Let’s start from the very beginning.
In 1946, the Ministry of Military production in Soviet Union founded new unit - “Sporting and Hunting Guns Central Research and Design Bureau”, abbreviated as TsKIB SOO (ЦКИБ СОО). During the years, TsKIB designed and developed many of hunting and sporting pistols, rifles and shotguns. One of the, legendary MTs-8 (Russian as МЦ-8) required our special attention and appreciation.
Designed in 1952, this shotgun starter the era of Soviet domination in international clay shooting.
MTs-8 has very unique in quality design, which been proven by many award which Soviet sportsmen with this shotgun in hands – 16 gold, 9 silver, 15 bronze medals on Olympic Games. Famous master E.Petrov from MTs-8 made an absolute record 200 from 200 on skeet. Not so far ago, on XXVII Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Russian sportsman N.MIlchev won gold with shotgun Mts-108, which is a daughter of the Mts-8, and in ladies competition S.Demina with MTs-8 won silver.
What is so different in this shotgun? The only answer would be – ITS POWER!
None of the modern shotguns can prove they can withstand such a colossus number of shots – in tests performed by Kreighoff and Beretta very often shotgun Mts-8 was working flawlessly after 500 000 shots, without any broken parts. Currently few proud owners of MTs-8 can show you recorded over 1000000 shots made from each of their shotguns. For sure, this shotgun deserves to be included into Guinness Book.
Special construction designed by TsKIB constructors were later copied by Beretta and its now very popular DT10 Trident has very similar breach lock construction, providing same legendary quality and reliability of its predecessor Mts-8. Look at the picture: same two hooks at the top barrel, locking frame shapes, same sliding lock… Just remember – MTs-8 designed in 1952, production period – 1953-1980, Beretta DT10 – production starts in 2000.
Mts-8:
Beretta DT-10
Looking at these pictures and you do not need a magnifying glass to see the similarities
Another special word is about MTs-8 barrels. Along with highest level of manual fitting and hours spent by experienced gunsmith in production of each shotgun (figure out why the price of this shotgun in 1976 was equal to the average yearly salary of the soviet worker!), TsKIB, as a part of the huge military industry, was able to use very special steel in their designs. MTs-8 got barrels from special steel - 3ХН2МФА – steel, used in space industry and artillery production, having mechanical strength almost twice higher than any other steel previously used in shotguns barrel production.
Few more photos of those Mts-8 from different sources:
This is Mts-8 proudly presented by Soviet leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower on his birthday in September 1959:
See the highest level of engraving of those shotguns:
However, because of the highest level of production expenses and lots of manual job, TsKIB was one of the first victims of falling USSR – it could not survive well on MTs production just as 70-80 units a year! Yes, just 4500 Mts-8 were produced in period 1953-1980, when Mts-8 production ended and later TsKIB switched to few new models –MTs-108, Mts-11, Mts-200, and production continues.
MTs-8 production line had few different submodels:
MTs-8-0 - skeet version with famous parabolic fixed open chokes, Kreighoff named them "Tula Choke"
MTs-8-1 - bunker shooting version with longer barrels and super tight fixed chokes and single trigger
MTs-8-2 - same as previous but with double trigger
MTs-8-3 - universal set with two barrels - one for skeet, another for bunker, single trigger
MTs-8-4 - same as above with double trigger
Well, observing TsKIB past achievements in years, many specialist saying that if TsKIB had enough resources to get modern milling CNCs and other metal processing equipment, continue their way of creation of excellent shotguns, shooting at highest level of completion with Perazzi and Kreighoff would be considered as inappropriate, inadequate to the level…
After some research I found that one of the Montreal companies started import of MTs-8 into Canada. Found a couple of MTs-8 here, in Canada, recently acquired one for my small collection, another one belongs to my friend. If you know or have any of those Russian Beauties please respond with your photos.
Here is mine, Mts-8-1:
And this one belongs to my friend, Mts-8-0:
Both are 1966 production
Hope you enjoy reading about this legendary shotgun.
