I recently bought a bunch of black slab side polymer Bulgarian 7.62*39 mags with steel reenforced lips and locking lugs from Magwarehouse.com (they lock in and feed excellently in my Wasr).
I decided to have some fun and make some "fakelite" mags.
I wanted to avoid the orange look of the tapcos I have seen, seeking to instead to capture the deeper burnt orange hue of the originals Bakelite.
I used the following materials:
-Krylon Red Oxide Primer spray paint
-Krylon Gloss Crystal Clear spray paint
-Minwax Red Chestnut 232 wood stain
-Minwax Clear Semi Gloss wood stain
All of the materials used were already in my possession from previous projects with the exception of the Red Oxide Primer.





I experimented with 3 mags.
-The first has only 2 coats of Red Oxide primer (Far left)
-The second mag had 2 coats of Red Oxide Primer, followed by 2 coats of Red Chestnut 232, and finished with 2 coats of clear semi gloss. All applied with cotton cloth (middle)
-The third mag had 2 coats of Red Oxide primer, followed by 2 coats of Red Chestnut 232 (I used a brush to apply the second layer so as to give a thicker coat and to add marbling). Lastly, I applied 2 coats of Gloss Crystal Clear. (Far right mag)

The spray paints only had to dry for a few minutes between coats. The stain and minwax gloss were allowed minimum 6 hours to set between coats.

Thanks. I figured some other folks might be interested in it, namely those who wanna run Bakelite mags but are afraid of damaging an $50+ investment. Haha!

Been waiting an hour to see these pics. Stoopid .gov cpu not showing. I WANT TO SEE FAKE-BAKE

Nicely done op. Be interesting to see how they hold up.

They look great. I might try this out on my one orange Tapco mag.

Looks good to me. I just might have to give this a try.

Looks great!  Very curious to see how they hold up.

They look good, more like the Chinese phenolics than the Russian ones though. Curious to see how the paint holds up.

I don't understand why anyone would not want to use the real ones. They are tough as hell and you are not likely to ever damage one. I used to have a beat-to-hell one in my range bag that never failed, even with cracks in the phenolic at the rear of the feed lips. I'd still be using it if it weren't for someone offering me a lot of money for it...

Look fantastic!  Please give an update after a few months as I'd be very interested in how they're holding up.

I may have to try this on my Lynx-12 furniture and magazine. I’m not a big fan of the basic black look.

Op,

When I click that link , it takes me here:
https://www.trademe.co.nz/stores/magwarehouse

Can you please check that link and correct it?

TY

I did one once on a Tapco. Just messing around, nothing to lose. I want to be able to do a faux bakelite finish like a VZ58 stock. It involves layers of 'dabbing' different colors with sponges. I think the tip of using the red primer is excellent for the base coat. The one thing you will see on Bakelite mags is they are all different shades and colors with different patterns on them, so there is no 'right' or 'wrong' as long as its in the ballpark. You can find pictures of piles of them that will illustrate my point.

Did you use an oil based stain or a water based stain? I just tried putting on a coat over the metal primer and it started to strip the primer with the solvents. Maybe I didn’t allow enough time to dry.

My mags were already the Bakelite color so there was no undercoat. I used some kind of walnut polyurethane finish applied with a bird feather I found in the yard - had just the right makeup to get the multi-directional and random 'graining' I was looking for. Really.

It may not be a magazine, but here is my attempt at bakelite furnature for my SDS Lynx 12. Attached File
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Attached File

While not Soviet red bakelite you did make a great mach to the East German brown bakelite.