Hello all,
I’ve got a Remington 700AWR that I’ve ordered a new bolt shroud and cocking piece for. The rifle, including the bolt is stainless done in black cerakote. The new bolt shroud is straight stainless. I don’t mind the way it looks, but to keep it looking original I’m considering having it done to match.
Any recommendations for a small cerakote job? Anyone have experience doing their own? How’d it turn out?
Thanks.
CeraKote is pretty easy to apply. If you use one of their 2-part mixtures, you will need a toaster oven to bake-cure the painted parts. CeraKote also offers a slightly less durable, but much simpler to apply line of Air-Cure colours which dry to the touch in 40 minutes and fully cure in 5 days at ambient room temperature. All CeraKote is applied with an air-brush, so there is the expense of one of those, as well as the CeraKote itself ($100 for 2 x 4oz "samplers" shipped to Canada). It goes on very thin, so a little CeraKote goes quite a long ways. I can easily coat 3 complete rifles with one 4-oz tester.
As with any paint job, the key to success is in careful preparation of the surface to be coated. You must follow CeraKote's online instructions, using an Acetone (or similar solvent) soak to leach all oil out of the metal and open the metal's surface pores ready to receive and anchor the CeraKote. The best results are achieved by spraying CeraKote over fresh parkerizing. Failing that, you can rough up the surface to be painted with suitably fine emery cloth (or a green Scotch-Brite pad) followed by the Acetone soak.
Air-Cure CeraKote is a pretty painless way to achieve a much more rugged and professional looking protective coating on a firearm (or other object) than any rattle-can job could provide. Once you have the CeraKote, an airbrush and a compressor ($120 on Amazon.ca), you are pretty much set cost-wise. As I said, a little goes a long ways and the CeraKote sprays on thin, but you should still mask-off any bearing surfaces with tight tolerances as the CeraKote will interfere with correct fit and function otherwise.
There are a ton of on-line instructional resources available with a quick google search. Watch a few videos - it is a very simple process, but requires strong attention to detail and careful masking in order to avoid later fitment problems.
