I am very rapidly becoming a fan of cerokoting (cerocoating? Cerro coating? Screw it..gonna go with ‘coating’) firearms. As you guys may recall, a couple years ago I came into a HiPower that spent some time underwater (fortunately, it was fresh water). The gun had zero finish and pitting that made it look like an aerial map of Utah. Although the coating didn’t do much to fill in the great holes, it did clen the gun up a bit and give it a good look. You can see the story of the Watergun here. I liked the look and, honestly, wh odoesn’t like personalizing a gun in a unique manner that makes that gun truly ‘theirs’? I guarantee you, ain’t no other HiPower out there like the Watergun.
Anyway….
An LMI buddy of mine is going to gunsmith school and, apparently, he’s something of a gunsmithing prodigy. The classes have gotten to the point where he needed a gun to practice coating. He came to me. Did I have a pistol that I would let him experiment on? Mmmmm. Yes. I have some ancient NYPD police revolvers from waaaaaaay back when that have been sitting in the safe for the last twenty years. I got them for around $125-150 back in the 90’s and just kinda tucked ’em away. Pulled one out that had a goodly amount of bluing missing, a bit of pitting here and there, but was otherwise mechanically sound. (Most police guns are cosmetic nightmares but mechanically sound. Why? They get carried and banged around every day but they are almost never actually fired except at the occasional qualification once or twice a year for maybe a hundred rounds a year total. If that. And considering its NYPD it may have been a lot less than a hundred.) I told him to go ahead and see what he could do. I preferred olive drab or forest green and, while youre at it, slap a lanyard swivel on the butt for me, mmmkay?
He came by today and I had completely forgotten about the pistol until he pulled it and its holster out of his coat, shoved it at me and said “Here’s your pistol that you wanted coated.”
Oh. My. Crom. This was exactly…and I mean exactly…what I wanted. A nice dark military OD and a lovely lanyard ring. The trigger, hammer, and cyclinder release were were done in black and contrast nicely against the dark green. A lot of the technical details went over my head, but he toook the gun apart, even removing the barrel, and degreased everything coated it in some sort of vibranium-adamantium based coating, baked it on, and, I am told, the thing is virtually rustproof. It’ll never be truly 100% rustproof but I can apparently abuse it pretty well and not have it turn into a puddle of oxidized metal. (I just received a text back from the LMI…he says “manganese parked on everything but the cerekote, that is zinc parkerized.” So there you go.)
TPIWWP, so here you go:
That is some seriously sexy lipstick on that pig. Now, to be honest, I gave him this particular gun to use because I had no idea how it would turn out. He’s new at this, right? For all I know the thing was gonna come out looking Jerry Garcia’s shower curtain. But after seeing this I am kicking myself for not giving him my old Ruger Security-Six .357 to do this to. And now, having fallen hopelessly in love with this color and finish, I’m gonna see if I can cajole/bribe/beg him into doing a couple more guns for me. In addition to the coating, he also polished up some rough spots and put that swiveling lanyard ring in there for me. I’ve always had a fondness for those archaic touches like lanyard rings and leather flap holsters.
I’m no photography expert, so I have trouble taking pictures that give accurate representations of an items true color…but its a very, very military olive drab that just looks darn good. Pretty much the exact same green as your average ammo can, in fact. Tell you what, I’d have happily paid some decent money for that level of work. I’d really like to have a Mauser .308 done up like this. I think my buddy needs to start a portfolio of before-n-after pictures on stuff like this because the work he did was amazing.
Gorgeous work. Your buddy’s got skillz.
(And it’s Cerakote™. I.e. thin-film ceramic + coating. But you knew that already.)
So we apparently share the love of old revolvers, things not rusting, low-shine finishes, lanyard rings, and leather flap holsters. I blame Lives Of A Bengal Lancer, Zulu!, Indiana Jones, and any 216 captains on the Jungle Cruise.
I’m a bit jealous though. My go-to there is a Boston PD M10 retread, but unfortunately, it has the 6″ barrel instead of 4″. Should’ve bought a dozen, instead of just the prettiest pick of the litter.
Mine was apparently the desk sergeant’s, because it has all the original blue except just a light buff on both sides of the barrel tip, from holster wear. One bonus of being counter help back in the day was laying the whole batch lot all out, and cherry-picking the best RH grip, and the best LH grip that was the closest match, and levelling up. (What, you don’t think this goes on all the time? Surprise. Sorry/not sorry.)
The amazing thing was that BPD swapped those beauties for some crappy 9mm flavor-of-the-month, probably already traded off too.
Then there are the New Service and M1917 .45s, but I won’t be coating them, unless I get redundant on them.
But I’m thinking that near-OD green would dress up some really well-worn M1911s (which fortunately already come with a lanyard loop.)
Ditto for original and Chicom copy Winchester Trench Guns that’re begging for that work.
Imagine what Big Green would’ve paid to have all their retail-level hardware cerakoted in ‘Nam.
If they have a ren faire this year, I may be the first on my block to have a cerakoted steel morion and cuirass. In appropriate livery colors. Just to piss off the purists, and outpimp their rides. (What? Anyone doesn’t think Elizabeth Regina wouldn’t have salivated at the thought of palace guards in cerakoted Tudor Rose breastplaces? She’d have ordered a batch done in a Buckingham Palace minute.)
