So you want to paint your rifle camouflage. I painted mine 2 years ago and this is how I did it. The information in this post could also apply to equipment you may want to paint. Chances are high you’ll have paint left over anyway.
The idea to paint my rifle came from a local gun dealer. The rifle in question is a bolt-action Browning A-Bolt Stainless Stalker in .308 caliber. It’s all stainless steal with a black synthetic stock. I hump the woods with this thing, so I wanted stainless and synthetic. I’ve had bad luck hunting shitty weather with a blued rifle, and I’m always cautious about banging up the wood stock.
On the rifle I mounted a Leupold Vari-X III 2.5-8 x 36mm scope. The scope matched the stainless barrel. I took it to a local store for scope rings. The dude looked at it and said, “Dude, why don’t you paint that thing?” I admit, it looked space-age like. Hey, here it is before I painted it:
And look - deer meat!
To read more about those sexy boots click here.
The guy then goes into the back and brings out a rifle that he painted. It was camo - sort of. It was a rough job, let’s just put it that way. But it was functional in the attract less attention department. This set about my desire to eliminate the beacon of light reflecting off the shiny gray whenever the sun shone down. At first I was reluctant to painting it, so I thought I’d go temporary with some sort of camo tape, but then I figured it’d just collect moisture under the tape and the tape would become slippery in the hands when wet. It was then my thought that I’d send the rifle to a professional and have the rifle painted entirely in Real Tree. I eventually found a place, but the prices were totally outrageous, plus the shipping, and every part you added on bumped up the price big time. Screw that.
So I set about searching the web endlessly for good information on painting it. There was no perfect page, so I blended the information from many and used the following approach. Leaf, twig, and grass stencils are readily available if you don’t want digital camo, but it was my view that digital would look the best. Let’s roll!
To replicate my approach you need the pictured paints:
From left to right is 220 grit fine sand paper, Dupli-Color “Adhesion Promoter”, Krylon 1318 All Purpose Primer Gray, Krylon 8141 Khaki Ultra-Flat, Krylon 8142 Brown Ultra-Flat, Krylon 8143 Olive Drab Ultra-Flat, Krylon 8140 Black Ultra-Flat, and Krylon 8149 Light Gray “Special Purpose” Camouflage. It was a little tricky assembling them all. If I remember correctly the 4 cans of Ultra-Flat came as a package purchased somewhere online. The Adhesion Promoter and Primer I purchased at a local auto parts store. The Krylon special purpose light gray I ordered as an individual can - somewhere online.
In addition to this you’ll need masking tape and stencil material. The stencil material I bought at Wal-Fart. Just go to the back of the store to the craft section where all of the old ladies hang out. Look around and you should find 8.5×11 (or so) flexible plastic sheets of this stuff. I cut digital patterns into the plastic with a razor blade (an Exacto knife would be better).
I took the gun apart, the scope, rings, bolt, trigger guard, stock, etc. I stripped some electrical wire to hang the stock and barrel with. It provided some rigidity, but it was also flexible (plus I had some on hand). I lightly scratched the surface of the stock and the scope with the sand paper. I carefully taped everything I didn’t want painted: internal parts exposed, sling studs, the scope lens (I provided ample safety here and went near the edge of the scope which is later covered by scope covers), wicked cool Browning logo, etc.
Then I applied the adhesion promoter to the stock (helps the paint bond to the plastic). Then came the Krylon primer over everything, a few coats. I decided to use the Khaki as my base and I covered everything in it, the barrel, the stock, the parts.
Mind you I was in no rush to do this, so I did it over the course of a week, giving each layer plenty of time to dry. I just started in with the stencils, alternating colors, bit by bit:
You’ll notice that I used NO black. The military eliminated black in the new camo for a reason - it stands out. I favored light colors. The darkest I went was brown. Note: When I did apply paint to the scope I went exceptionally light where the magnification numbers are. I can still read them fully. Be careful with the scope.
