Sig Sauer

About

Sig Sauer Firearms Firearms manufacturers are big money businesses and tend to make their mark on the industry by filling a niche; Glock only makes pistols, and they all look the same and operate the same. Colt makes excellent single-action revolvers and excellent AR-pattern rifles. SIG Sauer made a name for themselves by making precision-engineered handguns, which had a reputation for custom-shop quality internals in a mass-produced weapon. Company History and Lineage SIG Sauer is oft thought of as a Swiss company, but that is a misnomer because it began as a conglomerate of two European firearms manufacturers, Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (SIG) of Switzerland and J.P. Sauer & Sohn of Germany. This was in 1976, but the story is far earlier and involves a wagon. The story goes back to 123 years before they would conglomerate. It was back in 1853 that three Swiss businessmen would come together to make an excellent wagon. Friedrich Peyer im Hof, Heinrich Moser, and Conrad Neher were the company's original purveyors, which would be one of the leading manufacturers of small arms globally. But that is putting the cart before the horse. It was only six years into the existence of the Schweizerische Waggon Fabrik, or Swiss Wagon Factory that they branched out into the firearms industry to provide a sample firearm for the Swiss military. The Prélaz-Burnand 1859 was invented by a pair of individuals that the Swiss Wagon Factory brought on board for the project, Jean-Louis Joseph Prélaz (gunsmith) and Edouard Burnand (army officer). The design was so good that the Swiss Army awarded a contract for 30,000 rifles, and the rest is history. The 20th Century Once they had become a firearms manufacturer vice wagon maker, the name was changed to Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft , the acronym where the iconic phrase 'SIG' came from. The Sauer component of the name would come quite a lot late in 1976, but SIG was busy throughout the Century. Shortly after World War