Hello all. After looking at this, my second AK (a bone-stock Romanian WASR-10) I had sincerely considered selling/trading it for something/anything else. What prevented me was not the adage, NEVER SELL A GUN, but the fact that as ugly as it is now, I know I couldn't get half of what I put into it despite only 500 rounds through it. It is a post ban originally intended for a trunk gun, it rusted immediately after 24 hours in my trunk and now it looks plain awful. I steel-wooled the rust & re-blued, but the result is a patchwork finish where the bluings don't match the original finish. Having said that, I figured the best plan of attack is a homespun refinish job. I have seen many great home camo jobs on ARFCOM with Krylon and figured this is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to dress up an old hat.

questions/concerns:

Is Krylon an acceptable finish for an AK? My chief concern is the barrel. I am fond of ammo dumps and am concerned the paint will burn off.

As my first refinish, I couldn't imagine I have the skill to pull off a halfway decent camo job so I was thinking of a solid color. Does anybody have any color suggestions? Flat black, OD, desert tan (and what furniture would you suggest to complement the color)?

This morning I made the (converted) WSAR a true SAR by dremeling off the excess metal to make mag changes as smooth and flawless as my Norinco's. As I wait for your responses I am polishing off the finish off the bolt to a mirror finish.

How about other suggestions to the bone stock behemoth? Folding stock? Brake? pics?

If I can't get even half of what I paid I am going to keep it and (with a little input from my pals here) I'll be damn glad that I did. TIA!

Wow I thought that after a complete saturday SOMEBODY would know something here. Is there an early shot show I don't know about or something?

Unless you get all the rust, it will just rust again and agian.  The best bet is to put a phosphate finish on it "AFTER" bead blasting to remove "ALL" the rust.

If the above isn't possible, perhaps sanding and painting with Brownell's GunKote.  To me the flat black looks good, not quite flat but not gloss or semi-gloos either.