Camo Painted Rifle - I finally did it!

[Emptymag]

How did you do it? Looks too professional to be done by eye and some cans of spray paint. What kind of paint did you use?

Thank you! (someone asked me if it was hydro dipped)
I'll definitely get into the "how" later, but you aren't too far off.
I wish I had taken more detailed pics/vid, but I do have a few of the early stages where it pretty much looked like an amateur, half-assed camo job.

When I was about to begin, my wife said "I think you are making a mistake painting that."

When it was finished, and hanging in the garage, she came in the house and said, "That looks pretty good!"

The paint is Aervoe Military Vehicle Camo (spray) Paint - unfortunately, they stopped making that line several years ago.
Field Drab (the greenish brown)
Marine Corps Green (the dark green)
Earth Yellow (the light color)

[KPShooting]

Looks good. Still not brave enough to paint any of mine because I'm always changing the configuration around.

About painting the grip: It does change how it feels. My brother has painted nearly all of his rifles and I hate the feeling of the pistol grips on every single one of them. You made the right call.

[Emptymag]

Looks good. Still not brave enough to paint any of mine because I'm always changing the configuration around.

About painting the grip: It does change how it feels. My brother has painted nearly all of his rifles and I hate the feeling of the pistol grips on every single one of them. You made the right call.

Haha! Yeah, I've changed optics on my stuff so many times.

This one was "final form" though, as it's meant as a simple, no frills rifle. I love the Primary Arms SLx MD-25 red dot on it, so I knew it would remain this way.
Speaking of, I about had a panic attack when I started basting that brand new optic with a paint brush! LOL
I mean, I snagged it on sale for $99, but still... that's not some Amazon garbage dot!


I chose this rifle to start with because it was the one I spent the least on.
Still took a lot of nerve to commit to covering nearly every square inch in paint!

[cruzans]

Nice job! Now you've got me thinking - lol.

[Emptymag]

Nice job! Now you've got me thinking - lol.

Thank you.

And "I can only imagine" LOL

[Emptymag]

Page 2 needs a photo.

This was pre-grip change, but final paint - masking tape is off - charging handle not replaced yet.
I removed the BCG and charging handle and masked off the opening where the CH goes into the upper prior to painting

This rifle came with a basic M4 style stock.
Pretty sure I swapped it out with a MFT Minimalist stock for a while, and the stock on it now is an A1 stock - a smidge shorter than an A2 stock.
Later photos will show it with a butt stock mag pouch and sling which were removed for painting.

[Emptymag]

My initial idea was to do a Rhodesian inspired camo similar to the way they painted the FAL in the Rhodesian bush war.





I watched the video put out by Arizona Response Systems on how he replicated the paint used by the Rhodesians and hoped I could do something similar - slap it on with a brush in wide, "stripes", then (see video) wrap a trash bag around it, and rub it around, pulling the plastic away, and repositioning it to smudge it up/transfer some paint onto other colors.

The problem (and I suspected this may happen) was that spray paint (decanted into a bottle and brushed on) dries too fast. I ended up with a pattern I didn't like, and on top of that, if Aervoe paint is applied too heavily, it tends to become glossy. Ugh.

[Emptymag]

Here's the only pic I took while doing the initial "brushed on" method.
I only share this mess to demonstrate how I was able to transform it into something much, much betterer!

I had it hanging from the ceiling on a coat hanger hooked into the front QD hole on the handguard, so I could move/twist the rifle around as I painted.




Here are a few closeups of the initial "WTF did I do?" paint job.








Aside from being horribly GLOSSY, it wasn't ALL terrible, but I realized that I had started trying to "paint a pattern" vs just applying large, blocky areas of color - I started to try and get detailed/creative and it ruined the effectiveness of the camo pattern.

I think part of my issue was that instead of using just two colors like the Rhodesian camo, I was using three, as I felt there wasn't enough contrast between the brow/green Field Drab and the dark green Marine Corps Green.

Hell, someone will probably say they like this better than the final result. Camo appreciation is often in the eye of the beholder.

More on how I masked off certain things coming up next...

[Emptymag]

I masked the lenses of the optic, the trigger, and the opening where the charging handle goes with painter's tape.
That was about all I could cover with tape - I had to think of a way to cover some tiny stuff I didn't want to get paint on/in.
I figured for the turrets on the red dot, I could just apply carefully avoiding anywhere that paint could get inside and gum them up.

How about the little stuff like the screws for the handguard and optic? I wanted something "formable" to fill them in, yet be easy to remove.
SILLY PUTTY! I haven't bought Silly Putty in 40 years. Hint: at Walmart, it's not in the toy department - it's with the crafts.

I wasn't planning on doing a tutorial, so I don't have pics of the Silly Putty covering stuff prior to painting.
Here you can see that I filled the screws on the red dot mount as well as covering the spring for the dust cover.
I also put some in the tiny hole that houses the detent/spring for the rear take down pin because I wanted to keep paint out of there.



I also smashed some onto the mag release button and the bolt release to keep the fine "grooves" free of paint.






Silly Putty pulled out of one hex head screw on the handguard...





The Silly Putty worked, but is does move a bit in 90+ temps. I had a few fall off, but replaced them easily enough.

[Emptymag]

Here's the three paints I used.
I decided to use my second choice method of camo painting to fix my initial disaster - sponge painting.

(the plastic trimer string case was sprayed to test the colors on something black)








You need to pick the right kind of sponge pieces - the ones that are more hole filled/fuzzy are best for more "spotty" application.






I just sprayed the paint onto paper plates, dabbed the sponges, and starting with one color at a time, began to go over my first attempt, making some areas wider, and dabbing one color over the next along where each color meets.
The lightest color was applied last and I tried to put it next to the darkest green to create a strong contrast area.
I probably could have stopped applying the light color sooner, but overall, I think it turned out well.

Sort of a woodland tiger stripe sort of thing.