AK-47 | Safari Mesh (Minimal Wear)

The AK-47 | Safari Mesh in Minimal Wear (MW) has a float band from 0.07 to 0.15. This rifle is Industrial Grade and belongs to The Dust 2 Collection. By price it is the bottom skin in the row of Industrial Grade AK-47 finishes.

What the AK-47 | Safari Mesh looks like in Minimal Wear

The rifle is sandy khaki with a fine mesh texture. The whole palette is sand and light olive, with no bright colors, and the mesh is half a tone darker than the base. The barrel and gas tube are in the same tone.

The pattern covers the receiver, handguard, stock and magazine solidly and evenly over the whole area. The cells are small and look like fabric up close, and on the stock the design is slightly larger. There are no figures or lettering. In Minimal Wear the pale base begins to gray at the receiver edges and the stock corners, and the mesh there rubs down to an even tone.

Where the AK-47 | Safari Mesh came from

The AK-47 | Safari Mesh was not dreamed up in the Steam Workshop: it came from Valve itself. In Valve's catalog the skin carries number 72. Valve describes it as a weapon spray-painted from a can, with a mesh fence and cardboard cutouts as stencils. The Dust 2 pack came out on November 27, 2013, and the skin was in it from day one.

Pattern variance on the AK-47 | Safari Mesh

Paint through a stencil lands with a shift every time, so copies differ both in wear and in where the mesh falls. This is the second selection criterion after float: two rifles with the same number can look different.

What to check before buying

What matters when buying an AK-47 | Safari Mesh:

• float: in this wear the AK-47 | Safari Mesh covers a short stretch, 0.07 to 0.15, so chasing a number is pointless;


• how the pattern sits on the receiver and the stock;


• whether the AK-47 | Safari Mesh carries stickers and a name tag.

What the AK-47 | Safari Mesh costs in Minimal Wear

Factory New costs 27.62 times as much: this is the largest gap between wears of the skin.

Among Industrial Grade AK-47 skins, this one takes last place of six in this wear: nobody is cheaper. The nearest are the VariCamo Grey and Olive Polycam, at 1.3 times the price. Baroque Purple costs 29 times as much, Jungle Spray 52 times and Predator 63 times.

Getting the AK-47 | Safari Mesh

The skin has no case: it comes in tournament Souvenir packages, among them the DreamHack Cluj-Napoca 2015 Dust II Souvenir Package. The second route to the AK-47 | Safari Mesh is a contract: ten skins of the rank below from the same collection.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The skin has no StatTrak version. A Souvenir version exists: tournament Souvenir packages provide it, and you can also make such a copy through the Souvenir-O-Matic.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Safari Mesh

The mesh covers the whole rifle, and there is no smooth free space. Stickers sit right on the texture and look cleanest when they are dark or bright: on the sandy base they read at once. For CS2 this rifle suits a craft where the skin serves as a neutral background.

Who this wear suits

Minimal Wear on the AK-47 | Safari Mesh is worth buying in these cases:

• you want the cheapest Industrial Grade AK for CS2;


• you need a camo background for bright stickers;


• how the pattern sits matters, while float within 0.07 to 0.15 hardly makes a difference.