Open Joint-Stock Company Tula Cartridge Plant
139 Marat St., Tula 300004, Russia. Tel.: (0872) 41-0352. Fax: (0872) 41-1174.
Tula Cartridge Plant is a leading engineering enterprise in this country, specializing in small arms ammunition manufacture. According to the appraisal of the Minister of Defence of Russia Mr. S. Ivanov `The enterprise is the leader of domestic ammunition industry`. The plant traces its history back to the late 19th century when, in 1880, Emperor Alexander II decreed construction of ammunition-making facilities in Tula. During World War I, Tula-made cartridges accounted for a quarter of all cartridges supplied to the Russian fighting forces by domestic ammunition plants. Almost three decades later, the plant supplied up to a peak of 400 million cartridges every year to the fighting army during World War II. After the war, the plant continued to exert a significant influence on trends in the ammunition industry.
Today, the plant manufactures around 40 kinds of ammunition for combat small arms and sporting and hunting guns of several calibres, 5.45x39, 7.62x39, 5.56x45 “Remington”, 5,45x18, 5.6x39 “Bars”, 9x17 “Kurtz”, 9x18 “Makarov”, 9x19 “Lueger”, 45 AUTO, and 40 S&W for rifled small arms, metal shells for smooth-bore arms, and gas-filled cartridges.
The plant exports 85 of its cartridge output to more than 20 countries around the world. Tula’s sporting and hunting ammunition, known by its brand name “Wolf”, enjoys a high demand in foreign countries. The Tula Cartridge Plant today is a diversified engineering enterprise that has, in addition to its core business, lines to manufacture bellows, expansion bellows, low-voltage equipment, drive chains, and various tools.
Tula is the administrative centre of Tula province — a subject of the Russian Federation. The province was established in 1937. It is located in the central part of East-European plain on the Middle-Russia upland, 160km South of Moscow. It extends 230 km. North-to-South, 200 km. West-to-East. Climate is moderate continental with average annual temperatures ranging from 3.80C to 4.50C, with warm summer (average temperature of +190C-200C) and moderately cold winter with frequent thaws (average January temperature is -100C) and sufficient humidification (475-575 mm of precipitation a year). Warm and moisture come along with dominating west and south air mass transfer. The province ranks first in the central economic region of Russia in terms of building stone and gypsum reserves, there are huge reserves of raw material for the manufacture of cement and wall facing. Key agricultural players are grain (over 2.2m tons a year), potato, sugar beet (around 700,000), milk (900,000), meat (over 200,000) where the province is capable of fully satisfying its population demand, meeting the world highest standards, and even export part of its agricultural produce. Turned out locally are yeast, beer, confectionery, honey, wax, propolis. The province enjoys a high motor road density. Crossing its territory are two national highways, namely, Moscow-Simferopol and Moscow-Voronezh. Tula has two railway links with southern areas of Russia, Crimea, Donbass, Saint-Petersburg, Minsk, Riga and many other big cities of Russia and CIS.
