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Benelli M4 -- Refinish Time!


StrangerDanger

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Some of the parts came in today! I'll take some pictures and post them up this afternoon. The handguards I made look pretty good. You can still see where the works was done, but you can't feel any of it. The appearance is much better and much more durable than that rubberized spray paint I used.

 

Another nice feature is the Cerakote has a rougher finish than the bare plastic handguards, so if you like a little more grip on your handguards, it will do it.

 

I really hope WMD Guns hurries up!

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Me too. Took a while to put everything back together. I did several sets of those Troy Sights. The coater assembled my 3X magnifier LaRue mount wrong, so I had to take it back apart and flip everything around. Then I forgot where I put the screws that tension the magnifier into the mount. Finally found them after an hour of searching.

 

The coater painted the pistol grip core black rather than burnt bronze. I'm not real worried about it since I was on the fence concerning which way to go with it. It's nice having the handguards, pistol grip core, cheek riser and the magazine cap all matching.

 

The handguards came out very well. A huge improvement over how they looked at the beginning!

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I put some black lacquer on the PWS receiver extension. Mainly testing to see how easily the black cleans up over the burnt bronze.

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Thanks.

I called and harassed WMD Guns today. It's been two months today since the parts arrived at their door. According to them, the parts should ship out in the next week or so. Supposedly they're all coated and have come back from painting. Their gunsmith is reassembling parts and test fitting items.

 

I'll believe it when I have a tracking number in hand.

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Got tracking info today. 23 pounds of parts inbound. UPS says the package will arrive next Wednesday. Hopefully it'll get here a little faster than that.

 

Some weird stuff though. I got billed for work today. I think they botched the billing. I sent in about 60 parts to have done total. The PDF only lists like one item per line item. Example, just one receiver extension instead of three. So the price was pretty cheap considering how many parts went in. 825 shipped back for essentially four weapons, three of which are rifle/shotguns. I was anticipating 1200 - 1400 at least.

 

Needless to say, I'm not going to rock the boat and ask about it. I just hope they followed my instructions closely.

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Looks to be an amazing refinish project! Just curious why you went with a NiB coating instead of perhaps an NP3+ . I'm thinking of doing something similar to my internals and just can't find really good persuasive arguments one way or the other. Cheers

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Thanks! I'm hoping the parts will show up tomorrow! Wednesday at the very latest.

 

I went with nickel boron because it can be top coated. With NP3, you cannot apply anything to it. The paint won't adhere to the Teflon in the NP3. So you're stuck with a silver finished weapon. The nickel boron is a harder surface material than the NP3. Some items might benefit from one finish over the other. WMD actually offers a nickel with Teflon finish if you like.

 

 

On my internal components like the trigger, disconnector and hammer, I didn't coat them. I didn't want to mess wih the sear engagement points. I figure the FFT set in my M4 was optimally coated already.

 

 

WMD was cheaper than Robar. They seemed to have more options and were more flexible with my complicated requests. I had spoken to Robar before at SHOT and on the phone. They were always nice and helpful, but the options were limiting.

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow we'll see how well WMD follows directions. I'm also worried about how the Cerakote colors match between different coaters. The trigger group and the bolt carrier of the M4 are pretty complicated. Both were ordered to be completely coated in nickel boron. The trigger group's supposed to be painted in burnt bronze Cerakote only on the exterior visible portion. The bolt carrier and tail is supposed to be painted in black Cerakote only on the right side of the bolt that is visible through the ejection port. The rails should be left nickel boron.

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I might be giving WMD a call soon. I have an AK system with a messed up finish I need to have redone. The problem is it is chopped and has a permanently attached brake - it's a shotgun so the brake cannot be easily removed/reattached due to how thin the barrels are and the heat required, etc.

 

So, I need a finish shop that is willing to work around the fact it cannot be fully disassembled as is optimal. Also want it blasted with a media that doesn't cut the metal in the least, just removes the stock finish, since there is very light etching on it I want to retain.

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I'm not super familiar with the AK platform. Sounds like a Saiga though? Is the receiver and barrel assembly all steel? The only thing that really stops a coating option is dissimilar metals. Also, titanium and magnesium are no-go.

 

Nickel boron is extremely thin and shouldn't effect tolerances. I recall the thickness is .0005" from somewhere. Etchings shouldn't be effected. In with Cerakote, the laser engraving isn't fully covered on things like my Surefires.

 

If you don't care about nickel boron from a function standpoint, Cerakote may be a good choice. It's cheap and extremely durable. You have nearly unlimited color options too. You don't need to take everything apart either. A place named Controlled Chaos did my optics/lights/small parts pretty cheap. Turn around times were about three weeks.

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