So, apparenly I can't get images to embed...dunno why.  In any event, you are stuck with links.  

EDIT:  Thanks for the help.

I decided, after seeing the thread floating around the interwebs about dying polymer parts, that I needed to undertake a project doing just that.

So, I went a little crazy and put together a tribute to my dark lord and master, Cthul....er....ummm...I mean, a tribute to a favorite author, H.P. Lovecraft.  

Why, you might ask?  Because I wanted a one-of-a-kind rifle.  One.  Of.  A.  Kind.  

I think I got it.

First, the basics, rear to front.

VLTOR EMOD stock
Spike's buffer tube/buffer, lower, and upper
RRA 2-stage trigger LPK
FailZero BCG
BCM Gunfighter charging handle
Magpul MIAD grip and BUIS, as well as 7 PMags
Daniel Defense 16" chrome-lined 1-in-7 barrel
YHM lightweight rifle-length handguard with endcap
Grippod foregrip
KwikGuard rail covers
AAC Blackout flash hider

I think thats about it.  Its a Burris AR-536 optic I am trying out on top.

It was a lot of work...three hours or so of actual rifle assembly, WEEKS of design, masking, dying, drying, re-dying, etc. on the polymer parts.

And, here it is:





And some close-ups...









All of the quotes on the parts are from either Lovecraft's personal correspondence, or directly from his stories.  Some examples:

"I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness..."  (on the MIAD grip)

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."  (along the right side)

"If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences." (magazine)

"We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight." (along the top)

"The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind." (along the bottom)

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” (spread out over two mags)

"Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity." (magazine)

"Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal." (foregrip)

"It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients—or their lack—and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws." (magazine)

Not everything thats on there, by any means, but a lot of it.  Here are a couple photos of parts of the process:









Anyway, I just thought I would share my sickness with the world...enjoy!

IA!  IA!  PH'NGLUI MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU RY'LYEH WGAH'NAGL FTHAGN!

Damn man, that is a hell of a lot of work.  Looks great!

10/10 for creativity man. Not my thing, but it looks really good.

Is your front sight on backwards?

Yeah...it probably won't be many people's thing.  LOL  

Its a toy.  I freely admit that.  And it makes me happy to be cheek-to-cheek with Cthulhu...

I don't think so.  A better question would be...does it matter?  I push a button, it pops up, and is only adjustable for elevation.  Looks better like this, gives me more room for rail covers, and more room for words.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

that's bad ass.



ia!  ia!  shub niggurath


 

Interesting. Very creative.

Yes, it's on backwards, but I do the same thing with rifles that use light mounts.

OP that is a extremely cool build.  Makes for a conversation piece.

Admit it, you are the guy who makes Dr Brohner's soap...

The front sight is on backwards but it's not a huge deal. If it works it works. You can flip it around and still have the same around of room on the rail just about.

That being said, this rifle is awesome and it came out friggin' awesome. Lots of hard word and it paid off. The gun is extremely unique, and even though I don't know what the F any of the sayings are from, it still looks awesome and subtle enough to still almost pull off being camo. Great job.

placeholder for pics, edited
 
 

 


 

And a GIANT, Yog-Sothoth-sized shout out of thanks to FortyFiveAutomatic, who helped me get the pictures embedded.

Thank you, sir.  

You squid guys are weird ..

But.

I like what you did.

 

I just giggle a little inside every time someone worries about zombies, or disease, or power outages or some other nonsense...

Every good cultist knows how the world will REALLY end.  When the stars are right, of course.  Apparently FortyFive is on board...  

Yog-Sothoth knows the Gate...
Yog Sothoth IS the Gate...
Yog-Sothoth is the Key, and the Guardian of the Gate...

it looks very nice

you did a nice job

I just lost 35 Sanity just reading it.

La mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqqa sarmadi
Fa idha yaji' al-shudhdhadh fa-l-maut qad yantahi.

Thats a big hit!  

Glad I could help.  I'm curious though...that seems like a lot of sanity to have left...it would have put me WAY below zero.  Got any left?  

I'll drink to that!

My Ref says "You feel happier" if that helps.  

On a semi-related note, we watched the Destination Truth episode where they went to Antarctica.  I kept waiting for them to head to the Mountains of Madness but alas they didn't get past the Wordie hut.

The black goat of the woods with a thousand young approves.

*groan* c'thun reference. =P

This has got to be the coolest custom AR's I have ever seen. Thanks for sharing.

Now we need one from the Miskatonic University Shooting Team.

Words fail me, and I am humbled by your creation.

huge lovecraft fan ...........i like it

+1.

Incredible attention to detail, nicely done.

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Thanks for the encouraging comments, gang.  I own other rifles, but this was the very first one I put together from scratch.

This one made me laugh out loud:



Nicely done.

Holy Crap man!

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.  Surely you will be eaten first.

To dream the impossible dream of being the first chosen!  Sir, you flatter me.

And I certainly hope this is NOT the coolest thing you have ever seen.  Perhaps ONE OF the coolest things, as a qualifier.  

First, as others have said that is truly awesome.  

In one of the pictures you can see a little bottle of squeeze-type fabric paint.  Thats what I used for all of the masking.  Paint it on, let it dry, and it holds up through the dying process.  It can be kind of hard to remove, though.  If you put it on thick, it will peel off ok.  If its thinner, it sticks like crazy, and I used a paint-remover that wouldn't damage plastic/polymer to soften it and then scrubbed it off with hot water and a plastic brush.

Basically, I dyed everything the really light green (yellow RIT dye over the base FDE), then started the painting/masking.  Each step, I went darker on the dye (apple gree, dark green, then black) and added more masking.  Simple as that.  Just time-consuming.

Awesome.

A C'thulu roll mark would PWN.