I painted until I was happy with the stencil pattern, but something was still missing. The “digital” lines were too sharp. It didn’t blend as well as I liked, so this is what I did. From about 3 feet back I sprayed a real fine olive drab mist over everything. I let it fall in place very lightly and it made the difference.
Be careful where you set your finished rifle down. I added a camouflage sling. It’s been two years since the paint job. I have a few misc. dings and twig scratches on the paint job, but these actually end up improving the camouflage (I think). After finishing the job I told the Mrs. I wanted to paint our son’s room this way, only with bigger stencils . . . it didn’t fly.
If you see someone in the November woods of Maine with this thing say, “Hey, Ranger Man!” and tell me where the deer are.
Happy painting!
BTW: this post was partially inspired by a post Kaiser published. Coming from a guy that totally picked up one of my raging sexy EMP-proof, grid down field manuals, how could I not respond?
See how that works? You buy my crap, I write for you. Amazon beckons; field manuals call your name; the donate button is always present. 
What, you’re broke? I hear, just tell your neighbor or co-worker to check the site out, your dog, someone, something, anything, anyone, toss me a bone.
30 responses so far ↓
1 GlockOhio // Apr 17, 2008 at 4:50 am
I’m impressed! Nice job Ranger Man.
2 Greg // Apr 17, 2008 at 6:38 am
Beautiful job. I assume it would also work on my ‘blued’ unit? Greg
3 Ranger Man // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:09 am
Greg, the only thing I could see being different with a blued rifle is the fact that the barrel and parts are exceptionally smooth. My stainless barrel has a slight texture to it. For this reason I didn’t see the need to “scuff” it up with the sandpaper to promote adhesion.
I’m sure the paint job would come out fine, but you’d have to determine whether you want to take the sandpaper to the barrel. You could try skipping that step, but the paint might not hold as well.
4 theotherryan // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:47 am
That is awesome. I would be aweful concerned about painting a scope though. Could be cuz Im prone to accidents.
5 the texan // Apr 17, 2008 at 10:19 am
Nice job! Thanks for the post. I have a silver scope on a blued rifle, think I will paint it.
6 pure_mahem // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Speaking of killing the glare. With a nice set of Butler Creek Flip Open Scope Covers it’s real easy to add a killflash. They just set inside the scope cover and you slide the scope cover back on your rifle. The kill flash keeps you from spooking game when your objective reflects the sun. Also keeps you from giving a way your position if the SHTF your not shining out a reflective signal beacon to attract attention to yourself. You know those emergency signal mirrors that everyone has in your kit, well your scope acts just like one. They also make these for your binoculors as well. Use Rangerman’s search feature on Amazon and check them out. If you can’t find them there they have them at Midway USA.
7 ERIC @ ROCKWOOD ARMZ // Apr 18, 2008 at 5:18 am
NICE JOB, I’VE GOT THE DIGITAL KIT FROM DURACOAT, BUT HAVE ONLY TINKERED WITH IT. I MIGHT SCALE IT & CUT MY OWN…HHMMM….
8 Krylon // Apr 18, 2008 at 6:58 am
Hi- I work for Krylon. You did an awesome job on the rifle. It looks great. I did want to mention that Krylon now has a camouflage paint with Fusion technology. What this means is that it bonds to plastic without the need for adhesion promoters. It is completely non-reflective as well. You can find out more on krylon.com. Good luck!
9 Ms. Tell // Apr 25, 2008 at 11:53 am
You and the guy from Krylon just made my day. I have my crossbow all apart to paint it and I was excited to find instructions and good pictures. I believe slow and steady will get the best results so I am also planning on taking as long as I have to to make it great. I am also tempted to try some hand painting with model paint, on the finnished product, to break it up even more. Have you got any tips or ideas for that?
10 S.I.N.I // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:37 am
Great job Ranger Man!!!
Question, how did you make the stencil/template of the digital camo?
