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Posted: 7/31/2014 2:11:44 PM EDT
[Last Edit: EagleArmsHBAR]
I have painted a few M14s with a tiger stripe pattern and it is quickly becoming my favorite pattern of camo to have on a rifle.  I even prefer it to my sponge camo AR15.  With the method I use to get the pattern, no tape or stencils are required because let's face it, stencils will make the paint have that weird feel to it when the colors border each other and sometimes the paint is on too thick.
Here are the colors I used on the rifles:


Rustoleum Camouflage Kakhi
Rustoleum Camouflage Deep Forest Green
Rustoleum American Accents Satin Nutmeg (desert rifle only)
Rustoleum Flat Brown
Genaric Flat Black (woodland rifle only)

Here are the two M14s I have done.  One in desert and one in Woodland:

Edit: pics are gone of the desert camo rifle.

And my previous desert tiger striped LRB/TRW M14:
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Close ups to show the pattern.




This is the best I can do with a step by step:

Step 1: Choose a base color. In this case I used Kakhi Camo
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Step 2: Spray secondary color #1 on to a paper plate:
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Step 3: Use paintbrush to paint secondary color #1 on to the item:
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Step 4: Repeat step 3 but with secondary color #2:
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Step 5: Use a third secondary color to outline the areas where the primary and secondary colors 1 and 2 meet and then it will look something like this:
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All together pic now:
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Obviously if doing tiger stripe you want the secondary colors to run long ways on the item (parallel to the ground).  The good thing is that if you don't like how it turns out, just hose it down with Break Free Powder Blast and the paint will immediately wetten, thin out, and almost drip off.
Next up I will be doing an urban tiger stripe on a pistol gripped shotgun that I keep in my truck.  Now that the tutorial is up, let's see what you can do!

Here is an update on the desert M1A.  I got to thinking the camo was too vivid in color since one of the colors I used was a satin instead of flat.  So I decided to hit it with some CLP Powder Blast and a paper towel.  This is the result:

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Link Posted: 7/31/2014 2:13:46 PM EDT
[#1]
I like it!

Well done.
Link Posted: 8/3/2014 10:19:01 PM EDT
[#2]
Nice
Link Posted: 8/7/2014 6:41:37 PM EDT
[Last Edit: EagleArmsHBAR] [#3]
I did my truck gun today.
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Link Posted: 8/7/2014 7:02:14 PM EDT
[#4]
Good job, I can't bring myself to personally make the commitment to paint a rifle, but the Vietnam style tiger stripe has always been my favorite paint scheme. I think it is because my grandfather's BAR 30-06 has a plastic stock cover in that design and that was the rifle I grew up shooting at big game. Yours looks excellent and I really like how the shotgun turned out!
Link Posted: 8/7/2014 9:40:18 PM EDT
[#5]
Very cool.  I'm a huge fan of the Vietnam tiger stripe camo.  This was my first attempt.  Used the duracoat, speckled and clear coated." />
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Link Posted: 8/7/2014 10:29:23 PM EDT
[#6]

Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Originally Posted By DRAFT1:


Very cool.  I'm a huge fan of the Vietnam tiger stripe camo.  This was my first attempt.  Used the duracoat, speckled and clear coated.http://<a href=http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss260/DWGLIDE1/IMG_1395Large_zps9e689a33.jpg</a>" />

http://<a href=http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss260/DWGLIDE1/IMG_1396Large_zps896fcd64.jpg</a>" />
View Quote
That's nice.

 
Link Posted: 8/15/2014 9:09:07 AM EDT
[#7]
Based on the three rifles I have painted so far, I think it works best if the base color is a medium color (not too light) because the color that is used for the outlining is best to be the lightest color. I did kind of the opposite of that with the desert camo scheme, so in hindsight I might have made different color choices.
Link Posted: 9/9/2014 11:20:16 PM EDT
[#8]
Did you happen to change your procedure away from the lightest to darkest like in your desert and woodlands tiger stripe for the urban tiger stripe by starting with the medium tone instead?
Link Posted: 9/9/2014 11:38:24 PM EDT
[#9]

Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Originally Posted By HeyCoach:


Did you happen to change your procedure away from the lightest to darkest like in your desert and woodlands tiger stripe for the urban tiger stripe by starting with the medium tone instead?
View Quote
Thanks for asking. Here is how it went down for the two that don't show the paint step by step:



For the jungle tiger:

Primary color: green

Secondary color 1: brown

Secondary color 2: black

Outline color: light tan




For the urban tiger:


Primary color: light grey

Secondary color 1: dark grey

Secondary color 2: black

Outline color: white
Link Posted: 10/11/2014 9:37:40 AM EDT
[#10]
I will try this out tomorrow on a box I use for testing paint schemes and post my results.
Link Posted: 10/13/2014 9:00:48 PM EDT
[#11]
Wow those look great. I'm going to have to try this on a few rifles. Thank you for posting this tutorial.
Link Posted: 11/28/2014 7:53:28 PM EDT
[#12]
Yes very nice It looks amazing in the photos, how is the durability ?  and kind of clear coat  ?
Link Posted: 12/1/2014 6:05:58 PM EDT
[#13]
Great tiger jobs!

This is a Vepr .308 I did a couple years ago, didn't brush it, I handcut each piece of blue tape, and applied between different color coats, then top-coated space that was left with black, then a couple coats of clear (which smoothed out the ridges where different levels/colors of paint meet). Really bright sunny day when I took the pics, so it looks kinda washed out but it's really not, colors were super vivid in person.



Link Posted: 12/6/2014 12:49:11 PM EDT
[#14]
Nice work!

I just picked up a used Mossberg 590A1 and I'm debating painting the stock in an urban digital or tiger stripe.
Link Posted: 1/29/2015 1:45:49 PM EDT
[#15]
Update in OP with subdued effect on the M1A paint.
Link Posted: 2/22/2015 2:42:24 PM EDT
[#16]
The original desert paint is outstanding. Beautiful.
Link Posted: 11/11/2019 10:13:35 AM EDT
[#17]
@EagleArmsHBAR

I came across this tutrial and am interested in maybe trying it.
anyway to fix the pics in the OP
Link Posted: 11/11/2019 12:01:54 PM EDT
[#18]
Sorry, the pics have been lost to time.
Link Posted: 11/11/2019 1:26:37 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Et2ss] [#19]
Shame too, it was an outstanding job.

Curse PhotoBucket!
Link Posted: 4/10/2020 9:16:25 AM EDT
[Last Edit: EagleArmsHBAR] [#20]
I have hosted some pics here on arfcom, but could not find all of the original pics to put back up.

@Pneumagger
Link Posted: 7/10/2020 3:06:45 PM EDT
[#21]
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I gave it a go. Mines not as pretty as Ops. I’m on the fence about it so far.
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