Need to make the inside part of your screws dark on the diffuse and spec. Add lots of brown/grey grime to the crevices and make that solid black on the spec. Also might want to add some spec-only grime and schmutz on the metal and wood.
OK so I put the AO on the spec, and I tried to further reduce the cloudiness on the spec. Did some edge wear as well but I wasn't really feeling it so I left it off for now. I also decided to try a version of the dragoon that has some black metal parts, and I'm thinking I like it a little better, so I would like to get…
Here is a pretty good diagram of why you wouldn't put AO in your specular map. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=972306&postcount=41 You asked "Why would the shadows be shiny?" well if an area is lit then there's not going to be any ambient occlusion there, just direct light. The spec map controls how much how…
@ dansher: Thanks, I think the gold would look really out of place, although I might make another texture with the black metal and gold plating later. @ MattLichy: Thanks, I will play around with the spec and see if I can't get some contrast in there. @ Racer445: I actually completely forgot about the edge wear and AO on…
The diffuse seems alright. It's a little plain and you could add in some subtle, localized wear even if you don't want that really worn look. You may also want to consider darkening it and adding some cubemap reflections to really enhance that metal look. Any reason why there is no AO on the spec? Why would the shadows be…
Those scratches in the paintover don't really match the ref and look overdone. Also, the engravings should be dark on the diffuse and black on the spec. Notice how in your ref there's all sorts of interesting grime accumulating in different ways around the engraving.
wood like that doesnt kind of just stay linear, as it is cut in it begins to warp and things - youll see this on any wooden handle. Get rid of the obvious filter clouds for spec. make it more subtle and use some overlays/hand painted noise.