The invention of this rifle is credited to gunsmith Jean-Louis Joseph Prélaz[7][8] and army officer Edouard Burnand.

[7][8] Upon receiving the 1864[9] government contract to produce rifles, the company name was changed to Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (SIG, German for "Swiss Industrial Company"), known as Société Industrielle Suisse in French-speaking regions of Switzerland,[5] reflecting the new emphasis on their production.

This single-action semi-automatic P210 brought SIG much acclaim, due to the precision processes employed in its manufacture and its resultant accuracy and reliability.

The P210 frame design incorporates external rails that fit closely with the slide, thus eliminating play in the mechanism during firing.

Their Sauer 38H had been produced in competition with other German makers such as Mauser and Walther at a time when new designs began to feature a double/single-action trigger.

This double-action trigger mechanism, combined with advanced safety features including the hammer-lowering decocking lever, was incorporated by Sauer into the new P220 design.

[12] In January 1985, SIG established a subsidiary, SIGARMS, Inc, in Tysons, Virginia, to import the P220 and P230 models into the United States.

[5] Also in 2015 human rights campaigners in Germany brought a lawsuit against SIG for allegedly not doing enough to prevent the use of their weapons by cartel groups in Mexico.

[26] On 5 November 2018, the United States Coast Guard, which has long used the .40 caliber SIG P229 as its duty sidearm, announced that it will acquire the SIG Air ProForce P229 airsoft pistol (which was then produced under brand licensing by French airsoft manufacturer CyberGun) as its new training pistol to give cadets and guardsmen the ability to practice gun handling, conduct target practice in various environments, and train in realistic force-on-force scenarios.

[29] In April 2018 prosecutors in Kiel brought criminal charges against SIG and the executives who had been involved in the illegal arms trafficking to Colombia.

[31] On 4 June 2020, SIG Sauer GmbH announced it intended to close its factory at Eckernförde by year's end, resulting in losses of about 125 jobs as well as plans to fulfill purchase orders.

It blamed "locational handicaps" hindering its sales, claiming "a few other local producers" were preferred in government purchases for the German police forces and the Bundeswehr.

[35] In 2023, the most popular handgun for US law enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the P-320, came under fire for unintentional discharge of the firearm.

According to gun safety officials, the user can avoid such discharge by "keeping the finger outside the trigger guard until the decision is made to shoot".