I recently bought a High Standard Hungarian AK63D under-folder from Atlantic.  While I love the weapon, and it shoots awesome, it came with refinished Hungarian wood that was painted what is optimistically called a "Russian Red" finish.  Besides ugly, the finish is not durable.



II went ahead and put a Com=Block bakelite grip and and a palm swell handguard set (I think Bulgarian) on it for looks.



My problem is this:  I bought a Hungarian 5 cell ammo pouch, a Hungarian bayonet, Hungarian leather sling, and Hungarian cleaning kit and dual oil bottle to go with it.  Maybe its because I am old (64 and counting), but it just feels cheesy to have a Hungarian weapon and accessories, but Bulgarian furniture.  I think the set I put on looks better. It feels "wrong" to me, like I am disrespecting the Hungarian firearms industry! LOL, stupid, I know..  

Who really likes the feel of the Hungarian wood pistol grip and handguard?  I am thinking of stripping the awful red finish, and doing a natural wood finish.  Aren't Hungarian wood sets blonde.

All the ones I have seen are blonde, yes.  And they're still vanilla-looking and ugly to me.  I prefer the AKM/AK74 handguards with palm swells like you added.  I honestly think most folks don't have any idea that they're not Hungarian.  Even if they did (like me), they'd just think that you upgraded to something nicer.

It's not just that the Hungarian wood is ugly....the palm swell handguard fits the hand SO much better.  I had it on a Saiga that I converted to AKM, but took it off when I restored the back half to sporter to be "California Featureless."  I put a Polish polymer palm swell on it to match the black sporter stock.  That gave me the bakelite and palm swell handguard for the Hungarian.  



If I do return the Saiga to AKM form and register it as a California RAW after 1-1-2017, I have black Kvar stock and pistol grip I will use since the front half is black polymer.  I think I will leave it as is, as you say, 99.9% of the people would never know it was not Hungarian!

I picked up one built from a Hungarian kit and the furniture was finished in "Russian red", but it wasn't painted. I think it's absolutely beautiful.

I like the Hungarian (FEG) stocks and other furniture. A rare variant is the military contract color which is more of a dark teak then the blonde which was for export. I think you're going to have trouble cleaning the red off those pieces but if you can get them fairly clean you might want to try to get the military teak color on them. Hungarian wood does not have a 'finish' per se - no paint, varnish or shellac; the color is in the wood which you maintain by using an oil on it. I use Ballistol on mine. However, considering a red dye may have penetrated the surface of that furniture, you may have to use a darker stain to hide it. Alcohol stains penetrate and dry fast. I use Feibling leather dye. Here's some original blonde wood on my AMD65.

I don't have a picture of the darker military color so I found this video that shows it.
AK63

I just realized they called the rifle in the video 'AMD63'. There was no such thing - it was the AKM63. Here's some more 'export' blonde wood.

My SA85...

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Nice! I see it has the short AMD65 gas tube and piston.

Anyone know who might stock the hungarian wood grip and hand gaurds? Looking to replace the plastic on my AMD65.

Apex does https://www.apexgunparts.com/rifles/ak-47/romanian-ak63d-akm-wood-stock-set-w-pistol-grip-good.html