PVD vs Spray-n-Bake Finishes... NO CONTEST
Well, Robar advertises that "all customers are satisfied" and I can assure you that I am not one of them as is a close friend of mine. I had a Kimber TLE II and he a Glock 23 that was flaking off after just one magazine of amunition. Well, they did refinish the pistols, but things aren't much better.
To top things off the finish is quite slippery. And it wore off on all of the edges ad contact surfaces of the Blade-Tech IWB holster draws. At about 500 presentations and reholsterings I could detect wear. At 1100 there is noticeable wear. I then satisfied my research with physical vapor deposition coatings and contacted MMI in El Cahon, CA where they applied TiAlN to my Springfield TRP. Changes in management precluded me from offering that service for more than about 1.25 years - about the time I had concluded my testing.
I've run 5,000 rounds thru a Titanium Aluminum Nitride-coated 1911 and showed only minor wear on the rear of the frame rail.
The Tugsten Diamond-like Carbide (W DLC)-coated Springfield 1911 has gone thru about 3,000 rounds - and counting - with no lubrication and it has shown NO wear. Perhaps the fact that I had the smith polish the rails - it was too tight for my purposes when new - played some effect. I dunno.
Both pistols have undergone well over 5,000 holster draws from a Blade-Tech IWB holster and the only thing I get is exceedingly thin layers of kydex deposited on the slide near the front cocking serrations, intermittently along the dust cover and along the trigger guard. A thin amount of oil applied to the surface and a razor blade lifts the plastic depositions off of the coating.
Both of these customized TRPs are daily carry and shooting school guns so they are not babied. The only way to remove the coating is to damage the underlying metal, say, by puncturing the slide or frame with a pointed object like a nail. In fact, I will have the first TRP coated with W DLC to make them both identical, however, either coating is satisfactory. Perhaps the W DLC is better due to having a 2 micron layer of electroless Nickel applied before the 4 micron layer of W DLC is applied. Phenomenal process (I've witnessed it being applied at their open house in Michigan facility) and I can PERSONALLY attest to the wearability of the coating. Of course, one could purchase a "Nitron"-coated Sigarms product and test it for themselves for less money than I spent on .45 ACP... But I can assure you I shoot exceedingly well after all of the live fire and dry fire drills I've conducted over the last 2.5 years.
I am absolutely convinced and the links provided will take you thru the saga of determining "the best damned coating" for a fighting firearm.
The finishes alluded to above are THE BEST POSSIBLE finishes with any publicly released technology.
Research it for self.
