However, they are heavy because they were designed from the start for 2 3/4 inch shells and pass shooting.
Trap, actually. The original intent behind this gun (and other early TKIB models) was to arm Soviet trap shooters with Soviet guns for the 1952 Olympic Games, the first Olympics USSR considered entering. If my memory serves, around 1947 The Tula Armory's Higher School of Gumaking was ordered to come up with 'improved' copies of guns with which top Soviet trap shots shot before WW2. They used a Lebeau to create TS1 (T for Tula and S for "Sport"), and a Purdey self-opener for TS2. However, the USSR trap team discovered that side-by-sides were on the way out as far as trap was concerned; they experimented with Winchester semis and Merkel o\u's for a while and finally decided an o/u would be their best bet. Concurrently, the School was transformed into 'Central R&D Bureau for Sproting Firearms', TsKIB for short. MTs 6 and 8 models were designed for trap, and TS 2 was rebranded MTs 11 and remarketed as top-notch presentation gun. Still in production as MTs111.