While I don’t share the fetish, I’m starting to understand the guys who do this to street rods and Harley hogs. I find a guy who’ll do a postal jeep in Marpat woodland camo for a price less than a kidney, and I’ll be the guy at the window yelling “Take my money!” right after I sandblast the body down to the bare metal.
*That* is wicked cool.
Well done. This re-inforces my belief that it’s not what you know it’s who you know. Adding gun smith to my phone along with plumber, mechanic, HVAC tech, electrician, etc. on speed dial will solve a lot of issues.
My beloved Ruger P85 that I bought way back in ’87ish on the very first issue day at the local gun store was just recovered from the local PD property room after being burgled over 5 years ago. Apparently the burgler (and the PD) were not overly concerned with the care and lubrication of my pristine vintage P-series and it came back a little worse for wear.
Putting the same coating on it would be something I could be talked into, and it already has the lanyard hole!
Theres an old saying about how every man should have a loving wife, a beautiful mistress, a forgiving priest, an understanding banker, and a good doctor.
I’m at 4 out of 5. Have to work on getting a priest.
I recently picked up an Italian Police surplus Beretta 85BB from DK Firearms. Mechanically pretty much perfect, but a little rough cosmetically. Looks pretty good now that I’ve polished and reblued it. They have a “C” grade available that’s more than I would want to tackle, but after seeing your buddy’s work I’m thinking about getting one to have Cerakoted. That thing that you have is a beauty………
Hmm…. I believe I’d pay honest cash American to have that done to one or two of mine.
That revolver turned out gorgeous!
A local smithy here does outstanding coating work. He did a viet nam tiger stripe job on a friends rifle. It’s beautiful.
I felt the action of an AR he did, inside and out. Haven’t felt anything that smooth before. That stuff is pretty amazing.
That’s just plain old sexy! I used some OD Green Brownells Aluma-Hyde on a couple of items I had picked up for cheap, it came out okay but I did goof it in a few places. That dude really did some nice work.
Nice piece! I like the contrast.
That is a beautiful pistol. Please relay my sentiments to your friend.
And do something about that butt ugly grip that is detracting from his artwork.
(YES, he really needs to do a Before and After for getting his business up and running)
Oh, my sweet Lord, that is just simply flat-out gorgeous!
“Vibranium-adamantium” coatings are fine. But if you really want to protect your guns from wear, tear, corrosion or theft, you have to have them done in unobtainium. Yeah, you have to decimate the Na’vi on Pandora. But it really is a brilliant finish.
So, how can we contact this prodigy? Does have a website? I have an order for him.
He’s not in business yet, and probably not for a little while still. Has to finish gunsmith school. But, when he does set up shop I hope he realizes that there may be a good bit of money to be made doing coating as opposed to just ‘smithing.
Glad I didn’t respond with my normal response to the word green. As in the Ludite leftist Druids who worship green things. Like All Out Crazy. When she starts wailing about green things the only thing that comes to mind are boogers. Those are green and sometimes yellow if you be sick. Problem with Alexandria Occasional Cortex is she doesn’t blow her nose. The only time she did she thought her brain was disintegrating. I believe she was correct in her analyses.
Commander, is that a combat masterpiece?
This is an ancient Model 10, or more accurately, Military & Police.
Funny you mentioned your ruger security six as I am having mine done at this very moment. Had a buddy borrow it about 15+ years ago for travel and left it under his front seat (forgot about it) and then someone (so he said) spilled a large drive through soda on the front seat…you know where this is going. So he discovers my once pristine revolver under his seat about a month later and proceeds to take a billow-pad to it to get the rust off…I started calling this thing 2-face after the Spiderman character as it looks perfectly normal on one side and then life the surface of the moon on the other sans bluing. Finally decided to do something about it and a local gunsmith suggested coating versus bluing and I went with a gloss black coating after he showed me a finished product in the shop. Looked a lot like bluing…but BETTER. When I get it back, I’ll see if I can post a picture if that is doable? Anyway, that was the first gun I ever purchased with my own hard earned $ back in 1985 so I would like it to look nice when it is passed down to one of the man-cubs.
The same shop did a coat on a Savage Model 11 308 that another friend managed to remove some bluing (maybe I need new friends?) and it was a tungsten gray and came out just beautiful! Needless to say, I am a huge fan of the art of coating!!
A link to a photo of the tungsten coated rifle: https://photos.app.goo.gl/otNS3UfYUX85d6mYA
That gun is just so pretty! Girls always like their guns to be a wardrobe extension, and that just says sexy collection. I hope your friend is ready to for all of the work he will be receiving once he is a full on graduate. Impressive!!
That will make a nice night stand gun, 200 years from now.
Your buddy (or someone with some $$) should snatch up a pile of those Model 10’s for $200 – $230 and run them through the same process and add the lanyard ring. Could sell them for a profitable price pretty easily I imagine.
It seems terribly unlikely any of them are still available 20 years later at that price.
There are some on Gander Mountain for 264 right now, probably last of the bunch at that price!
Rather than cerokote – which will crack if stressed, esp. in screw slots – I would strongly recommend calling Birdsong and having his Black-T finish applied. It’s been around for a very long time and is a Teflon-based finish that is applied into the molecular structure of the surface after surface is heated. FWIW the last time I talked to them they were working on a finish that would be good up to 1200*+. Had my .50 done 30+ years ago and still haven’t managed to shoot the finish off the muzzle brake – yet…
Yep. That works.