Thank you sir for the response.  Your eye for detail and patience I hope to model for some of my future projects.

Don't be scared!  The Old Ones hate cowards!

But seriously...

My suggestion is this:  Buy a package or two of FDE Magpul XTM Rail Covers.  They are small, and you can use each one essentially twice as "test pieces."  What I did was this:

Get an old cooking pot from Goodwill.  Buy the colors of (liquid) RIT dye you want to try.  Get the rail cover pieces and a notebook.

Put 1 cup or 2 cups of water in the pot.  Add in 1 or 2 teaspoons of the dye.  Bring to almost boiling...just the point where it is starting to bubble.  With a pair of pliers, just hold half of one of the rail cover pieces in the liquid for 1 or 2 minutes.  Pull it out, and rinse it off.

At this point, you have:

a) amount of water
b) amount of dye
c) time

Record all of these things in your notebook, and write a number on your piece in sharpie.  So, you might put a "1" on the little half of the rail cover, and your notebook might read:
1) 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon dye, 1 minute.

The other half might be labled 2, and maybe you hold it in the dye for an extra minute, so the notebook reads:
2) 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon dye, 2 minutes.

Keep doing this, with different mixtures and times.  You will end up with a bunch of data and samples.

After everything is dry, and you have a bunch of little samples and the notes on how you made them, you will be able to decide exactly what you want to do to your real pieces.  If you have bigger pieces to dye, you can always scale up your formula in a larger pot.  Thats all I did.

I usually got my best results with 2 teaspoons of dye per cup of water for 2 minutes.  But you have to test it our for yourself and decide what you like.

Hope this helps!

Well now that rifle would make a trip through Dunwich much safer.
Oh man I love it. Just a wonderful piece of art.
Art inspires and I went downstairs and got out my old Lovecraft paperbacks, haven't read them for 30 years since college but I'm going to start reading them again.

That's amazing!
 

No Nyarlathotep, no insanity.

Where am I... ? ...

there are many rifles but none like yours! very nice work you would make a college art teacher very proud.

So, despite my hectic work schedule, I FINALLY got to go to a local range and make the Old Ones happy with a little ritual shooting.

Pulled off the optic (it was only on finger-tight for the pictures), popped up the Magpul sights, chambered a round, and squeezed the trigger.  And what do you know!  My very first build, and the Old Ones smiled!  It didn't explode, and functioned flawlessly!  I guess this really ISN'T rocket surgery (or brain science!).

Even better, the MBUS sights were pretty close to right on...a quick boresight to make sure I was on paper, then no adjustment on the rear sight, and only one half-turn down on the front (was hitting a little low), and it was dropping in shots just below the bull at 50 yards.  Easy as pie.  Put on the AR-536 and tightened it down, peered down the bore again to make sure I was on paper, and did some minor adjustments to get close, then walked over to the 100 yard range.  THe AR-536 BDC is calibrated for 100 yard-zero.  Supposedly.  You know, if you have the right ammo, correct muzzle velocity, etc. etc. etc.  Whatever.  100 yards it is.

First few shots were high and right, walked it down towards the bull with the adjustments, and started shooting, three rounds at a time.  Another half-dozen toward the center, then three at each outer circle.  Here are the results:



I know, I know...sucktackular, right?

Bear in mind a few things:

This is with nothing more than M855 green-tip ammo.  Not using match ammo or anything.
I was shooting from an old wooden bench using the grip pod on the front (not exactly a Harris Bipod or Bench Rest) and a couple 2x4's at the back to steady the arms.
I suck at shooting.  

With those three things in mind, I think the rifle did pretty damn good.  With a real shooter, from a real bench, with real ammo, I am certain these groups would get a lot smaller.  As it is, the three-shot groups are anywhere from 1/2" to 2", and the 9-shot group in the middle is 3" on the dot, a lot less if you subtract my mess-up low left.  Jerk the trigger much?

AND...the best, cherry-picked three-shot utterly meaningless I-got-lucky-as-hell group of the day:




So...the rifle is great.  I believe the Old Ones are pleased.  Or would be, anyway, IF THEY GAVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT HUMANITY!

The AR-536?  Meh.  Its...ok.  Good points and bad points.

Good:  
Pretty light and compact compared to a "real" scope.
Seems pretty rugged.
Kind of a no-brainer item...built in base, not a lot of adjustments, etc.
super-clear glass, reticle, and the reticle illuminates in red...OR GREEN!  Like CTHULHU!

Bad:
Not exactly a precision instrument.  The center dot covers 3" at 100 yards.  Box says 2.4", but it covered one of the 3" black circles exactly.  Means you will hit somewhere in the black circle...thats about it.
Very short eye-relief.  Not QUITE nose-to-the-charging-handle, but damn close.  Gives you very few options about BUIS.  Mine are as far back as they can get.  If I went without BUIS, I could get another 1.5"-2" rearward with the AR-536.  But I don't want to.
No QD option.
Kind of tall for mounting a reflex sight on top of.  I'm going to anyway...I have a Primary Arms microGREENdot coming to put on top.  We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I just thought I would share the inital results.  At some point, I am hoping to take it back, maybe get a serious bench rest and some match ammo, and sight it in GOOD.  We'll see.  Good enough for now, I think.  I can pop zombies in the head at 100-200 yards pretty good...you know, after the zombiepocalypse on 12/21.  Zombies should cower in fear of m....ummm...hmm.  I guess zombies don't really fear much.  Oh well.  See all you other survivors on 12/22!

IA!  IA!  CTHULHU FTHAGN!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHJUrcVdJk[/youtube]
Little Cthulhu would approve of your toy!

There's always the good old "Calls for Cthulhu" too.  Lots of episodes.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qoG8nKLPto&feature=relmfu

Very cool!