How to Paint a Gun Like a Proffesional

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Even in this age of Cerakote and color anodizing, the vast majority of AR-15s sold are basic black. There’s nothing wrong with that, but everyone wants to own a camouflage AR-15 at some point. Not only do camouflage guns look cool (always important), but that non-black finish can be multi-functional in more ways than one. First, they’re useful whether you’re hunting, worried about the zombie apocalypse, or increasingly convinced our looming national divorce is going to go kinetic. But probably just as important is the heat aspect — lay a black gun down in the sunlight, even on a mild day in the Midwest, and it will get too hot to touch in short order. This doesn’t just affect handling but function as well. A simple coat of paint, any color lighter than black, keeps that gun significantly cooler in direct sunlight.

Before getting into the actual tips and tricks of this how-to article, let’s compare. Cerakote is more durable and available in many color options, but you’ll have to pay someone to apply it unless you buy one of their DIY kits, which can cost hundreds. One of the awesome things about a rattle-can camo job is doing it yourself. It won’t be as durable/long-lasting as Cerakote, but you can improve its durability if you don’t want a do-it-yourself “battle-worn” finish. More on that in a bit.

As for how difficult it is … it’s not. You can take as long as you want to prep your gun, but you’ll spend far more time waiting for the paint to dry than actually working on it. Even if you have no artistic talent or imagination, it’s not too difficult to turn a black gun into a tactical work of art. Trust me — I have no artistic talent and have produced several darn good-looking camo paint jobs. I’ll mostly be referencing AR-15s in this article, but these techniques aren’t exclusive to them. Recently, I camo painted my CZ Scorpion EVO pistol, and I’ve seen people paint AKs and shotguns using the same basic techniques.

As long as you don’t get paint inside the gun or on the moving parts, it will have absolutely no impact on the function of your AR. And that’s what the pros are doing — Delta Force, Navy SEALs, or whoever aren’t going with Cerakote, as it is apparently somewhat visible under infrared. For the war on terror, they were spray painting their guns in Iraq and Afghanistan and reapplying when necessary. While visiting Precision Reflex, Inc (PRI) circa 2010, I handled one of their Mark 12 Mod 0 SPR uppers, which had been sent back from Afghanistan because the barrel had been shot out. That thing had so many variously worn layers of FDE spray paint on it that it looked like the rings of a tree. When one started to wear, they just sprayed another coat on top of it.

Painting Equipment

You want matte finish spray paint. Both Rust-Oleum and Krylon offer matte spray paint in labeled “camouflage” colors such as greens, browns, and tans. You will also — maybe — want a can of matte clear enamel, depending on the color and/or durability you’re looking for in your camo finish. I consider that my secret weapon.

You will need masking tape to cover a few areas and parts of your firearm. That is literally all you need, but just for looks, I also recommend something to make a pattern — the go-to these days is the kind of mesh bag that apples are sold in, but you can also use maple leaves, pine needles, etc. For my last camo pattern, I used a sponge to dip and make splotches. All told, your equipment costs should be well under $50 even if you go wild.

Prep

You can take sandpaper and rough up all the metal parts on your rifle to help the paint adhere better, but you don’t have to, and it adds a lot of work.  Truthfully, you really won’t see much difference in the result. Instead, wipe down the outside with a clean rag, use brake cleaner (or something similar) to spray off any oil, grease, and dirt and then wipe it down again.

You want to paint the outside of your gun, not the inside. You do not need to disassemble your AR-15. Close the dust cover and either tape off the magazine well or stick a magazine in it if you want to paint one or more magazines in a similar pattern. I always tape certain controls like the trigger, forward assist, and muzzle device (making sure to completely cover your muzzle). Sometimes, I include the charging handle, safety, bolt release, and magazine release.

I recommend removing any accessories (optics, lights, vertical foregrips). Even if you want them painted, paint them separately. That way, if you later decide to swap them out on the gun, there won’t be bare spots beneath them. You can pull off your carbine stock if you want but leave the pistol grip in place. If you have an adjustable stock and don’t remove it, decide where you want it and how much of that buffer tube you want painted.

Process

The first time I rattle-canned a rifle, I sand-papered every square inch down almost to bare metal to ensure proper paint adhesion. Then I hung the upper and lower separately (from coat hangers) for spraying, but I’ve realized that’s unnecessary. I don’t sand anymore, and all you really need when you start spraying is a piece of cardboard to lay it on and a well-ventilated area — some place where the fumes won’t have your wife complaining about the smell (been there, done that).

Here’s the fastest and simplest rattle-can camo method: Take a can of brown and a can of khaki and paint alternating diagonal stripes about 4 to 6 inches wide across one side of the gun. You only need to apply enough paint to cover the underlying black — think less is more. You do not want drips or drops. Once that side has dried to the touch, flip it over and do the same to the other side. If you don’t want to practice on the rifle, practice on the cardboard first to figure out how far from the rifle you need to hold the can and how fast you should move it to get the width and thickness of spray you want. Unless you want a bare spot under your safety, spray once with the selector in Fire and again in Safe.

