The best finish for your gun?

[Covert Mission]

For a promising gun finish, check out these guys. I think it might be a great alternative to any of the teflon finishes...FAR more durable, they say. I like the idea of this, for a dark, highly durable finish, on 1911's esp, that is an alternative to hardchrome (which is not dark) and harder too. Any experience with this process here?

Brycoat, at

www.brycoat.com/

Since I've seen so many people online say "If I could only get a Tenifer-like finish on my gun", i asked them about Tenifer (the finish underneath the black oxide on Glocks). Tenifer is a case-hardening process, per Brycoat. A surface nitriding. Nothing really special, but it is durable.

Brycoat applies a titanium nitride COATING. It is inherently gold in color. They have other coatings that are different in color,. Their Black color coating would be Aluminum Titanium Nitride (ALTN) which is actually a bit harder than TIN (ti Nitride). ALTN is 90 on the Rockwell C scale, approximately (the scale actually only goes to 70... they have estimated their coating at 90). VERY hard.

They recommend this for firearms: case hardening the gun, actually a salt bath nitriding, and then do the ALuminum Titanium Nitride for the final coating for a black finish. ALTN holds much of the polished smoothness in areas that are polished, but won't look quite as bright and shiny.

Brycoat has worked with Checkmate Plating (nearby in FL) on the plating of the Desert Eagle. They aren't really set up for piece work, as they do volume. It would be cheaper and more cost effective to have several slides/guns done at once. The guy i spoke to is going to send me some samples of their plating. I'll update. Their website is worth studying, i think.

 

[Al Thompson]

Thanks Covert Mission!!

I had some interesting talks with an outfit in Kennebunkport Maine called "TiGold" a few years back. Met the president at a knife show in Atlanta. He was very interested in refinishing firearms but ultimately linked up with a prominant gunsmith to handle the customers. It did not work out and they went back to industrial work.

Part of the problem was that the average gun owner is a pain in the butt. This guy published an "800" number and had a two thousand dollar phone bill the next month. The majority of callers were gun folks who wanted to chat for a while. The other half of this thing was the piece rate was pretty high. As Covert Mission states, they incur a certain cost for firing up the system and would much rather do "bunches" at a time as opposed to onesies and twosies.

I would recommend getting in line ASAP!

Giz



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"I don't make enough money to buy cheap stuff" - Mark Manning