As Sig Sauer began releasing new lines of products last year, Miles Hall bought into it. As President and co-owner of H&H Shooting Spots of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Hall certainly bought the actual products, and most of the new Sig lines of ammunition and optics, for example, can be found in the H&H inventory. And they are doing quite well, he adds.
But what Hall really likes about Sig’s new lines of products, what he’s very much “bought into,” is that the company is clearly positioning itself to be an all-in-one brand for hunters and shooters who can now go hunting with a rifle, a scope and ammunition — all made by Sig.
“We see a lot of new buyers come through our doors,” says Hall. “First time gun buyers, single women looking for concealed carry handguns, younger married couples who want to try hunting. These new buyers are brand focused, and ‘keeping it in the family’ is something they want. So we really like what Sig is doing.”
Known for years as a manufacturer of firearms for the tactical and law enforcement markets, SIG is now making a very determined — and multi-pronged — push into the hunting market. Optics, ammunition, suppressors, air rifles and, yes, firearms — today Sig has products in all categories that are aimed squarely at America’s hunters, as well as recreational shooters, and the company has plans to make and sell many more in the next few years.
“A decade ago, Sig was seen as a niche manufacturer of high-end handguns,” says Tom Taylor, Sig Sauer’s Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President for Commercial Sales. “We were big into the concealed carry market, and had many law enforcement agencies adopt our handguns. And those two markets are still a large part of what we do, no question about it.”
“But we’ve definitely added new product lines and a new focus to our mix. It’s pretty exciting stuff,” Taylor adds. “Our goal is to be the total ‘system provider’ for hunters and other shooters. You want to hunt deer or hogs or coyotes? You can get Sig firearms, optics, and ammunition, plus suppressors and other accessories to help you do just that.”
Sig Sauer Hunting Arms
Of course, Sig Sauer is still making and selling its full line of handguns and rifles. But within these categories, Sig has carved out offerings for the hunting market. One example is the Sig P220 Hunter, a 10mm semi-automatic pistol.
Actually, the P220 Hunter began life a couple years ago as the P220-10 Stainless Elite, a single-action semi-automatic chambered in 10mm Auto. To give this platform more “hunter appeal,” Sig took the Stainless Elite and added a Tru-Glo adjustable front sight, replaced the wooden grips with the much grippier black G10 Piranhas and applied a Kryptek Highlander camouflage pattern finish to the slide and frame.
The result? A cool, hunter-looking handgun chambered in a caliber made to take down up to deer-sized game.
In long guns, Sig now offers the M400 Predator, a .5.56mm or 300 Blackout AR rifle. The Predator variation takes a standard M400 rifle series and adds an 18-inch barrel made of 416 stainless steel, and threaded to accept a suppressor, with quick-detach ambi-sling mounts and a Hogue free-float aluminum tubular hand-guard. As the name suggests, the Predator is being pitched to those who hunt coyotes, similar-sized predators and varmints.
For game that requires .30 caliber power, Sig offers the Sig 716 Patrol series in 7.62NATO. The patrol rifles incorporate three similar rifles — with varying finishes and furniture — that weigh in at 9.3 pounds, a full three pounds lighter than the Sig 716DMR, the original rifle in the series.
Expect more hunting-based rifles and handguns to come from Sig, says Taylor. Some will be existing models refined and refurbished to enhance their hunt-worthiness, while others Taylor can’t yet mention are being created pretty much from the ground up.
Sig Sauer Electro-Optics
Sig built its new optics line from the ground up. To do that, it first assembled a team of optics specialists, most of them with double-digit years of experience with some of the top hunting scope makers. Andy York for example, President of Sig’s Electro-Optics Division, was a ten-year veteran of Leupold before coming to Sig to help launch what York calls “The fusion of advanced electronics and high quality optics, into a line-up of products that’s more affordable than anything the market has seen.”
The early star in this new product line is the Kilo 2000 Rangefinder, with thousands of units already shipped to distributors and retailers. The Kilo 2000 is a great example of that “fusion,” York mentions. The Kilo uses patented LightWave DSP technology that allows the rangefinder to update itself an amazing four times per second when it is in the HyperScan mode,. The Kilo can range reflective targets at 3,400 yards, trees at 1,500 yards, and deer at 1,200 yards. The built in inclinometer calculates Angle Modified Range, or AMR, for angled shots.
The Whiskey line of rifle scopes includes a Tactical and a Hunting line. York says that all Whiskey scopes come with their own Sig Ballistic Turret or SBT, allowing a hunter to dial-in the exact shooting range of their target and hold the reticle directly on point-of-aim. If the big buck pops out at 300 yards, the hunter simply adjusts the SBT dial to “3,” places the reticle on the vitals and squeezes the trigger. There are six models of scopes in the Whiskey 5 Hunting line, five models in the lower-priced Whiskey 3 line, with a variety of magnifications ranges and tube sizes to select from.
The revolutionary Oscar 3 mini spotting scope features advanced electronic image stabilization technology that fits in the palm of your hand. No tripod is required.
