As I posted over in the Romanian AK forum many years ago I bought up a WASR 2 and (then) cheap surplus ammo and magazines mostly randomly and now I find myself wanting to focus on a few things while our state AWB is on hold from the federal courts so it's as good a time as any to liquidate.

It's all completely outside my wheelhouse and the pricing on magazines for AK's is possibly the most confusing bit, like all over the board some that look basically the same to me sell for extremely wide price variations. Anyways these are what I ended up with from back then, all polymer or bakelite and all well used and I though it best to ask the experts.

4 look to have had markings removed and then been painted, then there are 4 circle 21 magazines that appear to be polymer, a painted bakelite mag with a 38 molding and a plumish colored magazine with an arrow stamp.

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Im certain more knowledgeable people will post in your thread, but the ones with the scratched off factory numbers and shitty paint , "made in Bulgaria" stickers are more than likely sanitized russian mags.   I had a few that were bakelites, tried cleaning off the paint and gave up, sold them as is.

I actually thought about trying to clean the paint off but it looks tough enough that I figured that any chemical that would clean it off would probably also melt the magazine.

The top left is a bakelite that’s been painted, the remainder are polymer.  Note the lack of ribs on the bakelite mag that all the others have.  Bakelite shouldn’t melt from paint strippers, it’s pretty chemical resistant in my experience.

Here’s a link with good info.  

https://www.coolfx.us/ak/ak74_mag_guide_main.htm

Plum Izhmash (arrow) is worth the most
(4) Bulgarians (brown) are next. Looks like you have 3 browns (common) and possibly 1 saddle tan (less common)
The rest are sanitized and painted (probably Izhmash)

ETA: The painted Bakelite is East German

Citristrip will eventually take that paint off if you want to try cleaning them up.  Whatever the paint is, it’s hella tough and hard to take off.

I ended up using disposable metal paint trays, thick chem-resistant gloves (after melting some thinner ones), a stiff nylon brush, and a plastic putty knife as a scraper.  Do it outside as well, or in a well-ventilated area otherwise.

Glop the stripper onto the mags in the trays, smearing it all over the painted surfaces.  Wait a while.  Not kidding, it may take a few hours to break down whatever that shit is.  Try scraping with the putty knife or brushing with the nylon brush to see if anything starts coming off.  Be careful with the putty knife as you can scratch the mags.  The longer you let the the citristrip work, the less elbow-grease you’ll need to use.  Slowly brush/scrape/glop and work the paint off.  Some will come off in big strips, some in little flecks, others will seem horrifically slow.  Stick with the method and you’ll get there.

I ended up with 8 sanitized plums when I did this back in 2010 Orr so.  One was pretty scratched under the paint, another had a weird frosted appearance, and the other 6 were just normal looking plums.  Considering the painted mags were a few dollars each and Russian mags were pretty hard to find at the time, it was worth the effort.

Thanks for all the info on these guys. Our freedom window in Illinois has been closed to us much sooner than I thought it would be so I will be hanging on to them for now but I might give cleaning a few of them up a go in the meantime.

Clockwise from top/left.

Pic 1:

1. Sanitized Izzy plum
2. Sanitized Izzy plum
3. (Most likely) Polish tantal
4. Polish Tantal for sure
5. Sanitized Izzy plum
6. Sanitized Izzy plum

Pic 2:

1. Bulgarian ((21))
2. Bulgarian ((21))
3. East Germany bake, painted (possibly modified for 223 by century)
4. Izzy plum
5. Bulgarian ((21))
6. Bulgarian ((21))

For the sanitized / painted mags, soak in citristrip over night in a bag, then scrub clean with a nylon brush in the morning. Should come out good as new but sometimes there are tough spots that take 2 treatments.