Central Design Bureau of hunting weapons. Tskib soo: review of new models

High-precision rifle MTs 561 / Photo: Vitaly Kuzmin

The new MTs 561 precision rifle is a variant of the MTs 116M sniper rifle designed for the civilian market. It may be of interest not only to hunters, but also to sports shooters.

« MTs 561 is expected to go on sale in 2016»

As long as the rifle has Russian caliber 7.62 x 54R, but in the future it is planned to release options for other types of cartridges. Shop 6V1 box-shaped, detachable, with a capacity of 5 or 10 rounds. The stock is single, with an adjustable cheek piece and a rubber butt pad to mitigate recoil; it can be wooden or plastic. Harris bipod, telescopic, height adjustable. To install optics, there is a Picatinny rail MIL-STD-1913. The total length of the rifle is 1250 mm, weight is 6.5 kg, according to the Weapons and Hunting Consulting website.

And although the developers of the MTs 561 demonstrated their new rifle under the name “hunting carbine” at the exhibition stand, de facto this model may be of interest not only to hunters, but also to shooters-athletes and various law enforcement agencies. It was necessary to classify weapons in this way due to the peculiarities of Russian weapons legislation. Model MTs 561 is a development of the already well-known sniper rifle MTs 116M caliber 7.62 x 54R (designers Denisov V.N., Sleptsov A.D., Eliseev N.I.), adopted in 1997 and in small quantities used by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the FSO of the Russian Federation.

In addition, the rifle is exported and has already received "baptism of fire" during the war in Syria. In turn, the MTs 116M has civilian roots - it was designed on the basis of the components of the MTs 116 sports single-shot large-caliber rifle, designed for firing at a distance of 300 m at stationary targets in a shooting range. And the MTs 116 itself is a refinement of a very successful arbitrary rifle MTs 13 designed by I.M. Mikhalev, designed on the basis of the Mosin rifle and produced since 1952. Thus, the MTs 561 is nothing but the "great-great-granddaughter" of the legendary Russian three-line rifle of the 1891 model.

And one more interesting fact: in the 1980-1990s, the MTs 13 rifle with optics installed on it (for example, the PSO-1 sight from the Dragunov sniper rifle) and a slightly modified stock was used by some special units as a sniper weapon. This was a forced measure due to the practical absence of high-precision bolt-action tactical rifles in the USSR at that time.

The base military model is the MTs 116M repeating sniper rifle.

Outwardly, the MTs 561 leaves a very pleasant impression - this high-precision rifle captivates with a fairly good workmanship and embodies most of the modern world trends for this type of weapon. The rifle has a suspended heavy match barrel 650 mm long with longitudinal grooves, equipped with a high-performance three-row muzzle brake. The shutter is longitudinally sliding, locked by turning.

The rifle presented at the exhibition had the Russian caliber 7.62 x 54R, but in the future it is planned to release options for other types of cartridges. Score 6B1 box-shaped, detachable, with a capacity of 5 or 10 rounds, borrowed from the SVD rifle. The stock is single, with an adjustable cheek and a rubber butt pad to soften the recoil, it can be wooden or plastic.

characteristic external hallmark MTs 116M of the first issues - there are no cutouts on the forearm of the stock, which favorably affects its strength. Harris bipod, telescopic, height adjustable. To install optics, there is a Picatinny rail MIL-STD-1913, mechanical sights are not provided. The total length of the rifle is 1250 mm, weight 6.5 kg.

MTs 561 is expected to go on sale in 2016. In general, the release of the new MTs 561 rifle is a good sign for Russian fans of high-precision shooting, since we can finally talk about the emergence of competition in this market segment. The presence of three serious players on it ( TsKIB SOO, Concern "Kalashnikov" and ORSIS) allows us to hope for an end to the dictates of monopoly prices and for the beginning of a real struggle between producers for the quality of their product and the consumer service that accompanies it, writes

For the first time, the image of the new TsKIB SOO pistol under the designation OTs-122 appeared at the beginning of March of this year in the article “Let's make a rifle that is the best in its class”, where the new and energetic head of the design bureau Alexei Sorokin introduced the readers of the Independent Military Review to the latest developments of the enterprise. Note that a drawing was published, but a photograph of a weapon, which indicates that in this moment the pattern has not yet been fully embodied in metal. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that parts for a prototype pistol are still being made on a 3D printer in order to give an initial assessment of the operability of the mechanisms and ergonomic properties of the pistol and promptly make changes.

