Should I cerakote or parkerize?

[STUMPJMPR]

I have a few guns that have almost no finish on them.  One is remington 870 and the other is an old mosin nagant sporter.  I have had decent luck with zinc phosphate in the past.  I have used duracoat with some mixed results.  It seems to stick ok but show's scratches easy.  So what are your opinions?

[trotterlg]

Manganese phosphate is a harder finish and very easy to do.  It will work over thin blue just fine.  Larry

[gunnut69]

Parkerizing leaves a courser finish but it will protect if maintained properly. You seem to have done a bit of this before so perhaps you'd want to step up a notch? Try a rust blue job. Only require a heat source and a tank large enough to hold the parts. The solution used is readily available and while labor intensive it's not really all that hard to do..

[STUMPJMPR]

I don't have the time for a rush blue job right now.  I am living in an apartment at the moment.  I tend to work on this stuff when I go back to my parents.  Parkerize is very good finish, but I've seen it show rust a few times.  Once it rust there is know getting it back to its original color. 

[gunnut69]

You might also consider powdercoat. A local coater will coat you gun if it's readied before it's brought in and you stay around a bit. If he were to keep the gun he would of course require a FFL.. The guns require stripping, especially small springs. The oven temps may soften them. Receiver steels are not affected. The parts are bead blasted (steel beaded) and stem cleaned with a special solution that preps the surface for the powder. Some areas are masked to prevent powder incursion but the coater does that. Any areas that get an accidental dose are fairly easy to clean with a shapr blade. Once applied the material is as tough as nails..almost no wear. Had a good friend who wore any finish off his bird gun in a year or 2. Had the 1100 coated and he's not been back. He told me there is some finish nicks but they are indeed minimal.  Colors are nearly infinite but be prepared to wait until the coater is doing a batch with the color you wish as cleanup for a color change is a real pain in the you-know-what..

[STUMPJMPR]

I think I'm going to give the cerakote a try this time and see if it lives up to the hype.  Now the decision is air cure or oven cure.  If the stuff is half as good as they claim it will be better than duracoat which was decent in my opinion.  It just wore on sharp edges kind of bad.

[1911crazy]

On my french mas 49/56 commando rifle the gray park was worn off at the muzzle so instaed of the high cost ofa repark job the guys on another forum said to try Brownell's  aluma hyde II in the gray park finish.  I believe if the finish is going to be good we need to do the best metal prep we can.  I washed the area to be painted first with rubbing alcohol with a fine steelwool "0000".  Then i washed it again with just alcohol and a soft rag.  Then i heated the barrel with a hair dryer, then applied the aluma hyde II and continued to warm the barrel and then let it finish cool to room temp.  Its been 10 years since i did it and it still matches the orginal finish perfectly.

[Nessmuk#1]

Do both.  Park it and then ceramic coat it.  It'll be the best it can be.

[Colby]

For what it's worth, the guys at NIC don't recommend parkerizing before Cerakote.  Just a blast with 120 grit AO or Garnet to prep the surface, clean with Acetone and apply Cerakote.  In my opinion the bake on is more durable than the air cure.

Colby