In 1946, the Ministry of Military production in Soviet Union founded new unit - “Sporting and Hunting Guns Central Research and Design Bureau”, abbreviated as TsKIB SOO (ЦКИБ СОО). During the years, TsKIB designed and developed many of hunting and sporting pistols, rifles and shotguns. One of the, legendary MTs-8 (Russian as МЦ-8) required our special attention and appreciation.
Designed in 1952, this shotgun starter the era of Soviet domination in international clay shooting.
MTs-8 has very unique in quality design, which been proven by many award which Soviet sportsmen with this shotgun in hands – 16 gold, 9 silver, 15 bronze medals on Olympic Games. Famous master E.Petrov from MTs-8 made an absolute record 200 from 200 on skeet. Not so far ago, on XXVII Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Russian sportsman N.MIlchev won gold with shotgun Mts-108, which is a daughter of the Mts-8, and in ladies competition S.Demina with MTs-8 won silver.
What is so different in this shotgun? The only answer would be – ITS POWER!
None of the modern shotguns can prove they can withstand such a colossus number of shots – in tests performed by Kreighoff and Beretta very often shotgun Mts-8 was working flawlessly after 500 000 shots, without any broken parts. Currently few proud owners of MTs-8 can show you recorded over 1000000 shots made from each of their shotguns. For sure, this shotgun deserves to be included into Guinness Book.
Special construction designed by TsKIB constructors were later copied by Beretta and its now very popular DT10 Trident has very similar breach lock construction, providing same legendary quality and reliability of its predecessor Mts-8. Look at the picture: same two hooks at the top barrel, locking frame shapes, same sliding lock… Just remember – MTs-8 designed in 1952, production period – 1953-1980, Beretta DT10 – production starts in 2000.
Mts-8:
Beretta DT-10
Looking at these pictures and you do not need a magnifying glass to see the similarities
Another special word is about MTs-8 barrels. Along with highest level of manual fitting and hours spent by experienced gunsmith in production of each shotgun (figure out why the price of this shotgun in 1976 was equal to the average yearly salary of the soviet worker!), TsKIB, as a part of the huge military industry, was able to use very special steel in their designs. MTs-8 got barrels from special steel - 3ХН2МФА – steel, used in space industry and artillery production, having mechanical strength almost twice higher than any other steel previously used in shotguns barrel production.
Few more photos of those Mts-8 from different sources:
This is Mts-8 proudly presented by Soviet leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower on his birthday in September 1959:
See the highest level of engraving of those shotguns:
However, because of the highest level of production expenses and lots of manual job, TsKIB was one of the first victims of falling USSR – it could not survive well on MTs production just as 70-80 units a year! Yes, just 4500 Mts-8 were produced in period 1953-1980, when Mts-8 production ended and later TsKIB switched to few new models –MTs-108, Mts-11, Mts-200, and production continues.
MTs-8 production line had few different submodels:
MTs-8-0 - skeet version with famous parabolic fixed open chokes, Kreighoff named them "Tula Choke"
MTs-8-1 - bunker shooting version with longer barrels and super tight fixed chokes and single trigger
MTs-8-2 - same as previous but with double trigger
MTs-8-3 - universal set with two barrels - one for skeet, another for bunker, single trigger
MTs-8-4 - same as above with double trigger
Well, observing TsKIB past achievements in years, many specialist saying that if TsKIB had enough resources to get modern milling CNCs and other metal processing equipment, continue their way of creation of excellent shotguns, shooting at highest level of completion with Perazzi and Kreighoff would be considered as inappropriate, inadequate to the level…
After some research I found that one of the Montreal companies started import of MTs-8 into Canada. Found a couple of MTs-8 here, in Canada, recently acquired one for my small collection, another one belongs to my friend. If you know or have any of those Russian Beauties please respond with your photos.
Here is mine, Mts-8-1:
And this one belongs to my friend, Mts-8-0:
Both are 1966 production
Hope you enjoy reading about this legendary shotgun.
Last edited:
