In many countries, manually operated rifles are substantially easier for civilians to own than semiautomatic ones - and this was not lost on firearms manufacturers. In an effort to potentially open a new market, SIG experimented with manufacturing a pump action version of their very successful 550 military rifle. The effort was quickly dropped, however, and only 12 were manufactured. These were made in both .223 Remington and also .222 Remington caliber, to accommodate countries where .223 was considered a restricted military caliber.