So got my upper and lower receiver back. It's my first NFA item so it's been hard waiting for it to get finished. Unfortunately I'm still waiting on the rail so I can put the barrel on.
So after reading the initial
thread and not seeing any choices I wanted to go with, I put it a little bit on the back burner. I did know I wanted the upper and lower Cerakoted so I started looking for a place. I had thought of saving some money by trying it myself but decided that I didn't want my first NFA receiver to get messed up. So I found
Three Oaks Cerakote out in Orange which wasn't too far from me. The owner, Donnie, and I emailed back and forth an I asked if he knew anywhere that could do the NFA engraving for me. Luckily, Donnie had just bought a laser and was getting ready to announce that he now did engraving and other services like stippling. I set up a time and went down to his shop.
We talked for about an hour, going over processes, his experience, and helped me choose what color I wanted. Since I am getting a Geissele rail I wanted it to match that. I had brought the Geiessele charging handle I had bought and Burnt Bronze was a pretty good match. I wasn't too sure about the metallic look but decided to go with it after talking to him some more and after Donnie showed me some items he had in process or had finished. We also discussed how I wanted to do my NFA engraving. I had done a little bit of research on where folks had put theirs and I decided on having it put on the trigger guard area of the lower. Donnie had previously only done it on the magwell area and we measured, compared, and decided on a font size and placement. He was busy with March/April work at the time and quoted a turn around of mid-May.
Monday I got a text from Donnie that my receiver set was ready to go and I could pick up when it was convenient for me. We scheduled Tuesday at 1730. Tuesday morning I was looking on Facebook and saw that he had a video up of my lower getting engraved which was pretty cool. Braving the thunderstorm that rolled through I met Donnie at his shop and he showed me the work he had done. The only real hiccup was that the storm had knocked his power out, but he had some shop lights we used. He brought the receivers out, wrapped in shipping cling-wrap for protection. They both looked great and he explained his process again and we went over both pieces and the engraving. We spent about 30 minutes going over things and talking about his business before I left. He went ahead and wrapped the receivers in plastic again and off I went.
I took the plastic off when I got home to see it under sunlight and they looked better than under the LED shoplights. I'm very satisfied with the Cerakoting and I think the engraving came out fantastic: good detail, deep enough to not get clogged with anything, and he got it exactly where I wanted it. If you're in the Spotsylvania area, he's a great choice for engraving or getting things Cerakoted. I highly recommend him.
Pre-unwrapping Attached FileUpper and Lower Attached FileNFA Engraving Attached File