Why Do People "Paint" Firearms ?

[Timothy]

I solved that problem by moving to where we always ended up vacationing! In the last 18 years I've lived here it wound up paying for a lot of guns, not to mention no airport hassles and lost luggage.    Bill T.

I'm a toe headed Irishman.....I don't do well in the sun so I vacation in the north!  I also never fly.....any more!

 

[twyacht]

I was always worried if I "camo" painted a firearm, I'd lean it against a tree to take a leak turn around and not be able to find it.

 

I guess to each his/her own. I put some white nail polish on the front sight of my M85...

[red364]

I like to paint my guns because you can make them look however you want. Keeps things from getting boring! Besides, I haven't painted them all, just a few.....

[twyacht]

I like to paint my guns because you can make them look however you want. Keeps things from getting boring! Besides, I haven't painted them all, just a few.....

Please don't paint your Walther red,......it just seems wrong in a "Bond" kind of way,....

[m25operator]

My main reason is to blend in, break the outline, sometimes in the case of a Fiberglass stock, it must be covered with something, and also in some cases, texture, you can apply a little truck bed lining around the gripping areas, then paint over that. Most of my painting has been stock only, but my scout rifle and Marlin 336 got the whole treatment, scout rifle barrel, scope, butt cuff and ammo ( just kidding ). Of course if your blind hunting the camo makes no difference, if your stalking or in the combat zone, I think it helps, even if it gets a little chewed looking, it will blend in better.

I have not done it, but I suppose a lot of you have seen snipers using burlap strips, sometimes dyed sometimes not, like a ghillie suit, wrapped around the rifles forend, it makes for amazing low cost camo. My thought was to use fiberglass resin and make this look permanent instead of field expedient.

I think this is from enemy at the gates.


4th 5th and 6th from the left.

Because that is the way the Marine corp did them, the metal is finished in an epoxy coating, and matte. The paint is much to bright for me, to glossy.


Not the best  pic, but my Marlin 336 is done in a subtle black and gray tiger stripe dura coat, with a trijicon reflex, I think it will make an excellent stalker. Picture shows a 3x9, but it has been removed.


It's ok to lust after my 40's vintage Marlin 39a, with Redfield 4x mini scope, wood refinishing by me, to look original oil satin finish.

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

 I don't know how true it is but I have heard that when seen through NVG's black glows like neon, since hearing that I have observed that current issue BDU's use greens and browns but no black.
Best bet is to use a plain matte rifle and different colors of burlap wrap from one season to the next greenish in the spring, green and /or brown in summer and then of course (where it snows ) white in the winter.

[fightingquaker13]

The thing about the burlap has little to do with color (barring white cloth for snow). I have no experience with NVGs and might stand corrected here. Its utiliy is breaking up the outline of the rifle. Unlike the shot from "Enemy at the Gates" you don't just slip a tube sock over the rifle. You tie knots of burlap strips which dangle and breakup the outline. Any good deer hunter will tell you that when scanning the woods you look for three things. Movement, horizontal or other wise anomolous lines, and a different color, in that order. A matte rifle doesn't move and its color is pretty neutral (sort of like a whitetails tan and grey). What the "ghillie" stuff does is break up that unaturally straight out line that attracts the attention of a trained eye. Personally, I don't think cammo finishes do a damn thing but cost money. That said, if I were going into combat and someone offered to duracoat my rifle in cammo I wouldn't say no.
FQ13 who will consider himself skeptical, but willing to be convinced on this issue

[m25operator]

I would not say camo does nothing, if done wrong, like my M40's too shiny attracts attention, Matte black if the whole rifle is done will look like something long and black, maybe and old branch or log if your next to a fallen dead tree, perfect. Laying in the grass, not next to anything but grass, it will stand out. The burlap wrap, which is why I mentioned it, has the ability to blend in with anything, on the ground, I guess because the color is that of dead grass or foliage underneath new growth, and of course it breaks up the outline from the muzzle end.

I have hunted with a ghillie suit, Very cool.

As you can see between the 2 marlins, one is shiny, the other

Here is one I want to do, just because I think its beautiful.

subdued.http://www.lauerweaponry.com/item-detail-colorchoice.cfm?category=240&colorchoice=CPR8.jpg&colortype=pattern

[fightingquaker13]

For snowy woods, that would be the ticket. In Tx. though..... Its kind of like my beef with Treebark, or Real Tree and the rest of the photo realistic cammo patterns.  Its great if you're in the right environment and stationary, if not, not so much. You're a Tx. boy, you might remember a cammo company called Brushland, or something similar from the early '90s. I think they were out of Houston. They got it right. I still hunt in my ratty mesh jacket from them. Likewise, the new US military cammo gets it too.The idea isn't to look like something, its to look like nothing. You don't resemble anything, its just done in washed out colors with a pattern that doesn't really give the eye anything to focus on. You just slip past that initial scan. As to whether having your rifle similary cammoed would help, jury's still out.
FQ13

[Walter45Auto]

I've bought a camo painted slug gun once. Would I ever paint a gun? Maybe.... I doubt it, but maybe. I think Duracoat looks a lot better, though. Would I ever paint, say, a rifle stock? Yeah probably. But if it looked like that SIG in the OP, I'd strip the paint off and re do it....