Obvious care was taken to mask the front sight on this pistol before painting.
So you don’t want a flashy finish on your defensive firearms.
And you already possess enough (there’s never enough!) guns coated with Rogard, NP3 and hard chrome. And you don’t want your Glock, Remington 870, or Smith & Wesson looking like everybody else’s, so you’ve already coated some of those with Brownells’ do-it-yourself kits, in both blue/black and camouflage coloring.
Basically you don’t want a chrome-plated pimp gun, you don’t want a standard factory finish, you don’t want a quality after-market professional “make-over”, and you’ve done all the home gunsmithing you care to do.
Frankly, you don’t know what you want, do you?
Devil’s Triangle: Two modified Para-Ordnances backed up by a Glock 26. Custom Firearm Finishes coated all three pistols.
The bad news is you obviously don’t have a decision-making cell in your entire body. The good news is there’s one more direction you can travel.
Custom Firearm Finishes (CFF), operating out of Eagle River, Alaska, will paint your weapon with a specific personalized pattern which should satisfy the most frustrated and/or discriminating gun owner. Yes, the operative word is “paint”, and no, that doesn’t mean some grade three, two-minute spray job out of an aerosol can bought at Wally World.
Not being of a scientific background, this author has no idea of how many hours the finish can stand up to salt-solution tests, what the actual constituent material is, or if it will dissolve in Aunt Bertha’s Wrinkle-Removing Cream.
The very rare Arizona Rattlesnake Bush, laden with ripe fruit.
Suffice it to say that the material appears impervious to Shooter’s Choice solvent and MD Labs XF7 lubricant—my personal favorites for cleaning and lubing firearms. It also needs to be stated at this stage of proceedings that yours truly personally doesn’t like any of the current look-cool camouflage patterns, unless the weapons in question are to be used on an operation in an environment which requires camouflage. This doesn’t mean there’s aesthetically anything wrong with camo—to each his own—it just means in my opinion that I don’t see the point in having a full-blown desert camo finish on a pistol which is exclusively worn daily under a business suit in downtown Phoenix.
Enough of the personal idiosyncrasies, except to say that if you like a camouflage finish, you can get a camouflage finish of your own design. If you don’t like the ever-popular camo, you can get whatever pattern your little heart desires. That is for you to discuss with Les Leturno, head honcho of Custom Firearm Finishes. For all I know, he could replicate the Three Little Bears, if you so wish. Rubber accoutrements, such as pistol stocks, however, cannot be colorized.
A pair of “snakes in the grass.”
The accompanying photos show three pistols “painted” for an Arizona customer, hence the one-off, rattlesnake-style pattern. All three are used regularly—two carried in Kydex holsters on a daily basis—and so far there have been no signs of wear, internal or external.
Slide-to-receiver rail fit is the same as factory specs, though one of the .45s pictured did have minor overspray on the inside female rails of the slide on its return to the customer.
So if you want something different, here it is. Obviously price will vary with the complexity and size of the required job, but the one thing you will need is patience (at least several weeks to complete the service order, plus CFF advises a month’s “cure” time before hard use of the weapon).
And if you’re one of those people who takes half an hour to decide which brand of toothpaste to select at a supermarket, you might want to contact Les Leturno of Custom Firearm Finishes.
[Louis Awerbuck is Director of the internationally acclaimed Yavapai Firearms Academy. Course information and schedules are available at their website at www.yfainc.com]
SOURCE:
Custom Firearm Finishes
Dept. S.W.A.T.
P.O. Box 773534
Eagle River, AK 99577
(907) 694-4440
www.customfirearmfinishes.com
