Magpul
Industries released their PMAG (for "Polymer Magazine") several years ago and since that time
they have become the magazine to have for many people. Some shooters
have even gone so far as to forswear their aluminum GI magazines in
favor of the PMAG. I was relatively late to the party, initially
waiting for the release of the
PMAG-compatible Ranger Plate as well as harboring my usual skepticism
at the "new bright shiny object" phenomena. However the introduction
of a limited run of orange PMAGS in mid-2007 sparked my interest enough
to pick up 11 of them. I ran the orange magazines very briefly before
taking a break from the AR for all of 2008 while I was shooting the AK
almost exclusively. Since 2008 is over and I've moved back to the AR
my interest in the PMAGS, and specifically the ability to have them
colored, has been re-piqued. However, a custom colored order is out of
the realm of possibility for me meaning that if I want my PMAGS in
yellow I'd have to paint them.
In October 2008 I posted a query
to "NickB", a Magpul rep that posts on the Internet forum
silencertalk.com (as well as others) regarding which brand/type of
paint would work best to paint a PMAG. My goal initially was to try
maybe two types of paint on two different magazines, but was running
into issues trying to order such a small quantity because the shipping
was almost as much as the magazines themselves. Nick offered to ship
me out a few magazines to try out if I was willing to foot the paint
bill, do the work, run the painted magazines, and make my results
public. I have been posting updates to the original thread on
silencertalk.com as things progress and will also be making updates
here on this page. Nick wound up sending me more than I bargained for
in the form of 4 black and 4 tan magazines, and suggested that the tan
(being lighter) would probably make the best base for any type of
painting. This allowed me to choose 4 types of paint and test each
type on a different base color magazine.
A note about the finish
color choice. Obviously, since this is tacticalYELLOWvisor.net the
color choice is self-explanatory. There are, however, other reasons
why one may wish to paint or otherwise color a PMAG. The first, and
most common, is making them stick out on a crowded range at a match or
class. Many times after a drill you'll find magazine mixed in together
on the deck and most people want to get their own magazines back since
you can't really trust someone else's gear. Second is one of general
visibility. Many ranges are dirty, dusty, or have tall grass and many
people take part in evening or night shoots. Our SFDCC matches take
place from 18:00 to 22:00 and I have personally lost one Surefire and
one AK magazine at our matches. Having a visible item for training
purposes is a good thing in these cases, although clearly one is not
going to be hiding in the woods with a bright yellow PMAG. Which
brings us to the third reason for painting, camouflage. Painting one's
rifle has become rather popular of late and there is even an article on
the subject in the April issue of http://www.swatmag.com/ SWAT
Magazine. The most common reason for such painting is one of
camouflage and some people wish to have the carpet match the drapes, so
to speak, and paint the magazines to match the rifle.
The paints selected were all intended to be readily
available brands at any Home Depot or Walmart type store. There were
some suggestions to try Norrells, or Duracoat, or other specialty
gun-finishing products but I think that using a product that is
available locally to almost any shooter is a better solution both in
the initial application as well as the ability to touch-up or
re-paint. I also wanted to keep prep to a minimum and not get too
heavily into de-greasing, sanding, etc. Besides the potential for wear
issues on the magazines this isn't intended to be a big deal. As such
the only prep was to strip the magazines, soak them briefly in
denatured alcohol, and hit them with an air hose before letting them
air dry for a day.
The first hurdle was purchasing all of the
paint. I wanted to try a variety of products from the very cheap to
the more expensive, and several different brands. I didn't realize
that Home Depot and Lowes don't carry Krylon, so I had to brave the
jungles of the local Super Walmart in order to pick up the two types of
Krylon; basic and the Fusion for Plastics. I tried to avoid this step
by going with the Home Depot house brand Valspar, in part because they
also had a version meant for plastics, but it turned out to be a
complete waste of time (see more on this below). In total the
makes/models of paint used or attempted were:
In the interests of not wasting the actual magazines
or the paint itself I chose to start with the caps that come with the
PMAGs under the assumption that they are the same material and finish
as the magazines themselves and that therefore whatever prep and paint
worked, or didn't, on them would have the same results on the
magazines. As alluded to above in the case of the Valspar products
this turned out to be a valuable step. The process with the caps was
as follows: 1) Drill holes in paint caps and magazine caps to ID the paint used later on 2) Soak in denatured alcohol 3) Blow dry with compressed air 4) Air-dry overnight 5) Spray with several coats of paint 6) Tumble in brass tumbler with corn cob media for 1 hour
The
one variant in the above was the caps painted with Valspar. The caps
came out so horribly finished that I didn't even bother proceeding with
them, and instead made the trek to Super Walmart to pick up the Krylon
paints. The Valspar paints were horrendously thin and would not stick
to the sharp edges of the caps regardless of whether I sprayed the
paint on in very thin coats or thickly. The volume of paint coming out
in the spray was also very light meaning more time spraying for a given
amount of paint on the product. I had some spare caps lying around so
I used them to have a sample to tumble and finish out the process.
