Hello
Ok I have used gunkote for quite a while but now I want to give duracoat a shot. Has anybody out there tried BOTH? if so what are some of your thoughts and impresions?

IPSC_GUY sends

duracoat seem to be thicker. they both wear great on the parts I have seen

i have used DuraCoat, and it is excellent.

VERY durable!
[img]http://photos.ar15.com/WS_Content/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?sAccountUnq=19876&iGalleryUnq=1187&iImageUnq=20320[/img]

Ive used Duracoat and KGguncoat and the Duracoat is 10 times tougher than KG...8 months ago I did 10 mags in each...The KG still look good but are showing wear and the Duracoated ones still look like i just took them out of the oven..............UNDERDOG
Edited to add pic:Duracoat is on the left KG on the right..Both mags are in my "range stash"
so they have about the same usage
[img]HTTP://users.adelphia.net/~masine/mags.JPG[/img]

Ok that is pretty telling. I have the dura coat on hand and am waiting for the gun kote to come in. Guess I am gonna try the dura coat.

IPSC_GUY

The pic explains it best, thankyou!

underdog, how did you prep your mags for the Duracoat?? Also what color did you use??

Well When I say "I" i meant "My buddy Rob Did it while I watched and drank Corona" [:)]
Anyway They need to be cleaned completely,..Dish soap is fine...Then duracoat has a prep cleaner that you use,...And sprayed and cooked @ around 150deg for like 45 mins IIRC.....You can skip the cooking if you like...They will air dry,The cooking just makes things go faster..The mags in the pics are both OD green.............UNDERDOG

This is why I usually recommend Duracoat.  A good variety of colors (which can be mixed), it's a firearms finish and not just a paint, it's a durable finish, and it's very simple to use as prepping is easy (no MEK's required) and you don't even have to back it if you don't want, but if you do, you can do so at low temps like 120deg.

I was just wondering on the prep on mags for Duracoat because grit blasting the powder coat off Usgi`s I wouldn`t want to damage the hard coat anodizing underneath. Any tips??

I wouldnt recomend any "blasting" on usgi's....Simple degrease and go....If youve got some that have been painted or the overcoat is coming off try 2+2 or something...Blasting will leave a pebblegrain in the anodizing(sp?)..........UNDERDOG

Where can I find Duracoat and the prep cleaner to go with it?

How much does it cost?

Lauer's website is [url=www.lauerweaponry.com]here[/url]

Are you certain it isn't just paint?   According to GunPlumber from ARS, Duracoat is just repackaged Sherwin Williams industrial grade epoxy.  He even gave the Sherwin Williams paint codes for the Duracoat colors in a post on falfiles.  I believe ARS is who HK-USA recommends and uses for refinish jobs so I'd think he'd be pretty informed on the subject...

Rocko

Ok,
having now done my pistola in OD green Duracoat I am going to give my impressions. First GunKote is much thinner and that will prove to be a big part of the difference. Now as for Duracoat just being paint. After using it I think it is just that however it is a two part (probably epoxy based) paint. Now before everyone goes Gee paint isn’t that durable I wouldn’t put it on my gun, I have to tell a story. Before being cursed with orders taking me from Hawaii to North Carolina I used to be (and will one day be again) a mountain climber. For two years I even took up Ice climbing and would travel to New Zealand and Canada to climb frozen waterfalls. My Ice AXES took a beating and when I decided to repaint them I found a bright (find the body yellow as my girlfriend used to call it) paint that was a two-part epoxy polyamide. It proved to be insanely durable. I bashed the hell out of those axes and there are only minor minor nicks in them even to this day. So Paints can be very durable.
Now the Duracoat seems to go further and is a still fairly thin liquid. Not as thin as the Gunkote by any means and not as flat either. So what I did was I sandblasted everything using sand vice glass beads and then lightly Gunkoted every thing that might rust. Baked those parts at the 300 degrees for an hour. Then I set the oven to 150 (as low as my oven will go) and let the parts cool to 150. The I started airbrushing light coats of the Duracoat on letting each piece sit for about 30 minutes while I worked on another and using this method I was able to get several thin coats on each piece before discovering that if you hold the airbrush further away and shoot short blasts a very nice matte texture takes hold. Anyway all said and done the Duracoat looks like a good way to go since this pistol had a polymer grip I did not want to expose it to 300 degrees for an hour. So for tiny nook and cranny stuff the Gunkote wins because it is so thin. For high wear areas Duracoat has my vote. I will eventually get pics up and oh yes Duracoat goes over guncoat just fine.

IPSC_GUY sends

Bad choice of words on my part.  While I believe it is a paint type product, it's better than many of the other types of paints.  Some paints actually work quite well.  Finishing a firearm though a chemical process still exposes the metal, and metal coat finishes can be affected in the ways metal does.  Duracoat doesn't have the advantages that say, teflon impregnated metal finishes do, but it is tough.  Besides chemical treatments and metal coatings, epoxy and resins seem to make up most of the remainder.  Whatever paint Duracoat may be, it seems very well suited as a finish and more so than some of the other paints out there, especially when it comes to reacting with solvents.

i also have a pistola in OD green duracoat. the finish done by lauer is perfect. seems very durable to me.

i don't care if it may technically be a "paint." is anything that sprays on NOT a paint? hey, an ancient datsun 210 and twin turbo supra are both cars, right?