Want to know what everyone's thoughts are for refinishing Sten mags. They are steel. Wasnt sure if I should just have them parkerized, or use Permasilk, or just what. Give me some ideas here. I want the finish to be half way durable and fairly easy to touch up. Dont want to put a ton of money in it either. (ie-Not going to have them all Black-T'd) So what are some choices. Heck, I ever thought about a couple of good coats of flat black srpay paint, or even a spray can of Dupli-color truck bed coating.

I've parked some FAL, HK91, and M14 mags. They came out nice. If your doing it yourself, make sure you glass bead them good. When they are done, we steel wooled the insides to smooth them out a little,(we let them cook awhile, they were a little "crystaly") then oiled them up. Dont do the springs. Never had any trouble and they have held up well. I think I'd avoid the paint. They may look ok at first, but for as much as they get handled and banged around, I dont think they will hold up.  

Chris Wheatly at www.tacticalinc.com sells refinished Sten mags. He parkerizes the ones he refinishes. One of the Sten mags I got from Tapco was parked with minimal corrosion.

I have someone who can park them for me at a pretty good price here. I just wanted to make sure that was the way to go. The 10 I got from Tapco are all in perfect shape, just little to no finish on all of them.

I got 2 of the haversack deals and paid for the hand picking on both. One haversack is worn out repaired garbage, one looks brand new. About 7 of the mags were in great shape with no finish. The rest are painted with thick black gloppy paint. Some have minor dings in them. I'm relally glad I didn't pay full boat price for this crap. If I was not refinishing these they would already be on their way back.

I also ordered the CETME sling/sight tool combo. The sling is nasty smelling and the leather is so worn I cannot trust it to hold my rifle. The sight tool appears to be ok.

I am done with Tapco and I just told 25,000 of my closest friends here on AR15.com.

Bob

Sorry to hear that Bob. My Haversack looks like brand new. All 10 mags I got are absolutley perfect. One has a very small ding on it, but nothing very bad. All the srpings and follower look brand new and there isnt a spot of rust anywhere. All the mags are just silver with non finish left on them. Other than that, which I expected, they're great.

Quoted: Chris Wheatly at www.tacticalinc.com

Correct name is "Craig".

I cleaned mine, sandblasted them to a uniform texture, then had Todd @ www.ohiorapidfire.com park my box of stuff for $3 ea. His shop is maybe 5 minutes from me. The finish came out almost same as my MAC 11-9 pistol.