How to Paint your Carbine by Pat Rogers

The following is an article on how to paint a carbine by Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical. Pat Rogers is a a retired Marine Corp Chief Warrant Officer as well as a retired NYPD Sergeant with a wide and varied background in the CT Community.

Since 1992, Pat has been running EAG Tactical and is one of the most respected tactical trainers in the business. When it comes to a practical no BS approach to training and shooting, there are very few that can hold a candle to Pat and EAG Tactical.


Painting a Carbine.

We get a lot of questions about this, and we see a lot of people who spend a lot of money to have their carbine painted. The reason for painting is to make the gun less visible. Black is the absolute worst color for a gun. It makes the gun more visible in both day or night. A single earth tone color will partially accomplish this. Blending several of these colors together is better still.
Spending a lot of money for decals that replicate patterns (digital or otherwise) are expensive and certainly make the gun pretty however, they may not provide better camouflage than other methods.

Our priorities are:
Make the gun less visible
Minimal amount of time with the gun out of service
Minimal cost
Easy to retouch

We use only Aervoe paint. We find the Aervoe to be more true to color specs and be more durable. Aervoe is available at some of the larger gun supply sites. If you do not have access to Aervoe use whatever matte colors you can lay hands on.

Prep:

Ignore PEO Soldier- Painting Your Rifle 101. They were smoking crack when they wrote this.
Use SLiP2000 725 cleaner or whatever cleaner you normally use (eg Simple Green etc). If the gun is heavily lubed wipe up the excess inside the upper and lower receivers- this will leak out and cause paint not to adhere.
-Stuff some paper towel in the flash suppressor.
-Put the lens covers on the optic.
-If you have a white light on the gun, tape the lens and any rubber (push button, tape switch.
-Remove anything you don’t want painted.































Hint: the paint dries faster if the gun is warm. We use sunlight to accomplish that.

Use Aervoe 977 Sand (30277) or other light color tan or khaki for your base coat. Mist the gun with this paint. Use broad strokes to lightly cover the entire gun. Repeat with one or two more light coats. Don’t look for 100% coverage and don’t use heavy coats of paint.
Painting the exterior of the barrel will not hurt anything. It will not burn off under normal or even hard use.


I use a small strip of camo net as a mask. If not available, you can cut small holes in an old sheet or paper.
-Place the camo net over the gun and shoot a light coat of a brown through the net, I use Aervoe 480 Highland, but any similar color will do.
-Don’t shoot through every hole, and don’t try to cover every square inch of the gun.



Apply the net in a different location and shoot it with Aervoe Marine Corps Green (34052) This is a very dark green.

Apply the net in a different location and shoot it with Aervoe 932 Dark Green (34102)


Once finished, take a can of Aervoe 987B Olive Drab 34088 and lightly over-spray the entire gun. Use long, full power strokes from approximately from about 18”.

The purpose here is to blend the other colors together.

If available, overspray with a Matte Clear spray. These are generally hard to come by in Matte.
Again, misting will give a flatter finish. Heavy coats will leave a shiny finish.



The entire job- minus prep and drying after the Matte Clear Coat- should take no longer than 20 minutes.

The gun should be shootable within an hour. If you have the ability to leave it in the hot sun to dry for several hours, so much the better.


We have taken guns out and shot them within an hour of painting.

If you are lacking time or a variety of colors, use Sand for a base coat and Olive Drab for splotches and over-spray.
Brownish colors work almost everywhere (how many green animals have you seen?)

#31 is a little over a year old and has 13,000 rds downrange.



S/F

Pat sends
www.eagtactical.com



Thanks again to Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical for allowing me to use such an excellent write up and how-to. Click the EAG banner at either the top or bottom of this page to vist EAG and learn more about Pat and training with EAG Tactical.