The five exteriors
Each exterior covers a fixed range of float values:
- Factory New (FN): 0 to 0.07. Clean paint, sharp edges, no visible scratches.
- Minimal Wear (MW): 0.07 to 0.15. Very light marks, usually only visible up close.
- Field‑Tested (FT): 0.15 to 0.38. Visible scuffs on exposed parts; the design is still clear.
- Well‑Worn (WW): 0.38 to 0.45. Noticeable wear, often close to the low end of Battle‑Scarred.
- Battle‑Scarred (BS): 0.45 to 1. Heavy wear; on many skins large parts of the paint are gone.
The ranges are uneven. Field‑Tested and Battle‑Scarred are wide, Well‑Worn is narrow. So knowing that a skin is Battle‑Scarred tells you less than knowing it is Factory New. If you want the full background on the number itself, read the float guide.
Why some skins skip exteriors
Every skin has its own float range, and only the exteriors inside that range exist. A few patterns you'll see often:
- No Factory New. The range starts at 0.07 or higher. The AK-47 | Redline starts at 0.10.
- Starts at Field‑Tested. The range starts at 0.15 or higher. The AWP | Asiimov and M4A4 | Asiimov start at 0.18.
- No Battle‑Scarred. The range ends at 0.45 or lower. The AK-47 | Bloodsport and MAC-10 | Neon Rider end at 0.45, and the M4A4 | Howl at 0.40.
- Only FN and MW. The range ends at 0.08. This applies to the AWP | Lightning Strike, the Desert Eagle | Blaze, the Glock-18 | Fade and Fade and Doppler knives.
Each skin page in the wiki lists only the exteriors that exist for that skin.
What wear looks like
Wear doesn't remove paint evenly. It appears first on edges and parts that stick out, then spreads. How visible it is depends a lot on the design:
- Light designs show wear clearly. White parts collect grey grime and dark scratches. Good examples are the P90 | Asiimov, the USP-S | Printstream and the Driver Gloves | King Snake.
- Dark designs hide it. On the AK-47 | Slate Factory New and Battle‑Scarred copies look very close.
- Painted metal can be stripped. On the M9 Bayonet | Crimson Web the red paint wears down to bare steel at high floats.
- Metal finishes dull. On Case Hardened skins the colours stay in place and the surface becomes rougher and darker.
- Fabric fades. On the Hand Wraps | Cobalt Skulls wear mostly washes out the blue.
Wear is also uneven within one skin. On the Nova | Hyper Beast the barrel loses its colours while the stock keeps them; on the USP-S | Neo-Noir the suppressor changes far more than the slide.
The picture on a skin page
Each skin page shows a real Steam picture of the skin in the best exterior it can have. For most skins that is Factory New; for the AWP | Asiimov, which starts at 0.18, it is Field‑Tested. A copy with a higher float looks more worn than that picture, and how much depends on the design and on the exact float.
The picture shows a typical copy, not every possible copy. On pattern-based finishes the colour layout of a real item can also differ, so for a specific copy look at its own screenshots.
Choosing an exterior
There is no single right answer. A few practical tips:
- Decide which parts of the skin matter to you. If it's a white suppressor or a light barrel, lower exteriors are safer.
- Check the skin's float range, and remember that a higher float means more visible wear.
- Remember the bands are wide. A Field‑Tested copy near 0.15 can look close to Minimal Wear, while one near 0.38 is closer to Well‑Worn.
- On busy or dark designs, a worn copy may look almost the same as a clean one at normal viewing distance.
The comparison guide turns this into a short checklist.