Still have not received vepr from TGinternational. (getting run around now). see my post " bad vepr ' for the continuing saga from TGinternatioal. i take back all the good things i said about their customer service. Into week two now and no rifle. Beginning to think i should of bought from Atlantic rather than Aim now. Anyways, the damaged rifle i first received, had several scratches and handling marks and finish scratched off. Also, the bolt face had a large tool mark or crack right at the firing pin. Trying to get to my point....... the rifle i sent back did not have white lettering on it. The pics on Classic arms and Atlantic shows awesome white lettering on the veprs. Does anybody have current vepr rifle with white lettering or or these pics from old stock photos. All i can say at this point is that aim took my money and TG International has my damaged gun and i have nothing, including correspondence. I'm really *&^@!#$%^&)(*&^&%$@# off right now ––––––someone calm me down. Please advisez.

Old stock photos. I just picked up my 7.62x54r Vepr from CFS last week. No cool stencil markings. Only the S/F. If you look closely at the latest pics of these guys(and both the Military Arms Channel & Atlantic vids) you will notice that the stencils have been deleted. The markings are there but stamped and kind of small. The trunion stencils are still present however. Mines got a 09-2011 acceptance date in the manual(box reads 8/11?) so they have been produced like that for some time. As a matter of fact I mentioned this last week in the "27 inch Vepr" thread. Too bad they eliminated those cool ass markings. Made them look really special. Not a huge deal though. Guess you could paint the existing stamped markings but they would be small for sure.

Laser cut eh? Hmm. Yeah I thought they looked super clean for a stamp.

I have found that buyers in Russia prefer fewer receiver markings because they feel it is closer to a "military" rifle. If you like the white lettering you can try crayons

Testors model paint works very well and is quite durable. It's been a favorite on the AR side for years.

I just sent my 23" VEPR in for repair/replace.... I hope that I do not suffer the same issues that you have been experiencing. The guy at TGI has been super helpful and accommodating so far so I have my fingers crossed. I had to send mine in for a poorly fitted side rail that would allow the scope to move from side to side when mounted. As you can imagine, my accuracy was fairly poor.

As for as the lettering is concerned, I called WPA about this when I first received mine since I too liked the laser engraved logo etc. I was told that they discontinued it because the area that was etched was bare metal and could develop rust. Therefore they went with the more traditional markings that were covered by the paint. It seemed logical when they explained it.

It's because IZHMASH acquired MOLOT. Therefore, the vepr's are manufactured more similar to Saiga's than before.