SIG Sauer is closing shop in Eckernfoerde, Germany

Breaking news. SIG Sauer is closing their factory in Eckernfoerde.

Sig Sauer schliesst Standort Eckernf"orde | NDR.de - Nachrichten - Schleswig-Holstein

I’ll have to take your word for it. The link is all in German and I don’t see an option to translate.

Yeah I heard earlier

I love the Mastershop Sig Sauers. I have many of them. They are so much nicer than anything they try to build in the USA.

Personally I won’t own a US mfg’d SIG. was spoiled by the German guns early on.

reddog81 said:

I’ll have to take your word for it. The link is all in German and I don’t see an option to translate.

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The story in English.

SIG Sauer to shutter German weapons factory

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reddog81 said:

I’ll have to take your word for it. The link is all in German and I don’t see an option to translate.

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Here are screenshots of the article, crudely translated:

SIG SAUER Delivers Next Generation Squad Weapons to U.S. Army | Sig Sauer

As they say at the end: Made by an American company with American workers in America. No room for $4,000 bench made collectibles at a rate of 100 per year.

I gather a part of the willingness to close shop is a growing anti-gun movement in Germany, even to the detriment of their military.
Ex:The German parliament's interior committee was told that the gunman fired 52 shots and police found 350 cartridges inside his rucksack at home.

Hmmf. Another case of a mass shooting where the victims had been disarmed by the state. 350 cartridges is only an afternoon at the range for lots of us.
I wish I understood the anti-gunners' disconnect from reality, but I don't.
I think they're in denial of human nature, wherein they expect all to be virtuous in their fantasy utopia.

In any case, that community is going to miss the jobs and Germany is going to miss another piece of its manufacturing base.

Sorry to hear. Were the german made Sigs higher quality than the ones produced at the New Hamshire facility? Better machined and QC over there. Always seemed like a highly regarded pistol.

mauser9 said:

Sorry to hear. Were the german made Sigs higher quality than the ones produced at the New Hamshire facility? Better machined and QC over there. Always seemed like a highly regarded pistol.

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The quality of the German SIGs was flawless. Simply OUTSTANDING.

The American guns are a joke in comparison and a pale shadow of the German guns. Truly disgraceful.

I think the US Sigs are fine, particularly the poly guns are selling very well and are so popular they arent in stock almost anywhere. Even their alloy guns sell well and shoot great.

I would respectfully disagree with the "disgraceful" sentiment a bit. I've been a heavy user of SIG Classic pistols since the late 80's and, while I agree with JayFramer that the WG P226's were of the highest quality, they were not perfect.

The welded in a breech block could let loose on occasion and the old style long hammer strut and spring made the DA pull atrocious. Having said that, the overall quality was indeed outstanding.

However, I've had several US made P226's and while they don't have the same cache as their WG forerunners, there are darned reliable. Has SIG overreached at times and stamped guns out too fast? Yes. Have stupid errors shown up on their pistols that should never have left the factory, such a horribly thin finishes (Legion), wobbly and non-securable rear adjustable sights (Elite Dark), weak trigger springs, breaking trigger bars or ill-fitted barrels that group like grapeshot? Yes. Has their Customer Service at time rivaled H&K for the "Go Pound Sand" model of apathy? Yes.

However, it is also true the vast majority of newer P226's function extremely well. They are made differently now of course, more simply and more cost effectively. To make a P226 today like they did in 1988 would probably result in a $2000 price tag, and few folks are going to pay that these days for a DA/SA duty gun, no matter how high the quality is.

I have a P226 Emperor Scorpion Elite in 9mm that is simply fantastic and runs rings around my '89 WG gun for usability. The overall DA pull is light years better, the SRT is as sweet as Christmas candy and it is actually just a bit more accurate. Same for my P226 Elite Dark in .357 Sig. There are many others that I can name that are balls reliable and laser accurate, like my M11/A1 and a Texas DPS retired P226 DAK. They've been run ragged and have never been found wanting.

Yeah, you stand a higher percentage chance of getting one that needs fixing with the newer guns, but the percentage is still small compared to the overall number made. And I think SIG's Customer Service has gotten a heck of lot better in the last few years...they had to, they were taking a merciless (and at times justifiable) beating over on the SIG Forum.

I would not feel uncomfortable at all using any P226, P229, P227 or P220 made by SIG today for duty use or personal defense. Sure, I'd examine it super carefully out of the box for flaws, then run it hard at the range for about a 1000 rounds before I bet my life on it. But then, I'd do that with *any* handgun that was going to fill that role.

