Check Ram Rod, he has posted some awesome camo mags, its worked for me.

 

please...RamRod is a painting rookie.JK RR.

please check this thread
http://www.theakforum.net/forums/20-magazines/188138-painting-plastic-magazines-match-flage.html

both RamRod and I have pics in there .

 

Ive painted a bunch of AR mags. Wipe down with carb cleaner hit rag, paint. If you wanna get really fancy, disassemble first.

 

Brake cleaner is your best friend.
Blast 'em down, wipe 'em off, and blast again.
I've even been lazy and just used soap and water on my "banana mag" and the paint has held up.

If the mags already fit tight, I'd mask off the part that goes in the weapon. If not, I hit it all.

 

Thanks for your response and ideas. Much appreciated.

 

Just remember to mask off the top portion and around the tab so you don't have fitment issues in your weapon. I painted all of mine a couple of weeks ago with various colors from a camo kit. If you have access to some old Halloween decorations like a sheer spider web piece of cloth or something like it, you can use it and lightly paint through it for some cool design work. Just look around your house. I used part of a fishnet design cut off of a bag of potatoes! I'll post pics but it's so subtle I doubt it show's up.

 

You can paint the entire magazine without issues. Unless the paint is very thick it has no impact on fitment.

It may wear or get scraped if it is non durable like the DupliColor Engine Enamel or something.

You can media blast polymer mags with a fine media and they come out nice. Just put a little BLO on them after blasting.

Media blasted Russian plum. One of the black painted ones with the Arsenal stamp scrubbed.

 

Hm,HeadbangerBallistics, You have given me some food for thought. I'll have to think what I can do.

 

The sky's the limit pretty much. I've used the Krylon and the Rustoleum on plastic mags. TDB is right.......I'm still a rookie. The Tapco mags are cheap enough to mess with several times. Being creative is fun, and you get more ideas as you go. I've used some oddball items for paint jobs such as wadded up plastic grocery bags,and frayed ends of nylon rope for certain effects. My techniques could be looked at as not well refined or abstract compared to others. While unique and rare, none of mine have fetched over a thousand dollars in the marketplace, but you know they're not forgeries.....and I'll never be famous (for painting mags).
Last month I started painting metal magazines and I'm going to be a bit more diligent with those. The South Korean 7.62 mags seem to be good candidates due to their low price and zero collector value. I have some well worn Polish and Romanian 5.45 steel mags but I'm not going to ruin their value by painting them. If I had a couple of dozen..........................that might be a different story. Y'all know I'm good at writing stories
Plenty of pics on the forum(s) and some you've already seen via the link and in this thread. My first two metal mags here......'mud puddle' and 'cedar'. The cedar mag came out too light for my liking so it's going in for rehab. Base color is foliage green then a cedar sprig was laid over while the FDE was sprayed. Obviously the green could have been darker and the FDE over-spray caused the cedar sprig to be less well defined. They're all basically a work in progress for me until I'm satisfied with the end result. Either way.....if you're just going with a color scheme or trying to match your rifle or pistol and your set up........it's just plain fun to do and experiment with.
It could also take you places that you've never been......such as the ladies cosmetics section looking for cotton balls and sea sponges (yes I have)

 

I have red stripes around all the bases on my Polish mags. I have some Del monte and Chiquita stickers I'm saving to paint all of my plastic range mags yellow.

 

I finished this one yesterday. Tibetan camo. I need change the grey to a sage green and the chocolate brown to a burnt orange on the next one.

 

mud puddle looks awesome RR

 

Cool thread. Just so happens I am doing a Plum Tapco mag now. This is my practice before jumping into a more expensive metal magazine in Plum

 

Would love to see a pic

 

dnepr0mike, when you talk about baking, what does this entail?

 

I believe he's actually talking about baking in the oven. I have done this with the Gun Kote paint and it's actually part of the process or instructions to bake in the oven at like 350° for 1 1/2 hours IIRC. I have used an electric heat gun to cure paint on plastic magazines. I only put metals in the oven.

 

Thx Ram Rod.Can you bake a metal mag with just spray paint?If you can what temp and for how long? Also will it enhance the durability?

 

With regular rustoleum or krylon spray paint, you can let it cure in room temperature for a week or 2. The longer the better. Bake epoxy enamel 300 degrees F (more gloss) through 400 degrees F (more matte) for 1 hour. Ceramic VHT has baking instructions on the can.

I'm baking some VHT right now.

 

^^^^ Neither of those paints are very durable compared to Appliance Epoxy or KG GunKote or DuraCoat etc.
They work and cheap & easy to apply., but do not hold up to abrasion and some solvents.

 

Need to achieve that dull black grey color. Alliance epoxy is still kinda glossy even if you bake it at 380F. Not saying VHT will do it but...

Here's a sample of 3 coats VHT baked at 250F on an aluminum rail for 1 hour. Profile pic is 2 coats of appliance epoxy baked for an hour at 360F.

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