ItemsOct 10, 20265 min readCS2Sell

AK-47 skins guide: notable CS2 finishes from Case Hardened to Aphrodite

The AK-47's notable skins grouped by era: the case or collection each came from, its rarity and float range, and the pattern, StatTrak and Souvenir details worth checking.

The AK-47 has 61 finishes in Counter-Strike 2's current item files. This guide picks the well-documented ones and groups them by where they came from: the first cases, the case Coverts that followed, map and operation collections, and the CS2-era additions. Float ranges come from the game files and release dates from Valve's announcements.

The rifle and where its skins come from

The AK-47 is a Terrorist-only rifle; the Counter-Terrorists get the M4A4 or M4A1-S instead. The Counter-Strike Wiki notes that it can kill a helmeted player with one headshot, which neither CT rifle can.

Where a skin comes from decides which versions exist. Skins from weapon cases can roll as StatTrak, which counts the owner's kills. Skins from map and operation collections can't, but map collections appear in Major souvenir packages, so many of them have Souvenir copies. Our guide to StatTrak vs Souvenir covers both labels and the Souvenir-O-Matic, which since 2026 can turn other normal skins into Souvenirs too.

The first cases, 2013–2014

Finish	Case	Released	Rarity	Float range
Case Hardened	CS:GO Weapon Case	Aug 2013	Classified	0.00–1.00
Red Laminate	eSports 2013 Case	Aug 2013	Classified	0.06–0.80
Fire Serpent	Operation Bravo Case	Sep 2013	Covert	0.06–0.76
Redline	Operation Phoenix Weapon Case	Feb 2014	Classified	0.10–0.70
Vulcan	Huntsman Weapon Case	May 2014	Covert	0.00–0.90
Jaguar	eSports 2014 Summer Case	Jul 2014	Covert	0.00–1.00
Wasteland Rebel	Operation Vanguard Weapon Case	Nov 2014	Covert	0.05–0.70

Case Hardened came with the Arms Deal update of August 14, 2013, the update that introduced weapon finishes. Valve's description says the metal "has been color case-hardened through the application of wood charcoal at high temperatures." The paint seed decides how much blue shows, so pattern matters more here than on any other AK-47 finish. The blue gem guide covers the seeds collectors chase.

Fire Serpent was the Covert of the Operation Bravo Case, released September 19, 2013. Its description calls it "a memento from Ruins", one of the community maps in the Bravo map group. Its float starts at 0.06, so every Factory New copy sits in the narrow band from 0.06 to 0.07.

Redline pairs a carbon fibre hydrographic with a red pinstripe decal. Its window of 0.10 to 0.70 rules out Factory New, which the wiki also notes, so the cleanest copies are Minimal Wear. Vulcan came in the Huntsman Weapon Case on May 1, 2014, the same case that briefly held the M4A4 Howl, whose story is in our Howl article.

The two eSports cases had a purpose beyond skins. When Valve launched the first one with the Arms Deal update, it said a portion of eSports key sales would go toward prize purses at community tournaments.

Four of the first AK-47 case finishes, from 2013 and 2014

Case Coverts, 2015–2023

Finish	Case	Released	Float range
Aquamarine Revenge	Falchion Case	May 2015	0.00–1.00
Fuel Injector	Operation Wildfire Case	Feb 2016	0.00–1.00
Neon Revolution	Gamma 2 Case	Aug 2016	0.00–0.80
Bloodsport	Spectrum Case	Mar 2017	0.00–0.45
The Empress	Spectrum 2 Case	Sep 2017	0.00–1.00
Neon Rider	Horizon Case	Aug 2018	0.00–0.80
Asiimov	Danger Zone Case	Dec 2018	0.05–0.70
Legion of Anubis	Fracture Case	Aug 2020	0.00–0.70
Nightwish	Dreams & Nightmares Case	Jan 2022	0.00–1.00
Head Shot	Revolution Case	Feb 2023	0.00–1.00

A few stand out for reasons other than the art. Bloodsport tops out at 0.45, so there is no Battle-Scarred version. Asiimov belongs to a family the wiki credits to the artist Coridium. In a 2014 interview with Fragbite he described the series, which began with the M4A4 version, as a tribute to science-fiction books, films and games. The AK-47 version arrived in December 2018, five years after the M4A4 one.

Nightwish was one of 17 winners of Valve's 2021 Dreams & Nightmares Workshop contest. Valve's winners post credits it to Nextgenz, and each winning entry earned $100,000. Its description mentions a pearlescent effect, as does the description of Head Shot, which carries a "HEAD SHOT GUN" graffiti design.

The Classified tier has its own regulars, such as Cartel from the Chroma Case (January 2015), engraved with skeletons, flowers and serpents.

Map and operation collections

None of these can be StatTrak.

Jet Set (Classified) and First Class (Restricted): the Baggage Collection from Operation Breakout, July 2014. Both have leather-wrapped stocks.
Hydroponic (Classified): the Rising Sun Collection from Operation Bloodhound, May 2015, a bamboo motif in metallic paints.
Wild Lotus (Covert): the St. Marc Collection from Operation Shattered Web, November 2019, with an orange lotus hand painted over a green base.
X-Ray (Covert) and Panthera onca (Classified): the Havoc and Ancient collections from Operation Broken Fang, December 2020. Ancient packages at eight Majors from Stockholm 2021 to Budapest 2025 produced Souvenir Panthera oncas.
Gold Arabesque (Covert, 0.00–0.70): the 2021 Dust 2 Collection from Operation Riptide. Souvenir copies came from Dust II packages at six Majors in the same span.

The CS2 era, 2024–2026

Inheritance, the Covert of the Kilowatt Case (February 2024), takes its look from traditional Chinese porcelain and Delft blue art. The Armory then added The Outsiders in the Gallery Case (October 2024) and Searing Rage in the Fever Case (March 2025), both Classified.

The Oligarch is a Covert from the Genesis Collection (September 2025), sold through Genesis Terminals and painted to look like a white and black puffer jacket. Crane Flight is the Classified AK-47 of the Dead Hand Collection from March 2026.

Aphrodite is a Limited Edition Armory item added on January 21, 2026. Valve wrote that it "varies in both wear and pattern", so the pattern seed changes how a copy looks. On July 8, 2026, the Armory added the Arabesque and Spy Tech collections, built from Workshop entries Valve requested in December 2025. Their AK-47 Coverts are Consequence of the Jinn and AUTOEXEC.

CS2-era AK-47 Coverts from 2025 and 2026

Before you trade an AK-47 skin

Compare the float with the finish's own window rather than the full 0 to 1 scale; a Redline at 0.10 is as clean as that skin gets. The float guide explains the wear tiers. For Case Hardened and Aphrodite, ask for the paint seed or inspect the gun, since two copies at the same float can look very different. On CS2Sell, Buy filters by float range and paint seed. For a Souvenir, the stickers show whether it came from a Major package or a 2026 Souvenir-O-Matic craft.