Last weekend I was hanging out with dogfish & son, and Fishranger, shooting, having a good time, showing off my recently finished 6.8 rifle. My Savage 10 FCP .308, just like any other woman, got jealous. "Why are you fawning all over this new girl? Your 'new deer rifle' is untested and hasn't done any real work. I've been with you for an entire year and have put meat on the table for your family and taken game for many years before you got me. When do I get a makeover? What about me, Dreadi? What about me?!" Boy did she get steaming mad! Every shot she just kept on ringing steel to prove her point and work ethic. Even when she got too hot handle, she stayed true to aim. All the while, my 6.8 was as cool as a glass of sweet iced tea on the porch over looking the tobacco fields. On the way home I got to thinking and feeling real bad. How could I just neglect my .308 like that? After all the rain we hiked in, the trek up to Alpine Lakes, the bear hunting, the elk hunting, the deer we took last year. It's a crying shame the way we do those that provide for us.
I left town the next day and thought about her all week and said, "this weekend, I'm going to take care of my .308." Having colors left over from the OCP job, a new air compressor and, a little experience, I was jumping right in upon my return. I was inspired by a listing I saw for a rifle that had a really bad coating job and the seller was asking well over a thousand dollars for his "custom rifle". I thought to myself, I can do a much better job on my sub $400 rifle. Mmalleck had been on me to do a straw camo job when ever I got around to doing coatings. It was time to do it. Using four colors, multi light beige, multi medium green, multi dark green, multi dark brown, and clear matte, I gathered some foliage from the backyard and went on.
My .308 is much happier now and is looking forward to taking our first elk together.
I made a costume change for reference of patterns and colors comparison. A few things I learned, I don't care for ferns as a pattern. They are too big for making male and female shapes into random patterns. Also, next time I try this type of camo, I'll get some plastic foliage and hope they don't move as much as the authentic foliage and straw does when spraying. Also, I need an indoor space for this work. This outside stuff is great for ventilation but, not so great for keeping your work piece clean of debris and the medium atomizing correctly. Perhaps a darker beige as a base coat would work better and with reddish brown gradients before "stencils". Duracoat can be made with a higher sheen by adding more hardener, and with my previous project I used the least amount required. This time I wanted to try for the most matte finish possible. It's still reflective but, it's definitely less reflective than my previous project and the clear coat helped to flatten the colors.
In reality, it was approaching 90 degrees in full direct sun that day we were shooting. This previously black rifle was too hot handle and I swore, "No more black rifles!", and I really did see a listing for a "custom rifle" with a really poor coating job for well over one thousand dollars. I just had to do better.
