stainless Hawkeye; Teflon? Ceracoat? Duracoat?

[357SP101]

Hello all, newbie here obivously, and new to Rugerville in general.

I picked up a LH Hawkeye in 6.5CM as a donor rifle for my plan to cobble together a .358 Win. I'm probably 2 or 3 years out from rebarreling, but might as well figure out as much as possible beforehand.

Since it appears the only aftermarket stock is the Boyds laminated, I'm thinking about their "nutmeg" color scheme and getting the barrel/action/bolt finished in some sort of matte black. If I'm gonna shoot a classy, stylish cartridge, might as well have a classy, stylish rifle to shoot it in.

I know lots of folks have put some kind of finish on their boltguns, but being a worry-wart, I'm looking for pros and cons. I sure like the durability of Ceracoat, but what needs to be done to prep the metal? How much of the bolt can be coated (I'm assuming that any coating on the lugs won't work, but what about the main body part of the bolt?

Any members with experience with this sort of stuff?

thx

 

[RoninPA]

To do a Cerakote job properly you want to abrasive blast the metal (I use 120 grit aluminum oxide) so the Cerakote has a good surface to adhere to. As for the bolt you can Cerakote it but be advised that any place that rubs metal on metal will wear the Cerakote off. For a bolt I will take it apart and Cerakote everything except the body and the lugs. The body I jewel to make it look spiffy. Cerakote, when done correctly only adds about 1 to 2 mil (0.001 - 0.002") in dimension.

I have been doing Cerakoting as part of my business for about 10-12 years and have done firearms for some of the members here.

 

[357SP101]

Aha, a pro! Awesome!

This is going to sound nutty, but is there any way to get a black or brass/bronze color to the bolt body? I'm really OCD about colors, to my eye silver doesn't go with brown whatsoever. PVD, maybe.

Does Cerakote care about what type of blasting, i.e. shot, sand, etc.?

thx

 

[RoninPA]

Cerakote comes in over 150 different colors and you can also mix colors to customize. They have a nice bronze color called Burnt Bronze (it was real popular on AR's a few years back). I just looked at a 1965 vintage Winchester Model 70 bolt and I believe it has enough clearance that it could be done and it probably wouldn't show any wear for a good while, especially if you oil the bolt body correctly. You just mask off the bolt body from the rest, prep and spray then dry for a short time, remove the masking and mask the body off and prep and spray the bolt a different color if you want Let that dry for a bit then unmask and put the complete bolt (or the individual parts) in the curing oven to "set" the Cerakote.

Cerakote adheres best to a "rough" surface, bead/shot blasting doesn't rough up the surface and sand probably isn't "sharp" enough to rough up the surface correctly. I pretty much exclusively use 120 grit aluminum oxide, it gives the metal a good surface for the Cerakote to adhere to and it fills in the roughness because roughness is not real deep. At times for a badly rusted/pitted firearm, I have first blasted with 80 grit to even things out as best as possible (Cerakote will not fill in deep pits) and then blasted with the 120 to "smooth" everything before soaking in acetone to completely degrease the metal prior to spraying.

If you have any other questions, just let me know and I'll try to answer them.

 

[needsmostuff]

This is going to sound nutty, but is there any way to get a black or brass/bronze color to the bolt body?

No idea of the steel makeup in the bolt and how or if it would react but,,,,,,,.
I have gotten some interesting golden straw colors ranging to browns playing with the barrel browning solutions. Mostly I've used with carbon steels.
You build deeper colors with repeated applications.
Easy to try at home and can be buffed off if unappreciated results occur.
Just a thought.

 

[RoninPA]

^^^^^ Good point and doing it that way will not add any dimension to the bolt body. I'll have to file that away in my feeble little brain.

 

[needsmostuff]

^^^^^ Good point and doing it that way will not add any dimension to the bolt body. I'll have to file that away in my feeble little brain.

Awww, your brain is more than ample. 
But another thing to file away is this ( Rust Blue, one coat) also works well to replace a Patina to a fake Ruger case color that is gone or needed to be buffed off.

Not perfect but better than nuthin on this ole beater 32. So far, quite durable and seems to keep the rust off. I suppose some strategic dabs of cold blue could add some color blotches.