Some "inside dirt" from an ex-SIG employee

A guy I know from another board that works at a local gun shop whom I buy guns from from time to time recently left his gun selling gig to go for a "dream job" at the Sig Sauer plant in Exeter, NH.

Before he left, he went on that the benefits were great, you could take unlimited Sig courses free of charge, 20% off wholesale discount on any sig product or firearm, (up to 4 firearms per year) and the usual full time benefits. He knew he'd be working a night shift though, 5PM to 3:30AM.

When he got there, he found out that they required overtime. A lot of it.They started him at 60 hours per week. Didn't like it? Too bad. The overtime went up from there. There was overtime pay, of course, but it was tied to the number of pieces you had to scrap, so any more than a perfect assembly line record and you started losing money.

They seem to have a ton of QC problems, and the scrap rate is huge. Scrapped stuff is supposed to be cut up or smelted. Their scrap company however, has been known to turn up at local gun stores selling barrels, magazines, etc... that were supposed to have been scrapped.

The guys running the show at Sig are the same guys who were running Kimber 5 years ago- who almost drove Kimber into the ground with QC issues.

The lead programmer in charge of their 5.56 rifle has made so many design mistakes it's hard for them to come up with a reliably working prototype for manufacture.

Know how they match up Mosquito guns and magazines? They have a big box of magazines, and they pick up a Mosquito, and try mag after mag until one works with it... then they box up that pair. Eventually the box is full of mags that wont work in any mosquito.

Anyway, leasted 90 days there, and the time required became too much for his family, and the atmosphere was terrible so he went back to the gun shop and told me all this last week.

Take this with a grain of salt or two, as I don't know how much the guy embellished or not, but it still seemed pretty amazing to me.