Bulgy Brown paint reason

OK, I got my group buy new barrel, kit and mags this morning and am very pleased. I had origianlly planned on refinnishing the brown painted wood but it don't look half bad and I really like something different. My question is why did they paint them? My stock looks sound and appears to have a nice slick finnish under the paint. Was there any historical, or particular reason why they painted them? Thanks

I think the uhg, lhg and stock are all made of different types of wood.

I have a 74 stock set that I stripped the brown paint off of and all three pcs. look the same to me.

Bill

My guess is it's simply a cheap easy finish. As far as the wood goes the buttstocks are beech, the lower handguards look to be walnut and the upper handguards are laminated beech.

My 74 Bulgy wood has a laminated upper, a hardwood lower, and a hardwood buttstock. None of the three match, but after refinishing the upper and stock are close. The lower wouldnt match even after bleaching and restaining it...

I guess I will stick with my brown paint, I don't think it was used much but the upper handgaurd is a bit shinnier and seems to chip really easy, guess the laminated wood was slicker underneath. Did anyone know anything about the history of these rifles from the group buy? I suspect they spent their life in a warehouse. Thanks for the input on the paint.

My 74 Bulgy wood has a laminated upper, a hardwood lower, and a hardwood buttstock. None of the three match, but after refinishing the upper and stock are close. The lower wouldnt match even after bleaching and restaining it...

The laminated uppers were from Russia, walnutish lowers Bulgarian, but the walnutish wood was not suitable for buttstocks so they went to beech to resist cracking during service.

When they secured Polyamide Plum fore ends and butt stocks from the Russians, just prior to moving to Black Poly and Glass, they painted some of their wood in an attempt to make it uniform appearing. I personally sorted then sold thousands of new AK-74 kits years back along with a few hundred "Plum" painted AK-74 kits. The Plum Painted were 99.9% re-furbs (very used).

In the end, just before black fiberglass took over for good the Bulgarians painted most of the furniture on everything from their milled AK-47s to older 74s in a very easy to scratch (remove) glossy black paint.