At the moment, SIG SAUER is a company that straddles the Atlantic ocean. Most of their manufacturing is done at their Exeter and Newington plants in New Hampshire, but for the older models and some of the more high maintenance designs the guns are still manufactured at their plant in Germany. Guns like the P210, the higher polish X-FIVE and X-SIX series, and the P232 were being made in Germany and imported into the United States for sale, which made them much more expensive to manufacture and added import costs to the price tag. I had the opportunity to chat with Ron Cohen (above), the CEO of SIG SAUER, and one of the details that he let slip was that the company would be producing all of their guns in the US by 2015 . . .
While moving production to the US is one step, Cohen wants to go even further. He’s working with engineers to modernize some of the older designs, such as the P210. As he said in our meeting, while the gun is a brilliant design it was made in an era where surface hardening and stamping sheet metal were cutting edge technologies. Now we can do so much more, and (with the blessing of the original designer of the P210) he’s bringing those designs up to modern specs.
Just as the P226 has evolved over time, Ron wants the P210 to progress as well.
Having owned both a West German 1980’s vintage P226 and a modern Mk25 P226, I’m not worried. SIG has a very good track record of being able to keep those features that define the spirit of the handgun while improving on the internal components as well as the function of the gun. I’d expect no less from their P210 refresh. Especially considering that the current run of P210 handguns clocks in right around $3,000, I’m hoping that the newer, American made target pistols will be much closer to a price point that the average Yank can afford.
So when are they going to make the STR in the US?
Don’t want to crush your hopes but they most likely won’t, mainly due to target shooting not being as popular as it once were (or as it is in Europe).
Well, that and everyone thinking their black tacti-kewl rifles that can hold maybe 2+ MOA groups on a good day are “accurate.”
Sigh.
If it’s any comfort to you, I always hone my marksmanship skills on a Stevens Model 416.
Thats because to some of us, guns aren’t a investment, they are a tool to be used in the worst of times.
We spray paint them, beat them up (not needlessly), and train with them. we dont have the time or the money for safe queens.
We who remember the gun industry before the AR-15 fad remember when the people who wrote for gun magazines wrote such nuggets as “Only accurate rifles are interesting.”
*sigh*
A safe queen is a rifle that is never used, target rifles are used a lot. Have seen more “tactical” rifles that are safe queens than target guns.
Also, if you need a rifle for the worst times you get an AK and a PSO-1 with the Simonov reticle and you’re set. Alternatively build an AR from Palmeto State Armory parts and put on it a Primary Arms scope/red dot. No need for a tactical rifle that costs 2-3k if it is intended to be used for bad situations.
I dont care about the AR15 fad. Preparedness and mindset existed before AR15 popularity and arfcom.
This argument is really apples v oranges, but my point is that the elitism within target shooters is quite amusing to say the least.
and lolinski, use a lot? lol
What is your idea of used a lot? firing a handful or boxful of handloads is not a lot. 50 rounds is not “a lot”. Safe queen, in other words. Sure, there are tactical rifles treated as safe queens, but generally, no (and that defeats the entire purpose).
No need for a 3-4k tactical rifle in bad situations? what about a precision sniper rifle?
there is so much wrong with that mentality. It reeks of “collector” mindset.
Unlike some of you I take care of all my weapons equally. I don’t look at a tactical weapon as anything more or less important than anything else I own. That applies to anything I own. Certain weapons such as AR’s or AK’s are cleaned and oiled the same way as any semi-auto, bolt action or pump action rifle I own. And although I don’t use my AR or AK as much as other rifles I own it isn’t because I consider them “safe queens”. I don’t use them as much because of replacement of ammunition and the cost associated. An average day at the range may involve 200- 400 rounds with an AR, where as the average day at the range with a hunting rifle or shotgun may involve a couple of boxes of 20 rounds at most. Same thing applies to 9mm and 45ACP, with my 9mm’s I will easily go through 200 rounds in a session at the range, but at 45acp I rarely shoot more than a box of 50 rounds. But all guns are treated exactly the same afterwards, all are thoroughly cleaned and lubed.
