The history of the factory began during World War I, when the Russian army faced a shortage of automatic firearms. In 1916, the First Russian Joint Stock Company of Rifle and Machine Gun Factories was established in Petrograd to implement the proposal of the Danish syndicate "Dansk Rekilriffel Syndikat" for the construction of a new machine gun factory in central Russia. On August 27, 1916, the construction of the first buildings of the Kovrov Machine Gun Factory began, and this date is considered its birthday. Since 1949, the enterprise has been named after V.A. Degtyarev. Already on August 12, 1917, the first rifles-machine guns of the Danish designer Madsen's system were handed over to the artillery receiver. In 1927, the Degtyarev DP light machine gun was adopted by the Red Army, and in the following years, the aviation DA, tank DT, large-caliber DShK, submachine guns PPD and PPSH, aviation cannon ShVAK, and other models developed and produced in Kovrov, which are rightfully considered weapons of victory, followed. In the post-war years, the factory continued the development and production of small arms and artillery. It was here, with the active participation of Kovrov specialists, that M.T. Kalashnikov prepared the first samples of the AK-47 for testing.

At the same time, in the second half of 1945, the factory was tasked with producing 12 types of civilian products, and in 1946, the production of a road motorcycle with a single-cylinder two-stroke engine of 125 cm³ began. To accomplish this task, an independent motorcycle production was organized at the factory. By the end of 1946, 280 K-125 motorcycles had been produced, and by 1949, their production reached 5,000 per month. The Kovrov factory opened a new chapter in its history. Since the 1950s, the production of road and sports motorcycles with a 175 cm³ engine began, and the models "Kovrovec" and "Voskhod" were exported to dozens of countries and successfully participated in international competitions. Since the release of the first motorcycle, the factory has produced more than 8 million units of motorcycle equipment. Since 1957, winter motocross events have been held annually in Kovrov, becoming part of the calendar of all-Union and all-Russian competitions.