J.P. Sauer & Sohn was founded in 1751 producing muzzleloader guns of high quality, but there are only little records of this time. During the age of the metal cartridges the company got wellknown around the world and at the turn of the century it already got a fabulous image as producer of firstclass hunting- and sporting guns.
The first handgun project started with the fusion to Spangenberg & Sauer in the early 1880ies in order to produce the "Reichsrevolver" by order of the army. In 1885 the connection with Spangenberg ended and the company went on as J.P. Sauer & Sohn producing Reichsrevolvers up to the early 1890ies.
About 1900 the first commercial production came up, the strange "Bär"- repetition pistol. After that the company produced the"Roth-Sauer"-pistol in connection with Georg Roth , and it seems that this time the interest of the company in automatic pistols was born.
In 1913 the first pistol-construction came up followed by many other own models.
After World War II and after the dividing of Germany the company in Suhl got loss of all means of production and was eliminated, but some members of the family Sauer took all patent- and construction-documents and changed over to the West in order to refound the company in 1951 in Eckernförde at the area of the former German "Torpedoversuchsanstalt". But this area was needed by the army later on again, so the company was erected at another area as complete new in 1974 .
Besides the foundation of a canadian sub-company, sales-contracts about the complete Sauer gun program were signed with the company COLT.
Since some time the company was connected with the Swiss company SIG-Neuhausen in order to produce a number of heavy automatics guns which are well known around the world.