Comment by some_random | Hacker News Reader

Comment by some_random | Hacker News Reader

Worth mentioning that there are ~3 companies called Sig with many name changes over the years:

SIG Switzerland, the original who mainly services the Swiss government and domestic market. They created the original P210, SG 550 series, etc

SIG Sauer Germany, the now-defunct company SIG Switzerland created when it bought German firearms company JP Sauer and Sons in order to develop, market, and sell firearms in a legally easier jurisdiction. They are most famous for the P220 series of handguns.

SIG Sauer USA, the New Hampshire based company that was initially created to make importing easier that is now by far the largest and most well known SIG. They created the P250, P320, P365, SG556, MCX series, etc. They are very well

Overall, SIG Switzerland and Germany have very good reputations for making high quality products (Sig Sauer Germany almost won the competition with the P226 to become the M9, they lost because they were more expensive than the Beretta 92, very similar to what happened between Glock and Sig Sauer USA for the M17...), SIG USA on the other hand does not.

Please stop repeating this incorrect corporate structure. While there are still 3 entities, they are all now owned by the same German holding corporation, L&O Holdings, which is owned by 2 German individuals. The holding company now includes Sig Sauer USA, Sig Sauer AG (Swiss), and Sig Germany.

I do agree with your assessment of quality between the companies, though.

It's unclear to me how much L&O Holdings actually does to bring the two remaining Sigs together (Sig Germany is defunct as of 2020). They do not sell each others products, do development cooperatively, produce cooperatively, etc as far as I've seen. Sig Switzerland issued that foot-in-mouth memo backing the P320, so there's clearly something happening between the two, but I think presenting them as separate is more accurate than claiming they have a close relationship because the same holdco owns them both.

That's not correct. Sig Sauer USA's VP of Engineering Adrian Thomele was originally an Sig Sauer AG employee, who owned a company that was acquired by Sig Sauer AG. There are other examples of engineering management propagating from the German/Swiss entities and sharing IP between one another. Secondly, Sig Swiss AG recently announced that they would be manufacturing the P320. The German entity was shuddered to decrease manufacturing costs and effectively offshore to Sig Sauer USA, who is now also offshoring more manufacturing operations to India. I think there is much less independence than you might think between the entities.

Oh interesting, I didn't know that about Adrian or Sig Swiss manufacturing the P320.

Some more history you might find interesting - Thomele & Mayerl designed the FCU and P250 that would ultimately be the foundation for the P320. Thomele then went onto some of the design work for the P365 from my understanding while the P320 was going through trials and having issues. He's been in numerous depositions along with some of the US engineers that report to Thomele now like Sean Toner.

Another interesting history are the dates and models adopted by a US agency. Secret Service switched from the Beretta M9 (made in Maryland at the time) to the P229 in 1998. 20 years later to the Glock 19 and Glock 47 (probably Smyrna, Georgia sourced).

The consumer market in the US no longer trends off government models though. Thin and mini models seem to be more popular, and since most consumers rarely fire their weapon, maintainability and reliability are secondary. The P365 is the most popular in the US at the moment, but it probably has a low duty cycle.

Eh, the reality is that the consumer market never trended off government models all that tightly. What you're seeing is the evolution of duty handguns; metal framed hammer fired wonder nines to polymer framed striker fired handguns. When consumers buy the latter they typically buy Glock 19, 17, 20, etc and there's an argument that they're influenced by government procurement decisions but even still the P320 never sold as well as Glock. As for the P365, it's a different category of handgun, a small-ish concealed carry handgun with way better capacity than the previous generation. Springfield Hellcat and Glock 43x are some of the competitors, not the P229. It's also worth mentioning that when the military or cops need a concealed handgun, they very frequently opt for the P365.

As for the P365 having maintenance/reliability/duty cycle issues, beyond the typical SIG beta testing on consumers shit I really haven't seen people having issues with it.

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