5 times but he never responded. I saw this one for $500 shipped so I jumped on it.

The gun arrived today and it is awesome! This thing is in nearly new condition! I put 27 rounds through it on the way home from the FFL and I did have one stoppage. The bullet didn't make it all the way into the chamber. It got stuck at a 45 degree angle on it way in. I'm guessing that a new recoil spring and new mag springs will fix the problem. A few hundred rounds might help too. The gun was pretty dry and may have even been a bit dirty when I got it too. Whatever the coating is that Para puts on their non-stainless guns looked like is was wearing off of the rails and redepositing and could have been causing the slide to lose velocity too quickly. I gave the gun a good cleaning and lube when I got home and I'll try it again some other day. I hope to start the conversion soon and have it finished with any bugs worked out by the end of summer. I'll try to post pics later tonight.

Remember if it a stainless pistol you should use stainless steel GREASE! NO OIL. The dull marks you see are galling , or the finish coming off. If you are having the classic 3 point jam, the load is not strong enough to cycle the slide back far enough. Either go up on your load, or down on you recoil spring 2#. What is your strut spring poundage? Thsi combo will work. Let me know.

It's not stainless. Yes it was the 3-point jam. The gun appears to be stock except for the grips so I would assume that it still has all of the original springs in it. The load I was using was the Czech S&B 180gr 40 S&W. I won't be shooting this gun much as a 40 and even if I did, I would be loading my own and probably substantially hotter than what I was shooting today. These rounds were given to me by a guy at work. First factory ammo I've shot in many years. They reminded me of 9mm loads. This was the first time I've shot anything lighter than 45 ACP since 1999.

Photos, as promised.

Niiice. Thats going to make a nice platform. I didn't change out the barrel becasue my smith likes Para barrels. He's been 1911 smithin since 1972. That might save you some money. I LIKE the arched mainspring housing. I changed out all mine to arched. Keep us posted.

Who is your smith? I was thinking of sending the barrel off to Hunter Customs for the reaming job. He seems to be the 16-40 to 10mm conversion guru.

Will O'Hara in Corona, Ca. (951) 371-4971

I ended up going with Bob Hunter for the barrel ream on the Para barrel. I just got it back this morning. While he had the top end, he found a possible problem with the barrel link and timing so I'll be contacting a local smith to check this out for me before I do much shooting with it. I used to work with a guy that builds custom raceguns so hopefully I'll be able to get a break on the price of him tuning it for me. I know nothing about barrel fitting and lug engagement. As for the rest of the gun, I finished fitting the EGW firing pin stop this morning and I installed the increased power mag springs, 22 pound recoil spring, extra power firing pin spring, and 23 pound mainspring. I have a 25 pound mainspring on hand in case I find that the the timing of the unlocking needs further delay. I fought that problem for quite a while on my 45 Super before I finally figured out why I was seeing pressure signs way before I thought I should have. I'll be picking up my dies, bullets, and 800x on Saturday. I already have the other components on hand so I may run a magazine of mild loads through it this weekend just to check the functioning. I'll be sure to report back.

Well, I went to the Brownells website to look at the tech articles t try to find a tech article to help me understand the lug engagement issue. I learned how to measure this variable and tried it on this gun. I measured three times and came up with .043", .044", and .041". I found that .040"-.045" is recommended so I should be good to go here. The trip to Boise will be on Saturday so hopefully Sportsman's Warehouse will have some 800x, 200grXTPs, and some Lasercast .40 cal bullets in stock.

Thanks for the update Ct. Look forward to hearing how she ran when you get her to the range.

Well, Sportsman's only had 800X in 4 pound cans and that would have busted my budget so I ended up getting 1 pound of Blue Dot instead. They only had 1 box of the 200gr XTPs so I bought those along with a box of 500 Laser Cast 185gr round nose semi wadcutters. I thought those would work well because the box said that they were for the 1911. As it turns out, they are probably designed more for the 40S&W because when I tried seating them to 1.260" the wad cutter ridge was well below the case mouth. They looked kind of funny so I loaded them a bit longer, checked feeding and ended up with 1.280" OAL for that bullet. I used CCI 350 primers for all loads and the Blue Dot as well as some AA#7 that I happened to have on hand. I started seeing pressure signs at velocities somewhat lower than I was hoping for so I'll probably have to try to pick up some 800X and possibly some AA#9 when I have more cash. My hottest load with the 185s was with 10.5gr of Blue Dot for a 5-shot average of 1209fps and a 30fpf ES. The XTPs averaged 1051fps for 5 shots with 9gr of Blue Dot. ES was 62 FPS. I had hotter loads but these turned out to be max based on pressure signs. Actually, both of these loads were the top loads that I assembled with the Blue Dot and they exhibited absolutely no signs of high pressure so I may try to work higher next time out. I didn't do any accuracy testing.

The pistol functioned pretty well. I fired 30 of the 185gr and 20 of the XTPs. I had one of the XTPs nose dive and jam against the ramp but the classic 3-point jam that seemed rather common with this gun when it was still a 40S&W never showed up in it's current 10mm form. I only fired 25 rounds through it as a 40 and got the 3-point 3 or 4 times. I guess that my tuning of the extractor along with the extra power mag springs from Wolff helped.

Finally, the bad news. The slide locked back during firing many times (6-8 maybe) before the magazine was empty. I don't know what was causing this but I remember the same exact problem when I first built my 45 Super. I don't remember what I did to fix it. It is very annoying. I tried resting my thumb from my left hand over the top of the slide stop while firing and it didn't seem to help as the recoil made my thumb come off again as I fired. Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated. I'll be posting this malfunction separately as well to try and generate more discussion.

FWIW, You will almost always see pressure signs with AA-7. I limit mine to 11.0 grains with a 180gr bullet. If you have any questions, call Accurate. They are very happy and willing to help you with load combinations. Good Luck.

This post has been edited by f4tweet: June 16th 2008 2:24 AM