Why would anyone want a US made Sig, HK, Walther, Mauser etc… Sig is ruined! A once eminently reliable, accurate and beautiful firearm with watch like triggers is in the process of being reduced to the mass market abyss. This CEO has done what they all do, segmented the offerings with stupid models of everything (ELITE, TACTICAL, ETC…) result lower quality. When the first 229 frame was made back in 91/92 we knew the writing was on the wall. Now we endure issues unheard of before production was in the US. Fit and finish and trigger feel is also better on older guns. Cohen ruined Kimber and SIG! He will now ruin the 210, the firearm that made them what they are. wanted to purchase new magazines for my P229 (92′ production), I have never had a failure to feed in that firearm NOT ONCE! my mags are original dovetail backed German magazines, still perfectly reliable. New mags both suffered intermittent failures, forums show I am not the only one. It seems Cohen has subcontracted to Long Island NY based Checkmate and they are well known for less than perfection to put mildly, but they are cheaper than others and making it the old way. I am done with Sig, I know what has happened to them.
William are you nuts? Sig Sauer is one of the preeminent small arms weapons manufacturing companies in the world. Regardless of where it’s manufactured. Thinking otherwise is absurd. Any and all US small arm’s manufacturing is superior to anywhere in the world. All that crap about Germany and other countries being superior to US Manufacturing is a myth. Probigated by the Germans 100 years ago. The US dispelled that bullshit 75 years ago during WW2. LMFAO.
What is “probigated”?
Oh come on, what a dick move for us outside the USA.
This will drive up prices for us in Europe and probably make a good deal of stuff unobtainable (due to American export laws).
Needless to say I am not happy with this, why can’t they do like CZ and have production facilities on both sides of the ocean?
Actually, if our Congress keeps running huge deficits and the Fed keeps buying up Treasury paper, the US dollar will sink in value vs. the Euro and you’ll enjoy cheaper prices on US-made goods.
True that (the USD is pretty screwed to put it nicely) but all the red tape and import/export fees. If I import something into Norway that is worth more than 200 NOK (33 USD IIRC) then I have to pay a quarter of the price of the item. So if something costs 1000 USD for me it costs 1250 USD and that is before all the red tape. The red tape which can make this really annoying.
Due to all red tape I don’t intend on importing many guns, the list is as following:
-1-2 Izhmash Tigrs (from Russia, thinking about one in 308 and the other in 7.62x54mmR)
-1 Ithaca 37 (from USA, most likely the lightweight model in 12 gauge but the 16 gauge is tempting, maybe both or get a conversion?)
-Marlin 795 (from USA, sounds stupid I know but the only Marlin autoloader I can find being regularily imported is the model 60 and the Papoose)
-Norinco copy of the Colt Woodsman (from China, possibly through Canada first. Thinking about integrally suppressing it).
If the red tape, duties and fees are the same for items made in the US or elsewhere outside of Norway, then why would you care where SIG makes its pistols? Does Norway have a special tax deal with Germany? Is that an EU deal?
I feel the need to tell you NOT to buy a Marlin 795. I have one and it isn’t worth the money, even being how cheap it is. Get a Ruger 10/22 instead if you can, they don’t cost that much more and are much better rifles.
But won’t ITAR still seriously hamper SIG’s ability to export? Even if the prices become quite attractive, it would be against the law.
That might be problematic too. Most people don’t have problems smuggling a scope or laser out of the country (pretty much the only accessories that ITAR affects) but an entire gun is a different ballpark that I don’t want to mess with.
