The equipment for measuring mechanical and operational characteristics of materials play an important role in the process of metal products quality control. One of the methods of determining of material mechanical characteristics is the method of cylindrical samples torsion tests. The equipment available at present at Russia and Kazakhstan markets for torsion tests is manufactured mainly outside the EvrAzES countries. Therefore, elaboration and designing of domestic analogs of equipment for torsion tests is an actual task. Description and technical characteristics of the testing bench presented, developed at the Department of metals forming of the Ural Federal University after the first President of Russia B.N. El’tsin. The main features of the bench are materials mechanical torsion testing, plasticity and resistance against deformation measuring, study of hardening and softening processes. Results of new equipment trials for cylinder samples tests for unidirectional and alternating torsion presented. For the experiment 9, samples were manufactured, preliminary selected based on the computer simulation of the sample type. The samples were tested at various deformation schemes: three samples - at unidirectional torsion with torsion speed of active grip 1, 5 and 10 r/min, three pairs of samples - at alternating torsion, two amplitudes being 30 and 60 degrees and analog speed of active grip torsion. As a result of the tests, graphs of the torque were built for every sample, which showed, that amplitude at the alternative load has the biggest effect on the number of deformation cycles before a sample destruction: the smaller the amplitude is, the bigger number of cycles the sample can withstand before destruction. Based on the results of work carried out, the possibility of the bench usage for materials testing was proved.