I bought this older Bushmaster leo trade-in a while back and it had been repainted.  I looked decent but it was very easily scratched and when I went to really do a deep clean yesterday the solvent actually started to take the paint off and it really looked terrible.

I did some research and figured I would try some paint stripper and see what happens.  Worst case It looks like garbage and I have to re-paint it again and best case it looks like a beat up old rifle and we can assume that's why it was repainted in the first place.

I picked up some aircraft paint stripper and brake clean and went to work.  Pulled it all down, soaked it up, and let set for 40 minutes or so.  The paint literally dripped off in a caustic mess.  I wiped it all down with a towel and it took about 80% of it off.  Soaked it a second time and let it sit for an hour this time.  The stripper actually dried and everything that was paint had turned into brownish powder.  I rinsed everything off with the brake clean and let it dry.  It looked like hammered dog shit.  I was going to give up but decided to try and clean all the brownish residue off by hand.  I took it inside and poured out a little jar of Hoppes and went to work with a couple tooth brushes.  Too my surprise it worked excellent.  After about 2 hours of scrubbing, cleaning, re-oiling everything, going through about a dozen q-tips, it came out excellent.  The Anodize looks almost factory and there's only a few light scratches on the receiver and on the barrel from where I assume it was mounted in a police cruiser; hardly worth trying to cover it up by painting the entire rifle.  Even the buttstock looks great and I found white dots hiding on the front sight post that had been painted over.  Looks like a different rifle.  

Before:


Soaking:




Post cleaning:


Assembled:

Very nice....wonder why a LEO would just paint it black? Glad it turned out nice for ya.

Looks Great!
A little time and effort brought your rifle to life.  Nice job.

I have an upper to strip.  What aircraft stripper did you use?  I was going to buzz the automobile store and look for some paint stripper or acetone.  I'll entertain any suggestions. Blasting with brake cleaner is a given, I'd like to avoid Q-Tips.

Damn that's nice.  I miss those old school Windham BFI lowers.

Looks sweet man!

If you see the second photo, thats what I used.  I tried to find it at Homedepot but could only find it at an Autoparts store.  Not home right now but ill get you the exact stuff when I get home.

That worked out great! Rifle looks good!

That looks good!

Well worth the effort....it looks great!

Outstanding. Good work.

You need to un-A2 stock that too.