What kind of paint for a gun?

O

oldcars

New member
Hi, I am in the middle of my first 2 Mauser builds and one of the rifles has a few parts that are pitted, etc. Long story short, I want to Paint the rifle for now because I don't really have the extra money to blue it, and I don't want to wait 2 weeks for shipping and spend all the money to buy duracoat and everything that is involved in that process. I will be bead blasting the barreled action, bottom metal, bolt shroud, and scope mount and then painting them flat black.

Has anyone done this before? What is the best Paint to use that can be obtained locally at a hardware or department store ? I was thinking BBQ paint or woodstove paint? any other ideas? I will wait for a warm day and heat the parts first, and spray light thin coats, but any other tricks?

I know this won't be as durrable as Duracoat or Bluing, but I just need something that will be in-expensive and work for now while I see if the gun even shoots well !

If it matters, the gun is a dinged up but #'s matching "byf 42" mod.98 with a 7mm-08 A&B 24" barrel , Parker Hale trigger,old pitted FN bolt shroud, old pitted Leupold 1 piece mount & rings, & a Parker Hale stock.
 
Paint job for your rifle

I would suggest you consider one of the high-temp spray coatings used on engines & exhaust headers. Consult with the fellows at napa / o-reilly / auto zone or a paint and body shop which does engine powder-coatings. Be sure to degrease the metal very well before spraying. Good luck & report back to the forum readers how the project turned out.

Guru1911
 
Send your pistol to "robar" or "coal creek armory" and have your pistol properly plated with a coating that meets your personal requirements. The "robar np3" is my personal favorite !!!

Guru1911
 
Well, it's a barreled Mauser action so it won't fit in the oven. I blued the other one I am building but I don't want to spend the money to blue this one right now, plus some of the parts were pitted so I am just going to Blast it and paint it with something. I won't try header paint!
 
Have you considered DuraCoat? I bought some for my Mauser .308 tactical/varmint rifle but I haven't had a chance to try it yet. I plan to soda blast all the parts then spray it on with an airbrush. The nice thing about DuraCoat is that it's a 2 part epoxy that doesn't have to be baked on...

Tony
 
Since it cannot fit in the oven..and this is something to do in a fix..get some baking laqure ( idk how to spell it ) from brownells and use a heat gun :)..its works ok.not as good as a oven tho and it doesn't take as long as that duro kote ..but its not as good..imo :)
 
Paint for a gun

I was hoping that there was more discussion on this topic because my M93/1916 that I bought 42years ago looks like it was painted with a high gloss black paint. All of the metal parts except for the bolt look like they were painted not blued,the coating started to chip on the magazine follower so I removed what acted like paint and revealed a nicly blued follower. Has anyone ever seen this before?
 
This is what I use:
http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=124&sid=1917830

It is about $4/ spray can at the local hardware store.

It will peel right off highly polished steel, and it will stick like glue and wear like iron on a clean rough finish.

I use it on stainless steel barrels and fiber glass stocks.
 

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Attention: Mr. Clark

Ye-haw, but that looks good. I assume you only had to let it air dry. Keep us guys posted on how well it wears & holds up over time. I would be interested in giving this a try one day.

Thanks for sharing with the shooters of this forum.

Guru1911
 
Engine paint holds up well to solvents. Lowe's also sells Rustoleum Profesional High Performance Enamel paint in a spray can that holds up well. It comes in a taller than usual can and I have only seen it in stainless steel and flat black. I've used both of these paints on a couple rifles and the Rustoleum paint seems to hold up better.

There are appliance epoxy paints and high temperature epoxy paints for brake calipers that seem to hold up well but I haven't tried them on a gun.
 
paint

Cerakote is easily the best and hardest paint you can apply by yourself.

goes on super thin. no runs at all and is hard as nails once it's heat cured.

you can make yourself a heat box quite easily if you need a long heating box.
 
Interesting... will Krylon or engine paint stay on if the parts are not "roughened"?

Also, thanks to all the posters who didn't actually read the question and suggested "Duracoat" or other expensive coatings like Robar NP3 despite the OP's desire to do this on the cheap.
 
rustoleum

I have RUSTOLEUM paint on barrels many times. I like to use the fine textured kind and follow up with a clear coat enamel. It holds up quite well. :) nice thing is if it gets chipped you can fix it up fairly easily
 
I just converted several Mausers "Spanish Flat bottoms 1892" to 257 Roberts. one was pretty bad with pits.
I was at Harbor Freight and bought one of their little air brush kits for $ 12.00 to 14.00 Dollars. then ordered some Dura Coat from Brownells. "Woodland green" was the color.
I sprayed several cotes and let it sit 15 to 20 minuets between coats, it was almost 100 degrees outside here in Arizona. so it dried quickly.
I then let them sit in a corner for several weeks to cure.
It came out so nice I did three more of the Mauser actions.
on clean-up the thing I did wrong was I used Acetone in the plastic cup that came with the air brush.
I then used a paint reducer from an auto paint store and it worked great.
I jeweled the bolts and then drilled and taped the receivers. Three of them I sold for $425.00 each!
The forth I gave to a 14 year old boy who was interested in shooting and hunting. I made a reloading die for an arbor press, like a lee classic. Mom keeps the bolt :)

Have fun that's the important thing!

Ed
 
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