The proprietary SIG Optic Stabilizer system uses an internal gyroscope to cancel out unwanted shaking and vibrations that can blur an image, especially at higher magnification levels. With its small size and extended ranging capabilities, the Oscar 3 is ideal for carrying during hunts, especially in Western States and other open areas where the distances really open up.
Sig also offers other larger spotting scopes, red dot sights and binoculars.
Of note: All Sig Sauer optics are guaranteed forever. That’s right — they have an unlimited lifetime guarantee that is fully transferable, with no warranty card or even a receipt required.
Sig Sauer Ammunition
In January 2015, Sig introduced two new 10mm Auto options in its Elite Performance Ammunition line: a 180gr Elite Performance Full Metal Jacket premium target load and a 180gr Elite Performance V-Crown Jacketed Hollow Point.
The new loads didn’t generate a great deal of attention, no doubt in large part because of the relatively niche (but growing) market in 10mm handguns. But for hunters, the 10mm Elite Performance V-Crown JHP was an indication of things to come from Sig.
The 10mm Elite Performance V-Crown JHP is an extremely accurate load, and delivers consistent expansion thanks to the toothed cannelure located halfway up the shank of the bullet. Its location more effectively locks the jacket to the core, providing exceptional structural integrity in a jacketed bullet. This design ensures maximum weight retention and energy on impact — just what’s needed when the target is a deer or a slab-sided wild hog.
Today, Sig’s Elite Performance hunting ammunition line includes handgun rounds in .44 Rem Mag and a new 300 BLK hunting rounds.
During 2016 and into 2017, Sig will also be bringing out a variety of centerfire rifle loads for the most popular bolt-action hunting calibers, including .243 Win, 30-06 SPRG and .308Win.
Sig Sauer Suppressors
Suppressors are among the top firearm accessories on the market right now, and while much of that interest comes from tactical shooters, more hunters are buying suppressors that ever before. This trend has been helped greatly by education campaigns that explain suppressor use and functionality, as well as more and more states restructuring their game laws to make using suppressors while hunting legal.
Sig offers a full line-up of suppressors for 5.56mm platform and 7.62mm, as well as the new SRD338Ti-QD, rated to handle any centerfire caliber up to the mighty .338 Lapua. The SRD338Ti-QD is a Grade 5 Titanium silencer using fast-attach muzzle devices. The rear mount has wrench flats to torque the silencer to the barrel. There is a secondary retention latch that is depressed to remove the silencer from the mount.
Sig Sauer Air Guns
Sig Sauer has even dived into the air gun side of things with its new Advanced Sport Pellet airguns. They include the CO2-powered SIG MPX and SIG MCX semi-automatic rifles in .177 and .22 (pellet-only) calibers, and P226 and P250 semi-auto CO2 pistols in .177 caliber. Sig Sauer ASP airguns not only look like the original guns, they are the same weight and have similar trigger pull, making them ideal for training.
The SIG MPX and SIG MCX ASP air rifles feature the RPM (Rapid Pellet Magazine) Pellet Drive System, the industry’s first encapsulated belt-fed pellet magazine capable of 30 rounds in 3.5 seconds. Both models have an integral Picatinny optics rail and accessory rail in addition to flip-up front and rear sights, both of which are adjustable.
“We see our new air rifles and pistols as part of our hunting push,” Taylor explains. “On the one hand they can provide an introduction to guns, small game hunting and pest control. At the same time, many of the new air guns looks and feel almost exactly like their Sig firearm counterparts, providing a less expensive way to practice.”
While the introductory models generate more than enough energy to take on squirrel-sized game and small pests, Taylor adds that Sig is working on a dedicated hunting air rifle, likely to be debuted in 2017, and it will be able to take on medium-sized game species at longer distances.
Family Reunion
While H&H’s Miles Hall likes what he sees from Sig and it’s all-in-the-family approach of products, he notes that the idea isn’t new. Over the last decade, he’s seen a number of other hunting and shooting sports manufacturers try the same approach. These manufacturers certainly produced and offered interlocking “families” of hunting and shooting products, and a number still do. But what they have generally failed to do, Hall argues, is to effectively market this “family” approach to hunters and shooters, especially those entering these markets for the first time.
“New hunters simply didn’t know they could buy Company A’s rifle, fit it with Company A’s scope and feed it company A’s ammunition,” says Hall. “Customers may well have heard of the rifle or the scope. But they had no clue a Company A package, in effect, could be had.”
He adds, “So an item or two within the family would sell decently, but the other products just kind of dropped away.”
Not to worry that Sig will go down that path, company officials say.
“We are fully committed to marketing and promoting Sig as a total system provider,” says Taylor. “And we are stepping up to help out retail partners, too, in store and through larger marketing campaigns.”
For retailers, Sig can provide in-store signage packages, display stands for the various optics, and training for retail staff via online training resources. Sig reps will also come to stores to provide training and product education.
Sig is also working to expand its presence and system provider message through an enhanced social media campaign, by having Sig products featured on several outdoor television shows, and by generating coverage of Sig in other media used by hunters and recreational shooters, including print and Internet.
“We are in this for the long-haul,” says York. “We’ll keep moving forward with new products and new marketing approaches, and we think in the near future, more and more people will think of Sig Sauer when they think of hunting.”