You pays yer money and takes yer choice.....

While the loss of the Eckernfoerde factory won't affect mainstream U.S. consumer SIG offerings, it's certainly bad to have alternative firearm products removed from the market. Maybe SIG could move their German factory operations back to Switzerland, which is a more gun-friendly country. Or maybe SIG could even bring this operation to the U.S.

As to quality, my U.S.-made P320 has performed without issue for nearly 11,000 rounds, needing only a trigger bar spring replacement. It is the only one of my eight semi-autos that I've never been able to limp-wrist into an FTE/FTF while shooting one-handed. Its original trigger was very good, but the upgraded trigger is superb. I was just breaking in my new U.S.-made P229 when this stupid COVID-19 stuff hit , so the jury's still out on it, but it's looking like a keeper.

Not surprised, wasn't the German plant pretty much dead ever since that whole fiasco about 5 years ago when they sold a bunch of guns to the US Army, but then the Army gave said guns to aid Law Enforcement somewhere in South America, so Germany all but shut down SIG because of some law about selling arms in a conflict zone?

bigwheelzip said:

The story in English.

SIG Sauer to shutter German weapons factory

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

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That story is flawed. Sauer started in 1751, long before SIG.

Sauer & Sohn - Wikipedia

Dirty Harry Callahan said:

Not surprised, wasn't the German plant pretty much dead ever since that whole fiasco about 5 years ago when they sold a bunch of guns to the US Army, but then the Army gave said guns to aid Law Enforcement somewhere in South America, so Germany all but shut down SIG because of some law about selling arms in a conflict zone?

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The had just done better and got back to have 150 employees again and it was only the constant problems, fines and roadblocks, that the great FDJ communist youth leader, Angela Merkel, came up with.

For anybody exporting firearms from Germany, the importer has to fill out an end-user certificate and the forms change every few months.

The German car industry will be axed next by libtards.

JayFramer said:

The American guns are a joke in comparison and a pale shadow of the German guns. Truly disgraceful.

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Jay

I got to disagree with you here. Sig has become a absolute powerhouse and hard to catch any more by the competition after the 320, 365, new beltfed machine gun etc and I do not think you build a near 1 billion turnover company after near bankruptcy in the early 2000s based on crappy product.

The 365 is a strike of genius and it gets incredible groups at 50 yards from a rest, sales numbers tell the rest of the story as I believe it is the single best selling gun in the US period.

The new P210 is a marvel of engineering, preserve the spirit and accuracy of the old while making modern upgrades to be able to produce it at a mass price point while using really great new and innovative materials such as quite specialized DLC that is beyond the usual.

The list of great accomplishments goes on and on.

I have a few US made stainless elites in 9, 45 w and w/o red dots for competition and would not trade them for anything at all.

Welcome to America. I could care less what Germany does or doesn’t do.

Any "anti-gun" reasoning is poppycock. The company is blaming everybody and their hamster, but the main issue has been that Heckler & Koch and Walther totally creamed SigSauer in the German police market over the last two decades.

After the 1980s police trials, a majority of the German states and all four federal uniformed police services adopted the P225/P6, and only a couple of states each went with Walther (P5) or HK (P7).

That changed around 2000, when the first states looked for replacements. SigSauer had nothing really competitive to offer, and since then HK, first with the P2000, then the P30 and most recently the SFP9 for Bavaria, and Walther with the P99 QA and DAO, just cleaned SigSauer's clock in one state after another. All federal agencies went with the HK P30.

Heckler & Koch had its own scandal regarding supplying the G36 to Latin American death squads or whatever, so that political excuse doesn't work either.

I suspect German workers were getting too expensive for the shareholders, and they prefer cheaper American labor and are consolidating production in their US facilities. Since that's unpopular in Germany, they're tossing political smoke grenades.

PS: Gratuitous press montage of Bavarian police officers wth old and new service pistol. After 40 years of service, the HK P7 was finally phased out last year; I'm not certain the process is completed yet.

Dirty Harry Callahan said:

Not surprised, wasn't the German plant pretty much dead ever since that whole fiasco about 5 years ago when they sold a bunch of guns to the US Army, but then the Army gave said guns to aid Law Enforcement somewhere in South America, so Germany all but shut down SIG because of some law about selling arms in a conflict zone?

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There's plenty of people getting three squares in Club Fed with their business gone for breaching end of use provisions for war materiel laid down by Congress.