Help me decide which furniture set stays on my Zastava ZPAP M70 AK

Which furniture set should stay on my ZPAP M70?

  • Brown

    Votes: 8 34.8%

  • Red

    Votes: 15 65.2%
  • Total voters
    23
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wiscoaster

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A couple years ago I bought a Zastava ZPAP M70 "Yugo" AK variant rifle. It was a really nice rifle with beautiful brown walnut furniture, and I was quite happy with it. Not long ago Zastava emailed me with an ad for "Red Serbian" replacement furniture for their ZPAP rifles. Somewhat on an impulse, and taken with the concept of red furniture on a "commie" gun, and also because the new grip handle looked like an improvement, I ordered the full set. Upon arrival it was a real disappointment: the red color was correct but it had a dull opaque finish that allowed nary a glimpse of the wood grain beneath. So I completely stripped the set, and as I suspected, I found some nice wood underneath, so I refinished everything in my own version of "commie red".

Now, I need to decide which furniture to keep:

1) The original brown furniture set:

View attachment 1047796
View attachment 1047797


2) Or, the new red furniture set:

View attachment 1047798
View attachment 1047799


What's your choice for which furniture I should keep on my ZPAP M70?
 
Red looks great and looks “right” on the gun. The brown is odd… very attractive wood in itself but doesn’t fit the gun’s style. It looks like someone spent way too much money ordering up some custom wood to make their Combloc combat rifle look like their favorite Browning or Remington bolt gun.
 
Don't most of you guys' M-1 Garands also have walnut furniture, or a very similar type of wood? My pair from the CMP have identical walnut.:)

If wiscoaster (OP) chooses the red, which also is attractive, maybe he will keep his very nice brown wood.

Sidenote: a fraction of the nib ZPAPS out there have >>> maple <<< furniture. This is just a reminder.
And both the walnut and maple are American wood.:cool: Four of them, now on GB's first page, have "striped maple".
 
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Damn, I can usually render an opinion but I'm pretty conflicted. The commie red is beautiful and I think that grip would suit my hand better but I'm a sucker for that nice dark brown wood stain. Looks walnutty and rich. Man, tough call. I think I'd stick with the original but only by a slim margin and maybe not by any margin. Coin flip maybe?

ETA: Now that I've read about the effort and stripping of the original red finish and the time you put into it, and the imo better grip on the red set, I'd go with red. It's beautiful
 
Red for using, brown in the box for when it's time to sell. I expect both are dark stain on lighter wood, and will start looking a bit tatty after being used a bit. My M92 wears manticore polymer, so what do I know :D
 
rust collector said:
.... I expect both are dark stain on lighter wood, and will start looking a bit tatty after being used a bit. ....
Click to expand...
The red furniture is stained with water-soluble dye stain and finished with tung oil. No doubt the oil needs refurbing from time to time but dye stain, once it's on, it's pretty permanent. I don't know what the stripped wood is. Not walnut, but seemed to me to also be too light to be beech or maple. It's a darkish hardwood with rather closed grain.
 
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