The
tumbling proved to be pretty much inconclusive. There was some slight
wear on all the sharp edges of the caps but there didn't really appear
to be any variation from one brand of paint to another or one base
color magazine to another. If I was going to try this again I would
try to find a more abbraisive media to put in the tumbler. Something
like a very fine gravel would probably make more of an impression in a
shorter period of time. The one nice result of the tumbling, however,
was that I knew that the paint wouldn't simply flake off from light
handling.
Caps post-tumble
Krylon, cap post-tumble
Rust-Oleum, caps post-tumble
Rust-Oleum for Farm Equipment, caps post-tumble
Krylon Fusion, caps post-tumble
I followed this up with a similar process for the magazines themselves, skipping the tumbling. That process was: 1) Strip floorplate, spring, and follower from magazine 2) Drill holes corresponding to the paint can caps to ID the paint used on each magazine 3) Soak magazine body in denatured alcohol 4) Blow dry with compressed air
5) Air-dry overnight 6) Spray with several coats of paint
I
did NOT attempt to match coat-for-coat of paint across the brands. I
simply kept painting them until I felt that the base plastic color of
the magazine was obscured. I was not looking to compare how much of a
given product was needed to accomplish this so I really didn't keep
track of it. Perhaps that's a test for another time. Based on the
horrendous performance of the Valspar on the magazine caps I also
didn't bother using it on the magazines themselves and substituted the
Krylon products listed above. The final arrangement of identifying
holes in the magazines is (followed by abbreviations I'll be using from
here on out for each type, in parenthesis): 1 Hole - Krylon Indoor/Outdoor (KIO) 2 Holes - Rust-Oleum Gloss Protective Enamel (ROGPE) 3 Holes - Rust-Oleum for Farm Equipment (ROFE) 4 Holes - Krylon Fusion for Plastics (KFP)
The
original intent was to be able to use these magazines in a
Trident Concepts 3-Day
Carbine Operators Course in February of 2009. The course outline
called for 2,500 rounds of 5.56 over the course of the three days and
the magazines would have seen an extensive workout. Several things
conspired against us, however, and the class wound up being canceled.
I am looking around the local area for a substitute to get a chance to
run the magazines hard.
Now that the magazines are painted they
are getting use at our monthly carbine matches and drills. This will
never be a truly scientific process as I don't have the time at these
events to document total number of rounds through each magazine, or
total number of speed loads, etc. They are just getting rotated in as
I can and used when I can. If one particular magazine starts looking
overly abused, or another starts looking too fresh, I'll probably make
attempts to use that magazine more/less in order to even things out.
The floorplates showed signs of wear very quickly with some paint
chipping off but not to the point that any one type of paint is proving
to be immediately weaker than the other three.
Krylon, magazines painted
Rust-Oleum, magazines painted
Rust-Oleum for Farm Equipment, magazines painted
Krylon Fusion, magazines painted
The basic KIO wasn't a whole lot better than the
Valspar in terms of leaving behind the peaks. This resulted in the
magazine bodies getting a pretty thick coating of paint, yet still
retaining a bit of base color show-through on the sharp edges. This
usually indicates too thin of a paint mixture in cheaper paints. If
the final finish texture is important I would discount/avoid the Krylon
Indoor/Outdoor right off the bat. I'm going to go ahead and run the
magazines and see how they wear but I consider the finish to be
unacceptable.
On initial inspection of the final four types of
paint used there are obvious tint/hue differences between them. Some
are glossier than others, and some are more subdued hues than others.
The ROGPE is the most "yellow" of the three and stands out from the
pack because of this while the other three appear to have a bit paler
tint. The ROGPE also appears to have stood up the best to the
tumbling, although this is VERY subjective and it is hard to really
tell a difference between the types in terms of wear from this test.
Krylon, cap post-tumble
Rust-Oleum, caps post-tumble
Rust-Oleum for Farm Equipment, caps post-tumble
Krylon Fusion, caps post-tumble
Krylon, magazines painted
Rust-Oleum, magazines painted
Rust-Oleum for Farm Equipment, magazines painted