Bah. All lolinski needs to do is get together with a bunch of buddies, dress up in middle eastern attire, make a couple of videos showing them making mayhem in the middle east (or anywhere else for that matter) and the US government will sell him all the guns he wants at cut-rate prices. ITAR? The State Department never lets ITAR get in the way of their tomfoolery.
lolinski: Just make your your marketing package for your group has a snazzy logo and letterhead in Qu’ranic Arabic script, and you’re all set. Just get on this project before the fall of 2016…
you are not taking into account that Europe is doing the exact same thing only way worse.
Yup, we’ll basically be like China or Mexico to Europe… wooohhooo….
I don’t understand what you mean by that.
I have thought about the red tape, much bigger problems buying from the US than Germany mainly because there is no sea to cross or paranoid government to work with. Germans love bureocracy though, will admit that one.
Brotherhood is referring to why so much of US manufacturing by multinational corp’s has been shipped off-shore to Commie China.
It comes down to currency arb. The Chinese Yuan is pegged to the US dollar so that they can maintain an advantage in end-product price for everything they sell into the US.
If the US dollar is structurally weak due to our deficits and current account imbalances, then effectively we’ll “enjoy” the same advantage to the EU that the PRC enjoys to the US.
As any other for-profit corporation, they’re chasing more profitable markets and abandoning less profitable ones.
Why hasn’t Beretta or CZ abandoned “less profitable markets”?
No reason they can’t have both. You can’t argue that two markeys is worse than one market.
Why? Because the cost of producing anything in Germany is prohibitive. Mercedes only has one assembly plant left in Germany but all of the components are made in other EU countries to control costs.
Why? Its too expensive to make anything in Germany! Even Mercedes has closed all but one of its assembly plants and all of the components are made in other EU countries.
loliniski, as the old saying goes, “It’s Great Being The King”. And the USA is the King of the world, as it should be. We drive the worlds economy, we are the biggest importer and exporter and end users in the world, and because of our 2nd amendment we enjoy the freest society the world has ever known. Sig Sauer gets a great tax incentive to relocate here just as Walther and numerous other gun manufacturers have. So if you have to pay more for something so be it. If it was reversed, you wouldn’t hear all the whining here, because we just wouldn’t buy the product if we had to pay a premium to do so. That’s the greatness of Trump being in office. He’s now putting all the little piss-ant countries that once were allowed to dictate foreign policy in the world in their place, and “Making America Great Again”!
I thought NH was Canada? – Check the map, lift up its skirt, its frontier gun-roots have given way to rainbow triangle protests.
Hearing that warms the cockles of my heart. If I ever get a raise (not that I deseve one) a Sig 226 Tac-ops or Mk 25 would make a dandy addition to my collection.
didnt see those two on the list of guns still made overseas… so unless this move allows Sig to trim the fat all around you are still looking at a 1k proposition for those two.
My 2022 has to be one of the best guns for it value I’ve ever bought. If they can continue to wish value like that by producing their goods here, I have a feeling I’m about to buy a lot more Sig.
I’m glad you said the 2022 is a good gun. I will be buying one of those in the near future. I think it will be a good gun to go with my p220.
IIRC, Foghorn reviewed the 2022 for TTAG a year or so ago. He liked it a lot. You can look it up in the search bar.
I own a 2022 as well. I bought it for 400 and thought it was a good deal then. You can get them for around $350 now and they are a steal at that price.
My first thought on reading the headline was that somehow Sig was going to be the only gun manufacturer in the US by 2015, as if they’d bought out Freedom Group and every other manufacturer.
That would only be a good thing, I mean they can’t mess up things more than Freedom Group has.
Dare I dream of a 500 dollar p226?
You, sir, are dreaming small. I’m dreaming of a weekend in Majorca with Salma Hayek.
Sure, if you don’t mind buying used.
Wonder if they’d consider bringing over the P225 line and/or modernizing it
Edit: dang spell check on mobile devices
I thought the P228 and P229 were the modernization of the P225.
I’m sure someone else can correct me but I was under the impression that the P228 was a double stack contemporary of the P225 using the same folder carbon steel slide and breach block.
I think the P229 can be viewed as a modernized P228.
