I've never understood the huge draw to conversion kits. I get the desire to shoot on the cheap and I get the desire to get trigger time in with a given trigger. But recoil is so vastly different that I don't know how much is gained in the process. I'd rather spend $400 on either reloading equipment/components or bulk factory ammo and shoot the gun as intended than to fake it with a .22lr.

And that's not to take anything away from the .22lr. It's my favorite and most shot round but be it in an AR conversion or a pistol conversion I've never found the trigger time to do anything more for me than dry firing would do. I own a couple of the M&P 15-22 rifles but they are not as trainers and are used for the values they hold on their own. Absolute blast but realistically only good for control manipulation drills and that's about it. Pistol conversions fit the same way for me. Good for control manipulation but that's about it, from a training point of view.

It would be very interesting to see a person run a given course timed, practice with 1000 rounds of .22lr through a conversion on some firearm, then run the course with full power loads and see what the difference in time would be from before and after the rimfire training. Then run 1000 rounds of full power loads on the course and time themselves again at the end. If we could get a bit of data to show a conversion made a difference in actual times/skill/ability I'd be much more open to the idea of using one for a trainer. Until then (and my broke self can't afford to fund that test) I'm going to be a little hesitant on a conversion rather than buying a from the ground up designed rimfire pistol.