More veteran skinner guys, I need some advice...I am not sure how to make this skin on the k98 look better, I reskinned this thing, but when I try it out in game it just looks stretched and crappy.

Here's the reskin on the mesh (in jpg format for faster loading):
http://webpages.marshall.edu/~blessing5/98kwood.jpg

And in-game it looks like this:
http://webpages.marshall.edu/~blessing5/reskin.jpg

It just seems like the model is "thinning" out the skin and not letting the details show. The texture is 512x256, is it possible to double this size? I don't know if HL supports anything wider than 512.

Anyway, just let me know of any tips, thanks!

IMO HL does not support textures bigger than 512 x 512. But if this skin is 512 x 256 and get stretched, why do you not try to make it 512 x 512? Maybe that works, but I don´t know exactly...

I think it looks fine the way it is...like it was made out of a nice big hunk of wood.

Its probably going to look stretched no matter what due the length of the model and the texture restrictions, making it 512x512 would only help the vertical detail on the gun, and not the depth, which is what I think u mean...

You'll notice that the screws/bolts or whatever those things are on the texture are compressed horizontaly in the texture. This is to compensate for the texture being stretched across the model. In other words, short of adjusting the UV map of the model, or compressing the wood texture like those screws, there's nothing you can do about the stretching.

That's a great wood texture, dil. But you're gonna have to remesh if you want to make it 512x512. It actually wouldn't be that hard. Just a bit of scaling. Though there are some questions that can be raised, like is it going to look stretched still or weird because of the fov fix. I can't answer those questions yet. :P

Hmmm..that sounds like a lot of work haha.

It's just so weird that it looks nice on the mesh, but in-game looks terrible. I expected some stretching, as all models stretch the skin, but this is a little extreme it seems.

It looks like certain parts have been blurred, which shows up in the ingame shot because everything looks ok then theres this spot and you're like "Eww wtf". Yea. I don't know what to tell ya.