I know that the P239 fills many of the same boxes as the P225 but I always liked the lines of the P225 over the other
I think you have a better description of the relationship of the P228 to the P225.
That said, I thought SIG had dropped the support of the P225 because the P229 and P239 pretty much filled all of the market niches that the P225 used to.
I would agree with you about the P239 vs. the P225 though. I never found SIG handguns to be pretty, except for maybe the P210, but the P239 is not an anesthetic improvement over the P225.
Sadly, you’re right. Sig ceased production in the US of the P225 & P228 because of the stainless steel slides found in the other two designs.
I always found the P239 to be almost feminine.
I thought I had read somewhere that production continued in Europe but I haven’t read when they ceased making the folded steel designs over there. Either way, I’ve got my fingers crossed.
From the meeting I was just at with Sig at their new(ish) HQ in Portsmouth, NH the P225 will be coming back at some point in the next couple years (late 2015 mid 2016 was their best guess).
Ron Cohen is a fourth-rate flunky with no will of his own. SIG Sauer is wholly owned by L&O Holding, a front for German entrepreneurs Michael Lüke and Thomas Ortmeier. Their other major properties include J.P. Sauer & Sohn, SIG SAUER, Blaser Jagdwaffen, and Mauser Jagdwaffen in Germany, John Rigby & Co. in Great Britain, and SAN Swiss Arms in Switzerland. The one common feature of all these enterprises is high-handed incompetence of their management, well exemplified in this news item from Switzerland.
http://www.srf.ch/news/wirtschaft/schweizer-sturmgewehr-hersteller-kaempft-ums-ueberleben
Mauser Jagdwaffen, eh? Thanks for that nugget of information.
Sigh. Google Translate can mess up “hello.”
Let’s face it, SIG could not have been selling very many of the P210s and there probably had to be a decision taken to either discontinue it or to redesign it with a view to current manufacturing practice which would bring the price to a point where it was a viable product.
I would buy one if I could ever find one in a shop.
He’s future proofing Sig Sauer for the dark day when we get another gun hating stooge come 2016.As it stands, if the White House administratively interferes with weapon imports-as it will almost certainly do under a Hillary Clinton run Oval Office- his company will be in deep kimchee.
US production means its a lot harder to put Sig out of business.
+1
+ the 300
Yup.
Especially if they follow the lead of other “defense production” companies and they spread their jobs out over several states.
SO what Beretta has done this for decades.
Bad idea….they should enlarge the ekenforde plant and start making more german guns for the US market. Exeter isnt exactly known for pumping out quality sigs
so sigs will be even more expensive than ever? and now quality will go down the gutter and customer service will get worse? might as well start buying keltecs
I don’t want the price on a P210 to come down. The Sig P210 is going to serve a very useful purpose for me this year.
It’s going to make an absolutely cherry S&W Model 52-2 look cheap by comparison.
Does this mean Mosquitoes will be able to feed, extract and eject ammo not named ‘Mini-Mag’?
Well that is depressing. Guess I better start buying up all the German made guns I can find and tuck them away for when people figure out that there are a ton of awful, that’ll due guns coming out of the NH factory. And if I ever find out who decided to put short reach triggers randomly and inconsistently across the whole Sig line I will make them wish it had been the hound that had kicked them in the %*#@#!
Nice timing. I am in the market for a Ruger SR-762 but maybe the 716 will be in my budget.
You can thank that useless tard Cohen for Sig’s hit and miss quality the past few years. First he destroyed Kimber, then he moved to Sig. Find a way to build them cheaper, and sell them for more- that’s all he does. And not a great business motto with life saving tools.
SIG just laid off 200+ workers in NH after over expanding. I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how they are going to make more guns in NH with less workers and keep QC up. Then again, NH workers are probably cheaper than their Swiss and German counterparts.
Maybe they will be able to rehire some or all of the laid-off workers next year. Or, maybe, SIG sees the decline in demand for guns that has been reported recently and will make fewer guns in more models.
