Painted MRP AR15 barrel (PICS)

[Zak Smith]

How I painted my MRP barrel, or
Keep Aluma-Hyde II away from me!

My MRP has the 18" SS barrel,
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I've got a bunch of cans of Aluma-Hyde II in my garage, so I got to thinking:

Make sure threads are totally masked and muzzle is covered. On the breech end, mask from the rear gas tube retaining ring rearward. This picture has 1" too much masked.
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You can see the mask mistake here.
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I remasked it and painted the extra 1", and here's how it turned out:
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Details:

Remove the muzzle device, then remove the MRP barrel from the upper. I carefully cleaned and degreased the barrel, with careful attention around the gas block, with bore solvent, some spray gun cleaner, and finally isopropyl alcohol. Masking was done carefully with regular masking tape.

I heated the barrel with a heat gun for a couple minutes, then applied 5 thin coats of Coyote Brown AHII, using the heat-gun for 3 minutes in between coats. Then I let it sit for two days next to a light heat source. Re-torqued the MRP screws to 6.5 ft*lbs and there you go.

The magazine was also refinished in CB AHII. I ran out of Perma-Slik while refinishing my mags, had one left, so I cleaned it, degreased it, and applied two coats of AHII. No clearance problems seating the mag. Looks good!

Next: paint lower, ACOG, bottom of M93A tube.

 

[greasemonkey862002]

i must say that is a beuatiful rifle. great job on the paint!

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Zak, please let us know how the paint holds up to barrel heat.

 

[AK103K]

Nice looking rifle there Zak!

Aluma Hyde II is great stuff! I have done a couple of guns, a bunch of stocks and furniture, scopes, knife handles, even a bike with it and it has held up very well. As for the affect of barrel heat on it, there is none, at least none on my one AK that was done with it. Its been on for about three years now and shows no effect or damage from heat. The rifle has been shot to way past "to hot to touch" on numerous occasions too. It also has held up very well to daily use and abuse as this rifle goes into my truck each morning and back out at night. It even was over painted in camo with model paints, which were later removed with Gun Scrubber and while the model paint came right off, the Aluma Hyde wasnt even fazed by it.

 

[RooK]

Seen a lot of your work on the 6.8 over on ARFcom. I highly appreciate it.

Nice rifle. Love the paintjob and contrast in colors. Any chances you could get a good sideview on a nice, solid background? You're braver than me to be painting an ACOG.

 

[Zak Smith]

Best I've got is this (note stock):
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I don't think painting the ACOG will be very difficult; it will just require careful masking of the fiber-optic and lenses.

-z

 

[Damon]

That looks really nice.