A prototype of the OTs-122, also with 3D-printed parts, was shown on May 25 at a closed screening of the Scientific and Technical Forum "Day of Advanced Law Enforcement Technologies" Russian Federation”, intended for specialists and heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian Guard. Of the technical details of the weapon, only the caliber of the pistol is reported - .45 ACP (11.43x23 mm). This is a very interesting choice, probably due to the desire to have a Russian analogue of the HK-SOCOM Mk. 23 and HK P12 for ammunition of the same caliber, which are in service with the US Special Operations Command and the Bundeswehr Special Operations Division, respectively.

Cartridge .45 ACP has a subsonic bullet initial speed , ideal for use in devices for silent and flameless shooting and at the same time having a high stopping effect, which is especially important when using weapons against attackers under the influence of drugs. In the Russian Federation, .45 ACP ammunition is produced by the Tula Cartridge Plant.

sniper weapon

The appearance of the OTs-03M is due to the desire of law enforcement agencies to have an ultra-compact sniper rifle.

OTs-03M is a modernized version of the OTs-03 (SVU) rifle, which in turn is a conversion of the Dragunov sniper rifle into a bullpup weapon. "There's something interesting here. technical solution associated with an aluminum chassis and redesigned barrel. This allows the weapon to be compact and accurate,” says Alexei Sorokin, director of TsKIB SOO. According to him, thanks to the modernization, the OTs-03M sniper rifle “gets a modern appearance and additional features, such as the installation of bipods along the muzzle. The OTs-03M also has a very short barrel with an integrated muzzle device for silent and flameless shooting.

Photo: forum site “Courage” (www.otvaga2004.ru)

The OTs-129 sniper rifle is remembered for its “lean” silhouette and wide application light alloys.

Another model of the sniper rifle, the OTs-129, is also equipped with an integrated silencer and is self-loading, but, apparently, it is already an independent development.

It is characterized by the presence a large number Picatinny rails, right-folding buttstock made of light alloy, as well as light alloy chassis.

Photo: forum site “Courage” (www.otvaga2004.ru)

Another sniper compact based on the MTs-116, the MTs-116RB rifle with a very interesting reloading mechanism.

My base model precision rifle MTs-116M TsKIB designers reworked into compact version MTs-116RB again with an integrated silencer, supplementing it with a telescopic shoulder rest, an anatomical pistol grip and the original placement of the bolt reloading handle located below the pistol grip. According to shooters, this arrangement, although unusual, is very convenient.

sporting rifle

Sporting rifle for open f-class(F-Class Open) model МЦ-343.

MTs-343 is a sports rifle for the open F-class (F-Class Open), created with the direct participation of A.M. Sorokin himself (barrel manufacturing technology, bolt design, barrel attachment method, general assembly principle). Caliber 7.62x70 (STs-154, Russian analogue 300LM), barrel with six grooves in 240 or 254 mm increments. Currently MTs343 is in experimental production, tests are scheduled for early next year. TsKIB SOO pins great hopes on her, hoping to create best rifle in the world in this class.

Hunting carbines

Director of TsKIB SOO Alexei Mikhailovich Sorokin - master of sports in bullet shooting, first president National Federation high-precision shooting, who previously headed Promtekhnologii LLC and is one of the authors of the well-known ORSIS T-5000 rifle. It seems that the latest positive changes in TsKIB are largely due to its new leader.

The design office is developing OTs-126 hunting carbine based on the PP-2000 submachine gun, developed at the KBP and in service with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian Guard. The civilian version of the submachine gun is distinguished by the absence of an automatic fire mode, the magazine capacity reduced to 10 rounds and the impossibility of firing, and the length increased to 800 mm. According to Alexei Sorokin, the availability of a civilian version of the PP-2000 is very reasonable, since it will bring additional money from the market.

