Alrighty, so when I got my Krinkov it looked like this:





Well I figured that looked cheap/chintzy, so I got out the sander and obliterated every trace of that finish. Then I mixed up my standard finish mix (BLO and mineral spirits first, then shellac over it to protect the color) and tried it out. Apparently this is the most colorless wood ever (I'm seriously trying to figure out what the hell kind of wood it IS) because no matter how much BLO I put on there, the wood stayed bone white. So I stripped it again and used an ingredient I usually reserve for bleach treated wood (or emergencies... but hell... this qualified as a carpentry emergency): Tung Oil (I usually avoid it because it's a very dark would and can obliterate cartouches that have been burned into stocks, however, this stock was so white there was just nothing else for it).

Anyway, this is the result:




It doesn't show up well in the pics (cell phone pics suck), but it looks gorgeous. It's now a golden/red color (sounds odd, but y'all will see it in person some time, and see if you can't come up with a better description for the color), and it looks much more natural than the bright ruby red that it was before (harder to spot in the woods). That's just the first bit of the external customization I'm going to be doing to this little krink, so stay tuned for future installments to see what crazy ass ideas I come up with next (now I'm off to work on converting my airsoft AKM into a Polish KbK GN60 grenadier AK)

Man, that's some smexy work you done to that. Looks great man!!

Heh, I've had years of practice with wood finishing (though this is only the third time I've worked with Tung oil... I'm always leery of that stuff because the first time I used it I turned a 1917 Lee Enfield No1 MkIII into a tac-black monstrosity by using way too much of it. Took a ton of stripper and wood bleach as well as several hours of work to bring it back to a respectable mud brown color. Second time I used it the gun ended up with a blood red sheen that looked great, but was far too shiny for my taste, so I lightly sanded it with some #0000 steel wool to remove the sheen. This is the result of the third mixture attempt).

I'm going to be putting on the second coat when I get a chance this week (and a break from the oppressive heat), so it should have a more even look to it. Next thing on the list is getting rid of the cowbell clanging. I'm thinking two strips of extra dark leather tied around the stock on either side of the sling swivel should eliminate that. And the final touch will be to get rid of the powder coat metal finish and hot blue the whole exterior, then find a proper NSPU-1 night vision scope for her and she should be ready to roll.

I'm thinking about either a real steel krink flash hider or possibly a suppressor with a longer tight bore barrel hidden underneath and the British Sten style leather suppressor cover on the outside...

Alright so I completely rethought my idea, and decided this was the way to go.

If you played CoD: Finest Hour you probably remember Tanya Pavlovna and her 91/30 sniper with the weird gray cloth on the front of it. What most folks don't know is that that was actual Russian protocol for weapons in winter. Utilizing original cold war Russian cloth, I decided to winter wrap my Krinkov to standard Soviet specifications (make it difficult to spot the rifle when outlined against the snow by breaking up the color with white or splotchy gray cloth).

These are the results:

Texas is the wrong state to use winter rap. but the refinished wood looks much better.

True, but how often do you expect folks will look for the color white in Texas? It's all about faking out the enemy, because more often than not, folks will be so determinedly looking for the stereotypical camo or blued steel that they'll just overlook the obvious white (not to mention it breaks up the outline, and covers over the cheap looking plastic mag. Plus it obliterated the cowbell effect of the rear sling swivel). I'm eventually going to work some gray/green German feldgrau dye in there in a splotchy fashion to make it look more appropriate for the landscape (it works extremely well in all landscapes but is most suited for forest/urban, which is exactly where airsoft takes place), but for now it's just the standard bleached soviet cloth.

Here is my old aks74u. (picture quality is crap) But all the mags have been refinished and the laminate plywood as well.

if nothing less get a wight winter load out to keep you cool in the summer. i would do it hahaha

I'll eventually get around to refinishing the plastic on the mag, but I prefer the unique look of the wrapping. Eventually I'm going to have it scoped and get the wrapping camo'd etc.

Just wait 'til I field this with my winter amoeba suit this winter... heheheheh

You could probably just wrap it in some green burlap type material instead. Instant camo.

True, but that would require me to develop common sense, which might get me labeled as intelligentsia by the Rodina. (Translation: good point, I never actually thought about that)

Works for me anyways. It's really good at helping conceal my sniper rifle's barrel and scope.

I'm thinking about using some of the standard camo netting I've got laying around and just interweaving grass/hay/etc in there to make it similar to a ghillie suit.

Even easier is another tick I use: Just wrap some rubber bads on your guns/gear and stuff grass/branches into them on the field site.