Gold-plated AK

An AK with a gold-plated receiver, held muzzle-up by a man with dreadlocks and a phone in his other hand.

The rifle fills the left of the frame, close up and seen from its left side. The receiver and the dust cover are finished in gold, the curved, ribbed magazine is black, and the part above the receiver is dark grey metal with an engraved scroll at the top, not wood. The pattern is unmistakably Kalashnikov: the curved magazine, the gold release lever just behind it, and a long rail along the side of the receiver with rivets beside it.

It is held at rest, muzzle up, by a man with long dreadlocks under a paisley bandana, a gold grill on his lower teeth and a gold chain. His other hand holds a blue phone. A skull in an arched frame is tattooed on the side of his face in front of the ear, which carries a large faceted stud; his bare chest is tattooed, a thin dark red cord runs beside the gold chain, and a beaded bracelet sits on one wrist. The grill on his lower teeth is set with small dark stones. Behind the rifle, out of focus, packaged goods stand on a counter. Nothing about the framing suggests the weapon is about to be used.

Which the gold finish is, a reward, a status prop or a finish for sale, the frame does not say, but the staging, one gold weapon and one phone, reads as display rather than combat.

The image is the twelfth and last of the press pack’s Vice City set. Whether the gold is a finish applied to an ordinary rifle or a distinct weapon is the first open question below. Gold is also a finish the last game sold: in GTA 5 and GTA Online a gold tint is one of the finishes the gun counter applies, and in GTA Online the Carbine Rifle’s gold tint unlocks at rank 75.

It is not the only AK in the official material: near the end of the Extended Look, at 23:14 and 23:18, a crew in white coveralls carries black ones with a curved magazine and a rail along the top of the receiver.

How to recognise it

• Kalashnikov pattern: curved, ribbed magazine, the release lever behind it, a long rail along the side of the receiver
• Gold-plated receiver and dust cover
• Dark grey engraved metal above the gold receiver, not wooden furniture
• Held muzzle-up, at rest, with a phone in the other hand

The frame it comes from

The frame is a still from the official Press pack, which carries no timecode. It is 3840 by 2160, and the subject occupies 3840 by 2160 of it. Also in it: Vice City.

How this was measured

These figures come from the dataset, not from the prose above. We measure everything and claim what counts. How we work

What we still do not know

• Whether the gold finish is cosmetic or marks a distinct weapon
• Who the man holding it is — he is not one of the eight named characters
• Whether AK-pattern rifles are common in the world or reserved for particular groups
• Its in-game name

A note on this record

Earlier versions of this page called the metal above the receiver wood; it is engraved metal. On 25 September 2026 the crop was widened to the whole press image, because the page describes the man holding the rifle; the metal above the receiver turned out dark grey rather than pale; the rifle is seen from its left side, so the long strip on the receiver is a rail and not the safety lever, and the gas block is beyond the top edge of the picture; the counter behind is no longer called a shop's; and the Extended Look rifles moved into the link to their own page. Later the same day, with the other weapon pages: three lines went that spoke for other frames or for earlier games without a check, calling this the most ostentatious weapon in the official material and the only one of the twelve Vice City stills with a weapon in the foreground. The line on gold as a finish in GTA Online was checked against the GTA Wiki and is back.