If not, I’ll introduce: Alexei Mikhailovich Sorokin, one of Russia’s leading experts in the field of shooting sports and firearms, master of sports of the USSR in bullet shooting, the first president of the National Federation of Precision Shooting, the man who made the famous ORSIS T-5000 sniper rifle, and now the director of the legendary Tula weapons design bureau TsKIB SOO, where many types of unique Russian weapons were invented and manufactured . And in order to talk with him about the future of Russian small arms, it was worth coming to Tula.

Completely diverse TsKIB rifles bear the same name - MTs-116. This rifle with manual reloading won my heart. Very comfortable ergonomics large caliber, compact dimensions and sub-minute accuracy.

For a long time the development of small arms in our country was an extremely conservative process. For a mass war with millions of armies, first of all, unification and unpretentiousness were needed. For the emergence of a new weapon, and even more so a cartridge, very strong arguments were needed. Therefore, until the 1970s Soviet army used only two cartridges: developed back in 1890 for the Mosin 7.62x54R three-line rifle with a protruding rim (it was used, for example, in sniper rifle SVD, Maxim machine gun, PKM Kalashnikov machine gun) and 7.62x39 mm, 7.62 mm cartridge of the 1943 model, used in the legendary Kalashnikov assault rifle and SKS carbine. In the 1970s, they were joined by the low-impulse 5.45x39 mm Soviet intermediate cartridge, inspired by the American 5.56x45 cartridge and used primarily in the AK-74 assault rifle. It was with this arsenal that we were going to fight in a future war, accumulating it in warehouses on a cosmic scale. But in recent times Everything has changed. Now it is impossible to even imagine large-scale collisions of large masses. Existing means of destruction simply will not allow such masses to exist for a more or less long time. The requirements for small arms are also changing. On the one hand, the reluctance of law enforcement agencies to expand the range is understandable, on the other hand, the gigantic variety of tasks that they begin to solve, on the contrary, encourages this. Today it is impossible to effectively solve universal way all tasks. And if the enemy is technically better, we start to lose. We have increased the range and accuracy of shooting, the means of individual armor protection - helmets and bulletproof vests - have progressed significantly, new means of detection and surveillance have appeared, including thermal imaging, from which it is now extremely difficult to disguise. The size of the target suitable for shooting is constantly decreasing - the enemy is effectively hiding. All this requires a change in the development of weapons and the tactics of their use.

Behind Alexei Sorokin hangs a tablet with unusual cartridges. Looking at them, I'm wondering if we need new ammunition or if we can use the ones already common in the world, as other developers do. “So and so,” Sorokin replies. - There are well-used ammunition, which are also produced in our country, for example, cartridges of calibers .308, .300 LM, .338 LM. Most of these ammunition covers almost all the tasks that need to be solved. But not all".

Who said the bullpup was dead? The large-caliber MTs-116RK is an example of functional minimalist design. The unusually located reload handle is actually very convenient. The rotary magazine installed in front of it (another feature of TsKIB), with its compact dimensions, holds five rather big cartridges.

TsKIB has an advantage - it is a developer of both weapons and ammunition, that is, it can manufacture the entire weapon-ammunition complex. “We recently got access to a unique resource,” Sorokin's eyes begin to sparkle, “a computer program that allows us to design bullets for the required characteristics, ballistic coefficients, range calculations, energy. Completely Russian product, I don’t know any analogues. Ammunition production technology is changing: mainly cutting operations are used, without pressure operations. It turns out quite complex assembly operations, but in the end, ammunition is obtained that, in terms of accuracy characteristics, is about an order of magnitude superior to the most accurate ones that exist today in the West.

Sorokin's pride is a modernized ADS, a special two-medium machine gun. Jokingly, Aleksey calls it the “Crimean” option, with the return of the Crimea, the military specialty “combat swimmer” has again become relevant. The complex, which has no analogues in the world, is capable of hitting the enemy both on land with standard 5.45x39 mm cartridges and 40 mm grenades, and under water with special underwater shots.