11 8x57mm // May 5, 2008 at 12:34 am
Nice work. I just tried my first camo paint job. See it here at: http://home.comcast.net/~v2creative/camo.html
12 Marshall // Jun 22, 2008 at 3:50 pm
That looks super cool I think ill do the same with mine but with a darker green, peace!!
13 JIMMIE SHELL // Jul 9, 2008 at 8:00 pm
GOOD LOOKING JOB. I WAS WANDERING WHAT I NEEDED TO DO TO GET THE GUN OIL OFF OF MY GUN BEFORE PAINTING.
14 Mossberg93 // Jul 22, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Nice job,
How did you find the digital patterns??
15 Ranger Man // Jul 22, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I didn’t find them, I just cut the pattern out randomly.
16 How and Why to Capture and Harvest Rain Water for your Garden and Security // Sep 20, 2008 at 5:58 pm
[…] can paint them, give ‘em a sense of character, maybe make ‘em digital camo, or maybe hot pink is more your thing - whatever the case, your design and appearance is limited […]
17 Anonymous // Oct 7, 2008 at 1:13 pm
smart way of cammoflaging your rifle. looks like it turned out nice.
18 THE SHINDIGS... // Nov 11, 2008 at 9:40 am
AWESOME!! I WANT TO DO THIS AS WOODLAND…JUST WORRIED ID SCREW IT UP!
19 Anonymous // Dec 28, 2008 at 1:17 am
sweet!
20 klwdesigns // Dec 29, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I used the same paints on my .22 rifle.
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z93/klwdesigns/IMG_2237.jpg
I practiced a new pattern on my hard plastic gun case just today before I paint my 7mm. I think this time I will just paint the stock instead of everything. I will look for the adhesion promoter as the stock is synthetic as opposed to my .22 which has a wooden stock.
21 Survival Bill // Jan 4, 2009 at 7:07 pm
How well has the paint stood up over time?
http://www.survivalbill.ca/
http://www.survivalbill.ca/wordpress/
22 airborne idiot // Jan 18, 2009 at 12:53 pm
this came out great man i too have been looking for a website that can show me how to paint my rifle in digital your page worked the best and gave me the right information i needed thank you much and if you ever hunin on camp blandin and find a truck with big letters saying airborne idiot on it ask him where the florida deer are! lol
23 Warren Hanna // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:50 pm
what was the Dupli-Color “Adhesion Promoter” spray do
24 Dave // Feb 17, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I painted my rifle with a green base coat. Then I laid leaves and pine branches on it and painted it brown. I smeared grease where I didn’t want paint to go, after the paint dried I wiped the grease off. I think it looks great. The Kryon Camoflage paint was available at the local hardware store, worked good.
25 mike // Feb 23, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I am about to paint my CETME using a similar technique and some vinyl stenicls from US armorment. I had planned on using primer for the Krylon, but a tech support person from Krylon stated:
“as long as the surface is cleaned according to the recommendations, the product can typically be applied directly, but that also depends on the material the surface is made of.
There are no clear coats recommended for use with this line. Typically with this product you want to retain a flat sheen, and there are no compatible clears in a flat finish that we offer.
Regards,
Eric”
How long did you allow for the paint to dry in between coats. Is a light coat basically just think enough to cover the layer beneath it? this is my first project so I want to do it correctly.
26 Jason // Mar 12, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Does anyone know where that Krylon 8149 Light Gray paint can be purchased? I’ve been searching online and cannot find it.
27 TripleXJ // Apr 10, 2009 at 11:37 am
Check out tacticalcamo.com for kits, paints and a cool stencil generator.
28 Vaden // Jun 11, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Krylon makes a matte clear that is non-reflective. I tried it on a cooler that I painted to test out how well the Krylon Fusion paint works, and it really helps protect the paint, plus it isn’t glossy like most other clear coats. You can find the matte clear at most Wal-Mart stores.
29 Todd // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Looks good! I like the idea, especially since it can be done yourself on the cheap!
30 Anonymous // Sep 7, 2009 at 8:56 am
asd
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