I shoot all of my guns but also enjoy looking at them, taking them apart, examining all the pieces and how they work, etc. I'm a CNC machinist, production tooling designer, and engineer. I like the gorgeous machine work of my beat up old PPK/S with it's smoothly blended radii and squiggly-cut slide top. The design is, well, sexy. You need a magnifier to see the tool marks on most of this gun and the craftsmanship is top notch throughout.
The gun I've taken apart and looked at the most is my Saiga .308. Most would say it's an ugly gun, I think it's absolutely gorgeous. The brilliance of it's incredibly simple design and nearly flawless execution is astonishing to me. Given my line of work, I can see exactly how every part was produced. I look at the bolt and I can see all the machining operations from the first surface that was milled to the last hole that was drilled, in the order they were cut. How can I know what order they were cut? Because there is, ultimately, only one "most efficient" way to approach any given part. This part, or iterations of it, has been produced for 50 some years by some of the most resourceful machinists on Earth. I know they have found the best way, because they have tried every way there is and figured it out. I figured it out too: by looking at their work, tell-tale tooling marks, which direction a heavier burr was removed, how a non-critical flat surface is slightly deformed around a hole breakout, etc. I am cursed with seeing a better way to make nearly any mechanical device I look at. I can't help it, that's how my brain works. I can find no way to improve the way a Saiga / AKM is produced. It is a perfectly executed piece of industrial artistry and I tip my hat to the guys that spent the last 60 years perfecting the process.
Merry Christmas and thank you very much to all the guys at Izhmash!