Black-T vs Ceracoat

B

Badfinger

New member
I have no experience with Black-T, I hear very good things about it, particularly that it is so durable and flexible, that it is even applied to the guns internal springs. I do have experience with ceracoat, its sucks, easily the worst finish I've ever had professionally applied, its failed quickly on the three guns I had it applied too, including twice to the same 1911 in which it simply refuses to adhere.

Anyone out there with experience with the Black-T, is it as good as they say, or is it just another ceracoat, all hype and no performance?
 
Black T is not what you want then. If it ain't stainless, I go with Black Chrome, Hard Chrome, NiB or Melonite.
 
The claim is that the Black-T chemically bonds itself to the substrate, how is it not what I want in your opinion, how is it failing? Thanks...
 
That was not spray & bake Cerakote applied by a professional applicator. Done right it has great adhesion and wear resistance. There is another poorer performing, in a gun sense, product that might be applied in error.

Black T is said to be almost as wear resistant, somewhere between Duracoat and Cerakote....like armor tuff.

The next step up from Cerakote is DLC, Nitride finish.
 
Wrong, all of mine were applied by a professional, all were the spray & bake version, all failed within days, and very likely your guns are failing in exactly the same manner and you just haven't caught on to it!

Check the ejection ports, and all sharp and curved contours of the frame and slide, you might need a magnifying glass, I am quite confident you will find the micro-chipping common to ceracoat if you do, a micro-chip is a failure of the finish to adhere!

Black-T I have no experience with, other then what I have heard, but if it is able to be applied to internal springs, then by default it is far superior to ceracoat. I was hoping to hear from someone who has had it applied to a firearm for years, and how it has worn in that time?
 
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How about ionbond? Good lubricity and durable
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I have no experience with it, however if it is like ceracoat and is a spray & bake, then its probably no better then the ceracoat, which is my fear with the Black-T too. Post #2 has a point with plating, plating done right is for life, the spray & bakes, particularly ceracoat are all hype, the bottom line being that they do not bond to the substrate, and not doing that they are easily removed via scraping and abrasion. I wanted to like ceracoat very badly, I liked the colors, unfortunately it is way overpriced and just as under performing as is duracoat.
 
What on Earth do you do to your guns that the finish fails in a few days? I'm at about 4000 rounds through my cheap factory Cerakoted TriStar T-120 and it doesn't look any different than the day I got it with the exception of the hammer, where it strikes the firing pin.
 
Wrong, all of mine were applied by a professional, all were the spray & bake version, all failed within days, and very likely your guns are failing in exactly the same manner and you just haven't caught on to it!

Check the ejection ports, and all sharp and curved contours of the frame and slide, you might need a magnifying glass, I am quite confident you will find the micro-chipping common to ceracoat if you do, a micro-chip is a failure of the finish to adhere!
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You are probably correct. i was not counting that kind of failure. Thank you.
 
If you think micro chips and wear on metal to metal surfaces is a failure then you'll be sadly disappointed with any coating including factory bluing.
 
@DA/SA Fan

I have found the finish on TriStar/caniks to be superb. I've got 1000 rounds through my s120 and it looks brand new. Every part.
 
If you think micro chips and wear on metal to metal surfaces is a failure then you'll be sadly disappointed with any coating including factory bluing.
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^ Yup.

If you're really that concerned about it never chipping and coming off, I'd probably suggest Robar NP3. Only issue is that you're stuck with the silver-ish nickel coloring.
 
Black T was one of the earliest organic coatings. It is good enough for the FBI but it is still a spray coating. Coating springs with it does not mean it is better elsewhere. They used to advertise that it was Teflon based but I do not see that on their website today. Maybe they changed the mix.

Any coating is subject to chipping and wearing. Read how the Wilson fans put masking tape around the ejection ports of their $4000 paint jobs to avoid chipping.

Ionbond and nitriding are metallurgical processes that will wear better than coatings.
Severns Hard Hat looks good in pictures. I think it is one of the nitride processes applied to well prepped steel.
A local shop is sending work to a Melonite contractor who does a lot of guns. Their stuff looks nice and shows no wear after a good number of IDPA matches; drawing and shooting a lot.
 
If it was applied by a professional, yet failed within days, sounds like the professional wasn't very good at their job.
Was he Certified in Cerakote??
Its a huge difference between just buying the stuff & using it, and really doing the job right.
Here's a Checker website by Cerakote that shows who is certified and who isn't.
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/resource/locator/?gclid=CN37rPqB9cgCFQeKaQodMNIAcA

Some of you might remember that d-bag in South Florida who scooped Glock Armorer Cert gifs
putting them on his Gunsmithing Page...but had never taken the course, nor any gunsmith course...
and managed to ruin quite a few guns before he was outed...always Check Out your Gunsmiths.

Prep is THE most important part to refinishing a piece of metal.
If it isn't prepped properly, Cerakote won't last. Heck, nothing will if its badly prepped...


That being said, Hard Chrome & Black Chrome are the most durable finishes I've run across for firearms and prefer 'em.
 
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Cerakote is a ceramic. Black-T is a combination of certain polymers. Organic is Latin for 'more expensive'. Snicker.
"...Volcan cannons, 0.5mm machine guns..." Somebody at Black-T is confused. .5mm = .01968504". snicker.
However, like Big Shrek says, if the guy who put the Cerakote on didn't do it right, he wasn't very good at their job. You should have some kind of recourse to at least get your money back
 
"Organic" in the technical sense means "containing carbon atoms covalently bonded to other elements, most commonly hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen."

As best I can tell, Cerakote is an epoxy polymer with ceramic pigment and filler.
 
If you think micro chips and wear on metal to metal surfaces is a failure then you'll be sadly disappointed with any coating including factory bluing.
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An interesting viewpoint, I would add that if you're okay with a brand new finish either peeling, or chipping away right from the application, then you are easy indeed! Ceracoat, and any other such finish for that matter, that reveals substrate, has failed completely, and I think you illustrate that a certain percentage of consumers will just accept and live with it, I'm not one of those types of consumers, and thankfully, most respectable vendors don't apply any finish that would live down to your expectations as a matter of course...
 
If it was applied by a professional, yet failed within days, sounds like the professional wasn't very good at their job.
Was he Certified in Cerakote??
Its a huge difference between just buying the stuff & using it, and really doing the job right.
Here's a Checker website by Cerakote that shows who is certified and who isn't.
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/r...FQeKaQodMNIAcA

Some of you might remember that d-bag in South Florida who scooped Glock Armorer Cert gifs
putting them on his Gunsmithing Page...but had never taken the course, nor any gunsmith course...
and managed to ruin quite a few guns before he was outed...always Check Out your Gunsmiths.

Prep is THE most important part to refinishing a piece of metal.
If it isn't prepped properly, Cerakote won't last. Heck, nothing will if its badly prepped...


That being said, Hard Chrome & Black Chrome are the most durable finishes I've run across for firearms and prefer 'em.
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Mine were done by APW/Cogan, in fact he was just returned his last effort for the third time, thats right, three fails right from the fed ex truck! I remain intrigued by Black-T, its a co-polymer something or other, the reason I am intrigued is that the originator, Walter Birdsong(now deceased)claimed he had never had to warranty a firearm, meaning that it had never failed. I see a lot of folks commenting, but I see no comments from anyone who has had it applied, I hope we can hear from some with firsthand experience with the finish, also I am quite intrigued by Robar's Roguard, does anyone here have any hands on experience with that one?
 
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