The shoot’est “the winner of a gun fight isn’t based on how well you are at shooting a stationery target it’s based on the guy who’s most willing that wins a gun fight” John Wayne… We Americans are fighters and we are always willing, I’d rather shoot with an American made weapon [MODERATED. Wha…? -Matt]
How is it SIG can import a 380, but Glock cannot?
With the ATF import points system you get some of your points baised on weight and frame construction, must get to 75 to be able to be imported. Investment cast or forged steel is worth 15 points, Investment cast or forged Hts Alloy is worth 20. It’s 1 point per oz with an empty magazine.
Sincere congrats to Sig Sauer from EU! Good move! Frankly, only when all EU companies that manufacture firearms and ammo leave EU for US, the EU Governments might do something about the firearms legislation here.
Once again, congrats to Sig Sauer!
P.S. To American supporters of 2A : have you ever thought to stop buying from companies that reside or manufacture in countries where the Governs are completely against any sort of free access for their population to firearms? This might put some pressure on the medieval EU Governs, since US market is the only significant civil market left, and, instead US citizen being told that their 2A is an anomaly, an exception, the situation might turn over and 2A might expand it’s spirit in other countries legislation. So, instead your 2A being the exception, 2A might became norm in other places, and so more allies around 2A spirit.
Where in the US? Would live to see it around me. As a active duty US Coast Guard member we love the P229. I personally own one and in process of buying the 556. Love SIG’s. SIG is awesome to the military s we’ll.
If SIG wants to update the manufacture of the model 210, they could just turn the production over to Tanfoglio, which is already producing System Petter ( slide inside frame ) pistols of very high quality for half the cost.
Vyhrus where can you find 2022’s for $350? Used locally the 9mm runs $450 & .40 $475. New @ Bass Pro $550+. Independents even higher.
I bought 1 of the mil contract overruns $450 in 2008 night sights 3mags 9mm. Now want a few in .40 to replace the glocks local small dept. is carrying. Early gen 2 .40 G22s they have 8 only 3 have ever been fired. Trade in offer was $100 ea.
So are you a knowing shill for that jackass Cohen, or do you actually believe the garbage he says? The new P210 is a sad joke compared to the Swiss guns. That’s a cute line he uses about stamping sheet metal, but it’s utterly irrelevant to a discussion of Swiss P210s, because those guns were not made in that fashion. The idea that current models even vaguely approach the precision of the tolerances and the hardness of the steel in the Swiss P210s is just laughable. It ought to be criminal to even imply such nonsense.
Cohen destroyed Kimber’s QC, and he has done the same at Exeter.
Use to love Sigs in the 90’s…today’s are junk, Thanks to Mr. Cohen, ditch him and all the useless models and bring back the classic P’s…220, 225, 226, 228…all they need
Comfortably numb; is how I would place Sig, how in the world can you take one of the top pistols and rifles in the world and turn them into 3rd world guns overnight? The Sig 550 was the top premier 556 rifle in the world ask the Swiss, and the p226 pistol was declared by the SAS / Seals / Delta as a pistol with incredible steel from German manufacturing plants, not pot metal, springs that last thousands of rounds instead of hundreds, and the durability and reliability that Sig was famous for, don’t they desire to sale quality weapons anymore? Recently I have witness firsthand rifles they could not even fire out of the gate; where are the inspectors? Honestly I am afraid to purchase from these guys anymore, and I so wanted a real 550….
Its very simple to take this test, just take a look at the weapons coming into Canada based off the Sig 540 design they are immaculate in every detail, then compare them to the rifles coming from America what is really happening? Their weapons can actually be used, and work, no FTF-FTE or short stroking…
What about the P232 coming to America – the demand is still there as used ones are commanding $600 and up on various auction sites. I understand that some German law was “broken” but why would they look to retool production in the USA when the Republican congress is on the verge of national reciprocity for CCW and the P232 is one of the best 380’s ever made.
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