[1] During the Soviet period it was called Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (Красногорский механический завод, Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod).

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II, the Red Army had acute need for precision optical instruments.

The existing factories were either inaccessible, such as LOMO in besieged Leningrad, or overloaded with demand, such as FED which had just been evacuated from Kharkiv to Berdsk.

The KMZ factory was set up in 1942 near Moscow, which by then was no longer in immediate danger from German troops, on the site of a recently evacuated mechanical plant.

The activities of PJSC NKMZ include PJSC KMZ also carries out measures for the repair of military equipment, warranty and author's supervision of its condition, implements proposals in the field of military-technical cooperation of the Russian Federation with foreign states in accordance with international treaties of the Russian Federation.