SIG P210 - Design

Design

The SIG P210 is a single-action pistol, with a magazine capacity of eight rounds of 9 mm, 7.65 mm, or .22 Long Rifle (.22 LR). It is a licensed development from French-Swiss designer Charles Gabriel Petter's Modèle 1935 pistol. It has a frame-mounted manual safety that blocks the trigger and a magazine disconnecter safety that blocks the trigger when the magazine is removed. It has a 120 mm high quality barrel (150 mm in the 210-5 variant) and the pistol is very durable and reliable. The slide and frame are machined from blocks of steel, which makes production rather costly compared to recent pistol designs, manufactured of pressings and welds.

Its hammer action is built into a removable assembly for easy maintenance, after the fashion of the Tokarev TT-30 pistol, whereas its slide rides inside the frame rails, rather than outside as in the traditional Browning pattern. This latter featured mimics the frame-to-receiver interface of its predecessor in Swiss military service, the Luger pistol, allowing for a very tight fit between the slide, barrel, and frame without compromising reliability. This construction feature contributes to the unusually high accuracy for which the SIG P210 is known. It ships with a 50-meter (54.7 yd) test target typically showing a group of five to ten shots in a cluster under 5 cm (2 in) in diameter.