The pride of Sorokin, a recognized master of high-precision shooting, is the 11.7x88 mm cartridge developed at TsKIB. It is designed for shooting with a heavy, 32-gram bullet. At the same time, the cartridge is smaller, lighter and shorter than the 12.7 mm (both ours and the American), and all movements during reloading are short, and the mechanics during reloading are not as excessively long as, for example, in .50 caliber. In principle, TsKIB created a competitor to the American "king" of ultra-long-range shooting - the .408 CheyTac cartridge. Sorokin can talk about small arms for hours: “We have a larger capacity of the combustion chamber, we have a more uniform burning of the powder column. There are certain points that will allow us to avoid excessive pressure at the start, in the initial stage of the shot, and at the same time maintain a large amount of gas generation and bullet back-up during all the movement in the barrel. What we're going to do is create a fairly even plateau about 60-70% of the barrel length, where the pressure will gently accelerate the bullet. It is due to the modified design of the sleeve. At the same time, we achieve good performance speeds and ballistics when switching to subsonic far beyond 2.5 km. In the layout, Sorokin has now developed a promising 14.5x132 mm ammunition - as he calls it, “anti-material ammunition”. According to calculations, this cartridge will allow you to shoot for 4 km. And at 1.5 km, a shot will literally tear apart lightly armored vehicles, especially Western ones with aluminum armor. “This is already a serious, bottle-sized shot. Here, as in boxing, the big ones beat the little ones, ”Sorokin pours numbers and indices without looking at the papers. By inertia, he is going to tell about the rifle for this super-cartridge, built on new principles, but abruptly falls silent - a closed topic.

Central Design Research Bureau of Sports and hunting weapon, Branch of JSC "Design Bureau of Instrumentation named after. Academician A.G. Shipunov.

The enterprise is the leading Russian developer of small arms and grenade launchers for the army, police, and anti-terrorist units.

The company's products include: 1. Revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, combat rifles; 2. Sniper complexes; 3. Grenade launchers; 4. Ammunition for small arms and anti-personnel grenade launchers; 5. Hunting and sporting weapons brand "MTs".

Hunting - one of the most ancient male occupations - has long since turned from a means of obtaining food into ... Yes, a little bit of everything: into a means of self-knowledge, into entertainment, recreation, sports ... And of course, to be honest, into a means of satisfying male vanity .

Apparently, exactly at the moment when this component made itself felt, the gunsmiths thought that their products could have not only purely utilitarian qualities. Weapons began to acquire an aura of prestige and luxury, the concept of “elite weapons” appeared.

As a rule, elite weapons are decorated with highly artistic engravings; the highest grades of wood, precious metals, and sometimes precious stones are used in its decoration.

And yet, let's make a reservation right away: not all richly decorated weapons are elite. In Russia and in the world, mass-produced weapons on the stock are quite widespread, for which expensive wood is used, and the weapon itself can be luxuriously finished, but it would be more correct to call it souvenir.

It becomes elite only when a highly artistic finish adorns a product made by hand, with the highest quality of processing of all details.

There are few companies in the world that make truly elite hunting weapons (we are talking exclusively about firearms today), and they can literally be counted on the fingers: Holland & Holland, Westley Richards & Co., James Purdey & Sons Ltd., Boss & Co.

This honorary rank, according to both our domestic and foreign experts, includes guns produced at TsKIB. Shotguns with horizontal and vertical barrels, as well as rifled carbines of the original design have long and rightfully taken their rightful place among the famous world brands.

The history of TsKIB began on March 4, 1946, when the People's Commissariat for Armaments of the USSR issued an order to open the Central Design and Research Bureau of Sports and Hunting Weapons at the Tula Arms Plant - TsKIB SOO. It was headed by D.V. Romanov. It is interesting that on the first "Tskibov" guns there was a stigma in the form of monograms - crossed hammers - the initials "D" and "R".

During the entire existence of the enterprise, which is just over 60 years, about 20,000 copies of smooth-bore and rifled weapons were produced. Not all of them belong to the elite class: there were many so-called experimental weapons, sometimes of a very original design, but this weapon can rather be considered a collectible.

A glorious series of TsKIB models was launched by two guns with horizontally arranged barrels TS-1 and TS-2 (“Tula sadochnoe”, models 1 and 2, respectively). These were real elite guns both in design and finish - with padlocks on the side boards, with V-shaped mainsprings located in front of the trigger, with a front trigger on a hinge. The barrel chambers were made for a paper sleeve 70 mm long.

