Painting your rifle

I know many people are apprehensive to paint their rifle(s). If you have a black AR15 style rifle, you should considering doing so. In the woods, that black rifle will stick out like a sore thumb. A poorly painted rifle will blend better than a black rifle.

There are plenty of how-to videos on YouTube for painting a rifle.

I reluctantly painted mine. The great thing about going cheap on painting is that you can change your paint scheme whenever you feel like it. Once I made the decision to paint it, this is how I did it.

Materials:

3-4 cans of Rustoleum "Camouflage" line spray paint. Khaki, Deep Forest, Army Green, and Earth Brown.

1 can Gun Scrubber 

1 can of Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter. 

1 can Krylon Matte Finish 

1 Del-Ton Sierra 316H rifle.

Cost of paint materials: about $25.00

Paint and matte finish came from Wal-Mart

Adhesion promoter came from Advance Auto Parts

Process:

In a well ventilated area I liberally sprayed my rifle down with the gun scrubber. Using the pressurized spray makes this much easier. I let the gun dry then sprayed it down a final time letting it dry afterwards until it was dry to the touch. 

I closed the dust cover to the bolt and packed the mag well with paper towels.

I then sprayed the rifle with the adhesion promoter which you can get at any auto parts store and let it dry.

Next I sprayed the rifle with the khaki color until I had a good coat. I used the khaki as a primer/base color. This was done to allow the OD green and the brown to take to the rifle better.

Then came the OD green followed with stripes of brown.

Now, I did get a little splatter from the paint because of some wind. I honestly don't care. I originally had more a khaki color as the base and then used a mesh onion bag to add depth with green and brown. That color scheme did not blend so well in North Florida, so I changed it.

Finally, I sprayed the rifle with the matte finish to seal it. It works. The paint is less likely to chip. It isn't really necessary though as it takes a quick spray to touch up anything that may have chipped. 

The whole process took about an hour. 

Lastly, you will want to let this air dry for a few hours. Ideally, you have a fan to speed the process. Unless, you want your room to smell like spray paint, this is a must. 

I have added some photos of the final product below. If I don't think this looks cool next month, I'll change it. After all, looking cool is what matters, right?