The Pros and Cons of Painting your AR

[jsbhike]

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- Some insect repellents make paint gummy (already mentioned), as do certain oils and cleaning solvents
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DEET is a plasticizer so there are plenty of things common around firearms that it is hard on. In my experience Picaridin works as well without worrying about it dissolving stuff and isn't oily feeling like DEET.

[JediGuy]

2) a wannabe that runs around the woods playing militia. (We called it “playing Army”)

We just went ahead and called it “playing guns.” Preteens can get creative about rules for this sort of thing, too.

[Fordtough25]

I've painted several over the years, works well for making a black rifle blend in to ones environment! It's cheap, fun, and using your natural foliage makes the rifle fit in great. If you hate it grab a can of brake cleaner and go to town! They're just tools anyways right?

[The Rat]

I've painted several over the years, works well for making a black rifle blend in to ones environment! It's cheap, fun, and using your natural foliage makes the rifle fit in great. If you hate it grab a can of brake cleaner and go to town! They're just tools anyways right?

Yep, it's just a tool for a job, agree.

This thread is like the gun guy version "Oh my god Becky, did you see the color of her dress? That is soooo not business casual."

[Yeetster]

At this point i say blast it ...its salad days for ar-15's (and i hope it stays that way) so resell value isn't a real concern for me anyway.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Yep, that's what's happening on both of my painted guns.
The paint job on Gun 01 here could be described as slightly LARPish I guess, since the rattle camo color scheme is a bit unnecessary, but I wanted to give painting an AR a try.


Gun 06, which was more of less a "spare parts" build, was more recently painted. I did the upper and lower receivers back in July, and I finally found paint that matches the color of that Brownells Type D stock almost exactly so I did the handguard/VFG up in brown. While I'm kinda neutral on the camo job on Gun 01, I actually like the grey/brown scheme of this gun. And I don't find it to be LARPish.

It might look like a bit of a goofy configuration overall but I've found it to actually be a pretty good gun.

I think spare-parts-bin builds make for some of the coolest projects. Just something about repurposing unused parts and saving money that gets me to a happy place.

I like how the brown furniture turned out, before I read your comment the Brownells retro AR-10 came to mind.

[Circle_10]

I think spare-parts-bin builds make for some of the coolest projects. Just something about repurposing unused parts and saving money that gets me to a happy place.

I like how the brown furniture turned out, before I read your comment the Brownells retro AR-10 came to mind.

The passing resemblance to the old AR-10 started as a coincidence and then later became intentional when I finally decided to paint the handguard/VFG. I almost went with a leather G3 sling for it for some extra Retro flavor but that seemed a little stupid when I already have a pretty good sling on there

[acb1499]

I always tape off all markings/ engravings, keeps the paint out of engraved letters and you won’t paint over anything lasered. Very reversible, but have never stripped paint on anything.