They differed in the design of the locking, on the TS-1 the gun was locked with a Griner bolt, on the TS-2 - with the Perde upper frame. Both guns appeared in 1950 and were produced in very small series: TS-1 about 100 units, TS-2 - 125 copies.

In 1950, at the Moscow exhibition "Hunting and Hunting Economy", the TS-2 gun received a gold medal and a diploma of the first degree.

The production of the TS-1 was discontinued in 1952, the TS-2 was produced until 1962, when it was replaced by the MTs-11.

Over the 60 years of TsKIB's existence, designers and craftsmen have produced several dozen models of smooth-bore, combined and rifled weapons. Today, the company annually produces several hundred rifles and carbines. Shotguns with a horizontal arrangement of trunks MTs-10, MTs-110, MTs-11 and MTs-111, shotguns with vertically arranged trunks MTs-9, MTs-109 and MTs-7 can rightfully claim the title of elite weapon.

You can easily estimate how much effort and time it takes to make a really top-notch gun by looking at the statistics. Since 1951, only 613 copies of MTs-11 guns have been produced, MTs-106 - about 1000 copies, MTs-111 in all modifications since 1971, only 300 copies, MTs-10 since 1960 - 287 copies. and MTs-110 since 1973 less than 300 copies.

A slightly larger volume produced more popular and affordable, although also high-quality guns: MTs-6 since 1948, more than 3000 pieces were manufactured, MTs-108 since 1955 more than 4000 pieces.

How is the process of making guns different? different categories? First of all, the assembly of an elite gun is entrusted to one master and an engraver, all the details of the gun are adjusted by the master manually by the old and most reliable method - “by soot”.

All mating surfaces are finished manually, without the use of machines, the result of such an adjustment is a 90% fit of all mating surfaces. This gives an extraordinary survivability to the gun: such guns can withstand up to half a million shots without any repair and the appearance of a shat.

Guns of the second group, such as MTs-105, MTs-106 and MTs-108, are made with the participation of several craftsmen and assemblers. The weapon fit requirement is somewhat lower, up to 75% fit. The relative reduction in requirements is due to the fact that these weapons are intended mainly for sports shooting, and the market demanded their production in a fairly large number.

Nevertheless, sporting guns are also very tenacious and, with proper operation, can withstand up to 250-300 thousand shots. Moreover, the above figure does not mean at all that after such a shot they are unsuitable for operation. It is necessary to carry out a small Maintenance, and the gun is again ready to serve its owner for many years.

Since its inception, weapons with the TsKIB brand have become a popular expensive gift, given to many famous people. One of the first developments - a double-barreled gun "model" A "was donated by I.V. Stalin.

Passionate hunter N.S. Khrushchev had an MTs-111 gun. Self-loading carbines MTs-125 and guns MTs-109 were "in service" with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin, Minister of Defense of the USSR D.F. Ustinov.

They were presented during state visits and on the occasion of various anniversaries to King Juan Carlos II of Spain, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Yugoslavian Joseph Broz Tito, leader of the GDR Erich Honecker, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser, Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Turkmenbashi S .M. Niyazov and the Belarusian leader A.G. Lukashenko.

L.I. was an avid hunter and a great lover of weapons. Brezhnev, who had in his arsenal, in addition to the MTs-125 carbine, four more guns of the MTs brand, presented to him in different time(self-loading carbine MTs-127 and guns MTs 10-09, MTs 109-09 and MTs-11-12). TsKIB still keeps the "tee" MTs 10-09 with excellent finish and an excellent combination of two smooth barrels of 12-gauge and a lower rifled barrel caliber 9x54, made by order of L.I. Brezhnev.

Self-loading carbines MTs-19-09 were presented to the first President of the Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin and Prime Minister of the Russian Federation V.S. Chernomyrdin. In addition, over the years, Gamal Abdel (President of Egypt) and the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, became the owners of TsKIB weapons.

As can be seen from the above, weapons with the TsKIB brand have always been considered a truly royal gift, and they were possessed by almost all the leaders of the states of the socialist camp and friendly countries. Of course, this is a very high assessment of the work of designers and masters of TsKIB.