That’s it. You can be done there. Wait a few minutes and peel your tape off. Work the charging handle to make sure it and the ejection port cover are moving freely. In a day or two, after the paint has fully dried, you’ll have a camouflaged rifle with maybe half an hour of your time invested. But that’s the bare minimum; you can do more and better if you want.

Getting Fancy With Gun Paint

Currently, the most common rattle-can pattern is done using the mesh apple bag I mentioned above. Once the paint has dried to the touch, lay it on your gun and spray tan paint through it onto the brown stripes and then brown paint through it onto the tan stripes, moving the bag each time. This process will break up those stripes and give them depth. It can resemble snake scales up close. You will be shocked at how good your rifle looks when you’re done. I recommend practicing on cardboard first.

However many different colors you use, spray a contrasting color atop it — light on dark or green on brown, etc. It adds depth and detail. Don’t want to use the mesh apple bag? Try using something else that will give you a pattern you like such as maple leaves, long grass, pine needles, a piece of paper with shapes cut in it, a mesh laundry bag (the holes are much bigger), etc. Again, if you’ve never done this before, practice on cardboard first.

If you want magazines to match, tape up the top third (the part that goes in the magazine well) and spray those as well. No disassembly is required. If you’ve got mags with windows, you’ll want to tape those off, so the window remains usable afterward. No matter what kind of magazine you’ve got, the surface will be rough enough, so you don’t need to prep/sand it.

My secret trick is matte clear enamel. It is a game changer. The first time I painted a rifle, I didn’t like how pale and bright it was. I decided to clear coat it just to see if that would improve things. It darkens/brightens the colors, so they look much better and truly change the look of the camo job, making it more intense and closer to the appearance of Cerakote. Even though it is a matte clear coat, it will turn that matte paint closer to a semi-gloss, but it is still not reflective.

But perhaps just as important is that matte clear enamel is an additional protective finish. You must wear it off before you can start wearing off the paint, so your rattle-can paint job will last longer. But maybe you don’t want that. Maybe you want your paint to start wearing off faster to give your AR a true “battle-worn” finish. It’s up to you.

Build

I had a complete Bravo Company RAIDER 14.5-inch MK2 upper receiver assembly and wanted to build up a lower for it for a “premium duty” carbine, with the intent from the start to paint it some sort of camo pattern. That RAIDER rail is double-extruded aluminum and built to be tough with a unique look. I decided to build the lower around the Aero Precision M4E1 lower, which features a nicely flared magwell, oversize triggerguard, and nice pictograph selector markings. 

Inside the lower was a Blaster Starter Kit from Sons of Liberty Gunworks, which contains all the parts you need to build a lower minus a pistol grip and trigger system. For a trigger system, I went with the single-stage Wilson Combat Tactical Trigger Kit, which features precision-machined, GI-style components but with a nickel-boron finish for a smoother, lighter, more consistent duty-style trigger pull. Finished trigger pull on the gun was 5¾ pounds and crisp.

I hate the A2 pistol grip but prefer pistol grips with the same angle (just with more meat under the web and storage inside the grip for batteries), so I went with a FDE Magpul MOE. For the stock, I bought something I’d been meaning to try out for a long time — Reptilia Corp’s RECC-E carbine stock. I purchased a RECC-E in FDE. This adjustable stock has a cheekpiece that doesn’t move, so it won’t snag your facial hair, has a distinctive appearance, and is much lighter than it looks. Including the proprietary buffer tube, it’s just 12.8 ounces. Empty, without a magazine, this rifle weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces.

I also planned to paint the BCM vertical foregrip I cut down and the optic I chose for this gun — the SIG ROMEO8T, which is one of the best optics most people haven’t heard of. Think an EOTECH-sized window and circle/dot reticle but with 100 times the battery life. Its only downside is its weight. 

Doing the Work

I’ve done the apple bag and the sponge technique, and for the new paint job, I wanted to do something different. Tiger stripes are all the rage, and I decided I wanted to try that. After degreasing the completed rifle and taping up the necessary bits, I coated the entire rifle with an even layer of tan paint. I let it dry for several hours, then to break up the flat color, I grabbed a small branch of pine needles and sprayed a lighter green and brown over that in spots around the rifle.

I let that all dry for a day, then while tearing strips of masking tape, I laid diagonal stripes across the rifle. Don’t put tape on tacky paint. They had ragged edges and were variously thick and thin. Next, over the top of the tape stripes, I sprayed alternating stripes and spots of brown and dark green.

My end goal was a tan/brown tiger stripe camo pattern, but I had too much green and not enough tiger stripes. The result could best be described as a semi-tiger stripe version of Rhodesian camo (based on the color scheme/pattern) — and I like it even better than what I was going for. It looks fabulous. There are a few tiny mistakes here and there (there always are), but the pattern hides them. One of the great things about doing it yourself and winging it is that you never know exactly what you’re going to get, just that it is going to look great.

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