U need to work a lot more on this texture. U should add more chafe on corners, and the leather need some wrinkles 'cos u don't add them on the HP model. The leather texture is reapiting too much. Try to add them more varius details like scratches or some stains. And IMO 2048 its huge texture, maybe too huge. 1024 shall be…
If its a energy weapon, having carbon stains doesn't make much sense. What about some heat discoloration. http://www.flickr.com/photos/15454791@N00/277499560/sizes/l/ Titanium goes through the entire rainbow of colors when it gets hot, http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&um=1&q=titanium+exhaust&sa=N&start=0&ndsp=20
I think it destroys the gun actor and spawns a different gun actor in its place when you change weapons. Sorry, there's no way short of coding to remove the weapon and coding will break netgame compatibility. Your best bet is to use constraints to simulate reparenting the gun to something else (maybe throw it on the ground…