Eric and the Moss Pawn crew, better known by their YouTube channel IV8888, have a neat and easy way to camo your gear and firearms using Duracoat that they outline in a simple tutorial.

Wood Plant


Before I get into Eric's tutorial video, let me weigh in on my own experience with Duraocat without trying to sound too much like an acolyte as I feel its relevant. Of course, you can always just skip down to the bottom and watch the video if you prefer, that won't hurt my feelings.

With new and gee-whiz firearms coatings popping up left and right, I came to a crossroads in which I needed to make a choice. In the past few years I've had a couple of guns Duracoated myself.

What is DuraCoat?

Lauer Custom Weaponry in Chippewa Falls, WI has for years produced what they bill as one of the few firearm finishes created specifically for firearms. Other firearm finishes are "spin-off's" from other industries.

DuraCoat is a two part chemical coating that is sprayed on by airbrush, conventional spray gun, or HVLP spray gun, depending on the user's preference. DuraCoat colors can be intermixed, blended and combined to form almost any shade in the color spectrum for those of you that just pine for a raspberry KSG or a bright lymon yellow RDB. DuraCoat, like fine wine, gets better with age. LCW states simply that, "DuraCoat wears in, not out."

Most important to me, LCW proudly states that properly DuraCoat'ed firearms will not rust in a salt environment. "One of DuraCoat's attributes is its extreme ability to resist salt corrosion. A firearm coated with DuraCoat simply will not rust...EVER!"

My Ruger LCP dilemma

So I carry a back-up gun from time to time in my line of work. Occasionally in street clothes as a normal CCW practitioner, I also occasionally cannot carry a full-sized handgun comfortably without printing, especially in summer. Now as these guns have a tendancy to get rusty with close body carry in high humid areas ( I live on the Gulf Coast, within sight of the water.)

With that in mind, I decided to have it Duracoated tan in 2012 and three years later, after much abuse, the only wear I can find is a few nicks around the front end of the gun and overall the finish has gotten visibly darker. When it first was coated, it was almost a light sand color and now is closer to the fawn of deer hide.

My Smith

Back in 2012, I updated an old Smith and Wesson Combat Masterpiece K38 revolver. This model 15-3 Smith was born a little over thirty years ago in Massachusetts but spent its life in the heavy saltwater air of the Gulf Coast. To make a long story short, this long serving veteran found itself at the bottom of Davy Jones locker in Hurricane Katrina. After a lot of tender loving care, disassembly, cleaning, a liberal amount of Ballistol, and the odd replacement spring or two, it came back to life and shot fine, but looked oh so bad.

While well suited for a "Jeep gun" or a tag along on the trail during deer season loaded with rat shot, it still presented the ever-present crisis of surface rust control every week.

Therefore, even though I am a sucker for leaving a gun au natural, I had to break down and do something, for the gun's sake. I talked to my coatings guy and explored my options. We talked about rebluing but the revolver had some light pitting on the surface that would tend to give the gun a surface of the moon look with a light rebluing. A heavy blue job strong enough to fill in the pits would cover up the S&W crest and give the gun an overall thickness. Cerakote came up and the idea was approached to look at samples of cerakoted guns he had around. Then I passed up the Cerakote for Duracoat, for the latter's anti-rusting properties (remember salt air, etc.). When the color palate was inspected, I chose Duracoat Combat Black, for a simple no-gloss matte finish.

Bottom line is that the finish was in poor enough condition. The gun is not a one of a kind collectible or in a non-standard configuration. It is not an heirloom, and it is in shootable condition, which all made for an easy checklist of why I didn't feel bad about having it recoated. In the end, my "new" Smith shoots well, and is matte black and beautiful.

Now, without further, here is Eric over at Moss Pawn (IV8888) with his Duracoat camo vid.

"In this video I go over my highly unscientific method of laying down a homemade camo pattern with Duracoat. You can use this same method for Cerakote as well (with the extra step of heat curing the coating) we however have been using Duracoat products for many years with good success."



If you have any experience with Duracoat, Cerekote or other gun coatings and your Kel Tec, drop them below.