Posted: 3/2/2005 12:54:24 PM EDT
| Out of the finishes like Armor Tuff, Kimpro, Armory Kote. Which one is going to hold up the best to daily carry. I want to send my stainless champion and have a little more carry bevel put on it and the slide and frame tightened up and figured might as well get a new finish. Any other suggestions would be great also. Thanks. |
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All the finishes you listed will basically hold up the same. With use and holster miles they will all wear eventually. About the only finish that doesn’t wear off is hard chrome. If you must have a high-tech spray-on/bake-on finish my first choice would be Black-T followed by Bear Coat. |
 Do some more research. Modern baked-on epoxy-based coatings have about as much in common with paint as a Model T does with a BMW. If you tried one and it chipped off, you didn't prepare the surface correctly. And bluing is the LEAST durable gun finish. |
Hmmmm..... So, it's thick paint. Not even close to the protection of hard chrome. |
Im sure the wife will understand that.
I never said that bluing was durable. I said I like it best.  I've also done plenty of research on the paint. Black T, ArmorTuff, Baercoat....it's ALL PAINT. It's a helluvalot tougher than the finish on my car, but it WILL wear...unless it's on a safe queen. My blued guns will wear faster than the painted guns. I know this, and I understand this, and I accept this. The difference (in my opinion) is simply that wear on a blued gun looks considerably better than the same kind of wear on a 'painted' gun. If you are planning to actually USE the gun for something other than safe queen, it WILL wear....and again, IMO, it will look about as pretty as a fishbowl full of assholes. (take a look at Lumpy's 'painted' Wilson in the 1911 pics thread. He USES his gun) |
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I just got my Kimber slide back, done in KGI GunKote. I hav heard people say theirs has chipped off in months (which is due to poor prep), and others say that, with daily carry, it has lasted years. i agree though that i would personally keep a SS gun SS. I do like the feel of my Kimber with the new finish though. |
You did research and still think Black-T is paint? My guess is nobody copied off your homework in school. Black-T is NOT paint...not even close. It is a metal treatment. PLEASE know what you are talking about BEFORE you open your mouth. You just look foolish... |
Shades, you have a way with calling someone out. I was all prepared to argue with you...but you're 100% correct about the Black T, and I'll eat my crow now  . I humbly apologize. I just spent the last half hour on the phone with Mr Walter Birdsong, the inventor of Black T. (no website, but his phone # is 601-939-7448. Very nice man, loves to talk about his invention and acted like he has all the time in the world to discuss refinishing a single pistol for a single customer...regardless of the FBI and SOCOM contracts he already has) Black T is definately NOT a paint. I might even send in a few of my own guns for treatment. Thank you for prompting me to get more info edited to be nicer with my reply |
lol. Apology accepted! I also spoke with Mr Birdsong about 4 months ago (and had the exact experience you just did) and was so impressed that I sent him my Les Baer Commanche Monolith Heavyweight and my Colt AR. Excellent, AMAZING finish. I've had guns that were Bear Coated (Teflon S) and Black T is light years ahead of it. I HIGHLY recommend you send one off to him. |
I really didn't mean my "BS" post to sound so abusive. My apologies. The comment about bluing being non-durable was also a cheap shot on my part. I need to turn down my grumpy knob.  I have been looking at, handling and messing around with a lot of different finishes. That DOESN'T make me an expert, nor even "knowledgable." I have been researching these finishes lately because I plan on doing Gun-Kote on a current project. Most of these new coatings are epoxy-based. They really work quite differently from paint. They need to be thermally triggered to harden, and they need to bond mechanically to the surface. I don't know what your experience with two-part epoxy is, but it is very, very tough. I do have a B-I-L who is in the coatings business and he regards epoxy-based coatings as among the most durable finishes you can put on anything from tools to buildings and everything in-between. They are extremely resistant to abrasion, corrosion, and chipping, because they are extremely hard, sometimes impregnated with solid lubricants, and bonded INTO the surface of the metal. I had a disaster on my hands with one project that went off the rails and ended up being sold as a pile of parts. I had fine emery sanded a pistol smooth and used an epoxy-based finish. It all chipped off, a total loss. A bummer, but it forced me to do more homework on my current project. I actually ended up having a good discussion with two of the guys at K-Guard and they were very helpful in working out how these coatings must be applied. The surface of the metal needs to be ALUMINUM OXIDE blasted. This sets up the right "profile" for the surface. What I learned is that if you were to cut a piece of metal with a good profile, and look at it under the microscope, you'de see that the surface is a continuous range of jagged peaks and valleys. This allows the epoxy to flow into the microscopic valleys and bond deeply with the metal. Bead blasting these surfaces is actually the worst possible thing you can do to them, because it flattens the profile and gives the epoxy nowhere to grip. I have a factory gun with one of these finishes, a CZ75D-PCR. The finish is very tough. I have had it sitting in a holster for months, under the seat of my truck, handled it all the time and shot it at the range a lot, it never looks anything other than brand new. No scratches, marks, chips NOTHING. Now maybe your buddies with the worn-looking pistols do a lot more with their weapons. I do know that I've spent a lot of time researching this stuff. There are a LOT of people who have these finishes and can testify that years of use/abuse leave them looking as good as day one. My point earlier is that when you say "paint," you're lumping it in with everything from watercolor to Krylon. These new finishes are way, way ahead of anything like paint in the toughness of the surface they create. They don't "dry" like paint, they must be heated to the point where the chemicals will begin to combine and harden as all epoxy does. They also don't rely on being thick to be tough. Gun_Kote is designed to provide optimal results at .004". That's so thin it can be used on internal parts without altering their fit. Anyways, I'm not an expert, like I said. But paint it ain't! |