Sig Sauer Announces the Return of the Classic P210
Edward Osborne 01.25.16
Sig Sauer’s expansion over the past two years has been amazing. No firearms company has launched more new products or such ambitious lines. Who could have guessed that an established handgun manufacturer would start creating high-end optics, ammunition, revolutionary rifles, and a full suite of suppressors to go along with them? You can’t produce a major tidal wave like that every year, so 2016 saw some small updates and additions to the Sig Sauer lineup, but with one notable return.
The legendary Sig P210 is going back into production and coming to the United States. Originally developed in 1937, the P210 was issued to the Swiss Army and police units in 1949 and secured itself a place in history. The tight tolerances and machined steel led to an exceptionally accurate pistol. Sig would ship the original guns with a 50-meter test target that often saw groups as tight as two inches. That accuracy cemented the gun’s desirability for sport shooters, and in Canada, original P210 handguns can fetch prices well over $6,000. For a few years in 2010, a small line of P210s were put together in Germany and shipped everywhere except the United States. But these new handguns will be firmly for the American market, with all the fit and finish of the originals.
These P210s are so new they’re not even in Sig’s 2016 catalog. But the employee I spoke to said they were expected to arrive on US shelves in spring, and would carry a price tag somewhere in the $1,200 to $1,500 range. There will be two models initially, a standard model with three-dot sights and a target model with blacked-out sights and a widened wooden grip. Both will be chambered in 9x19mm like the original.
Wider availability of a classic firearm like this is great news, and I’d love to see other major manufacturers revisit and revitalize some of the historical guns that made them famous.
What else is new at Sig Sauer this year? Notably, some of those exciting things that were announced in 2015 are finally coming to fruition. The suppressor and Electro-Optic lines are up and running now, with models trickling onto store shelves.
Also in a new twist, Sig has added a series of airguns to their lineup. Their marketing places them firmly in the category of “affordable training,” allowing users to simulate the controls of their MPX or handgun on a safe and cheap alternative. But I’m sure we’ll see some ambitious airsoft players that are excited about owning a direct from manufacturer version of their favorite firearms. The new MCX stock on the airgun version had a particularly interesting look.
Sig Sauer is definitely going places, and racing into the future in several different directions. But they haven’t forgotten where they came from either.
As a Canadian firearms owner, my brushes with freedom have been sadly limited. I love the outdoors, black rifles, and trying to figure out how our laws work up here. I try to blog, photograph, and video as much of that as I can. I have a soft spot for Israeli and Czech firearms, especially the civilian versions of their issued rifles. I've been in the firearms industry for a long time: my first job in High school was picking up hulls on a trap range, but currently I work with night vision.
