The goal was to make a Mid-Low poly Ak that could be used in modern game
Final polygon count turned out to be 16,356 triangles
For UVs and Baking, I referred to Polycount, especially ( https://polycount.com/discussion/107196/making-sense-of-hard-edges-uvs-normal-maps-and-vertex-counts ) and its sister topics
Texturing made me suffer the most and also the longest, I decided to build them from the ground up, for the wood I took help from the article by Simon mercuzot
(https://80.lv/articles/sks-hard-surface-texturing-in-weapons-art/),
The great and friendly peeps at "The Friendly bootcamp" Discord
(https://discord.gg/DKY6yz7p)
really set me in the right direction by providing feedback on texturing and baking
I am happy with where this project concluded