Why all this talk of anti-tank guns? Well, when the Soviet military moved to adopt the 7. The downright chunky five-shot semi-automatic was chambered in Weighing in at pounds, the PTRS was used to snipe at German tanks and vehicles on the Eastern Front during WWII and has been kept in low-key service around the globe ever since then for use as an anti-material rifle, predating the invention of the Barrett M82 by nearly 50 years. This is understandable as wartime figures say that the Motherland was able to pony up a staggering 18 million of those weapons alone during the conflict. When it comes to Soviet small arms used in World War II, the quick and common answers are typically 7.