thanks for the praise guys, but personally I thought that pattern looked like poo! You ought to see it now! I went with a more vertical pattern, and a more realistic color scheme. More browns, less green and a darker grey. I went out to the backyard with my daughter and collected a bunch of leaves, twigs and such. (she's 5 and LOVES arts/crafts...figured that by having her help, we could spend some quality time doing something we both enjoy) We laid the leaves and stuff on pieces of computer paper and gave a quick shot of spray paint instead of tracing...helluvalot faster. Cut out the pattern, lay it on the rifle and give it a little shot with the color that corrosponds to the original material. I try not to press the stencil flat because I like the edges a little fuzzy. The base coat on this pic was ultra flat olive green, now it's uf tan. There ain't a lot of green in the KY hardwoods in mid-late Nov.
Total time involved with the original paint was about 2 1/2 hrs...stripping it off to do it properly took awhile longer. Soaking the barrel, upper and lower receivers in lacquer thinner overnight took off a lot of it, but there was still a bunch left...a shot of carb cleaner and it dripped off without scrubbing. The grip and stock, I just painted over...they're both cheap plastic, and I didn't plan on keeping them anyway. There was a good thread on how to do this over on the build it yourself forum...it isn't difficult, doesn't cost much, and if you're using cheap paint, you can change it back to original without too much hassle.