So I am looking at cerakoting my firearms myself and was wondering if anyone who has used the cerakote C could supply some feedback on its durability and wear. My firearms are used for hunting and occasional target practice. I'm not dragging them down my driveway or practicing combat drills with the local militia. Just curious how it holds up against constant reholstering and bouncing around on the back seat.

I can read the cerakote website so please don't copy and paste the high temp application stuff or the importance of prep work. I understand that.

My thought process is this...cerakote stuff such as complete ARs, 700 actions and barrels, and Glock slides for the sole purpose to prevent rust. It is very humid here and that combined with my sweat makes surface rust pop up over night.

Edit to add that if you did it yourself did you simply soak in acetone or did you blast it. I am curious on how well just a good soak and scrub job will do if done thoroughly

In my experience C series cerakote has been very durable. I've used it by request on handguns, optics, Yeti Ramblers, barrels, car and motorcycle parts, knives, etc...

Some say it doesn't hold up as well as the H series variant, but depending on how the item is being used, I haven't seen it wear all that much faster.

The people running around with C series on their hand guns have the same luck with kydex holsters where you can't predict when it'll show wear. I've used it on knives in my shop and then used those knives after full cure to create holes in acetone cans to dry them out, and the cerakote didn't really wear until I had been doing it for about 4 months on cans, boxes, paper, etc..

Now with that said, to address the part about prep. On all of the cases above, except maybe a couple, everything was fully prepped as I would items being done in H series. On that knife I spoke about before there was no prep at all except an acetone cleaning. (Kershaw knife.) One some optics I'll use to steel wool (000 or 0000. Something very fine that you can't really feel major changes, but they do the job without hurting the optic. There there's always the other few odd jobs here and there where you have to adjust your technique for best results.

Long story short, I highly urge you to prep your items, as you'll have better results. If you don't mind doing it again and are limited on prep, you'll find that the cerakote will stick and do its job, but the chance exists that you'll have premature wear. Not a big deal if it's just a quick job that you know you'll do again in the future either.

To touch base on barrels a little more. I air cure them whenever possible because it performs better when heated up. I typically blast them, but there have been the few experiences when I was experimenting and tried either wiping them down with acetone or steel whool or even a green scrub pad. The parts took the cerakote just fine and I've never had a customer come to me with a problem, but I did tell them up front that if they ever have an issue, I'd be happy to redo it. This is normally only done with close friends and family so I can closely monitor the job in the future too.

Thanks for the in depth info. I have begun blasting a few items but laziness is tempting me to rough them up some and soak. Justhe waiting on the cerakote to come in

For most surfaces, you can scrub them with a finer grade of Scotchbrite and denatured alcohol and be set to paint. Bead blasting of course leaves a polished surface that aren't rough enough for adhesion, but a good scrub as outlined above really helps a blasted finish. I still like bead blasting to clean up a surface and to uniform the texture of metals whenever metalwork has been done.

I have done a good bit of Ceracote C Series and I like the air cure. I started following the exact steps from NIC, but have changed it up a little. The large parts are fairly easy to do the "proper" way. The small parts, at least for me, are not to easy to do. I use either a mini HVLP sprayer or an airbrush, but both have enough air pressure to move the small parts around if they are not secured.
Following the steps from NIC, for me got a little cumbersome. So I changed them around a little.
Now I blast them, then hang them, completely soak with de-greaser twice, blow off with compressed air, air dry and then I coat them.