Re: Bolt coating
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: tpowers</div><div class="ubbcode-body">For starters Cerakote is a lot thinner than duracoat and superior in many areas.
With any kind of spray on finish the thickness is dependent upon the sprayer's abilities. Ionbond is a great finish. Here is a link that gives a conversion of microns to inches. Ionbond being 3 microns equates to 0.000118".
http://www.metric-conversions.org/length/microns-to-inches.htm
Cerakote when properly applied is approximately .0001" in thickness and can be less than that.
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Do you mean .001"? Because everywhere else, that seems to be what other people are saying about cerakote???
http://www.larsontactical.com/id23.html
http://www.redcreektactical.com/cerakotefirearmscoating.html
http://www.amelonfirearms.com/Coating_Information.html
There is nothing wrong at all with cerakote. They have a much wider variety of colors vs. Birdsong (3 or 4 colors now?), NP3 (one color: silver), IonBond DLC (any color you want as long as it is gray/black). Cerakote is certainly better than bare steel.
The advantage of Birdsong is the high lubricity (I have it on my Tac Ops and you are better off not greasing the bolt) as well as its high saltwater corrosion resistance (500 - 1500 hours).
Ionbond has lower corrosion resistance, but plenty for most situations (if I lived in a coastal area, I would probably prefer Birdsong for this reason). It is very very thin. It is also the toughest around. It has a lower lubricity and I have heard about it rubbing on non-ionbond finishes because it is so tough. That may just be unsubstantiated Internet rumors, who knows?
From a cost perspective, cerakote is much cheaper than Ionbond. It is also available through a wide number of dealers... and not all of them know what they are doing.
Birdsong does all coating themselves, which is probably why the coating has such a reputation. If you want Ionbond, Springer Precision is the only one I have heard of that coats weapons. For cerakote, it is not difficult to find a vendor and the turnaround time will likely be much quicker than IonBond or Birdsong.
If I were doing it, I would probably do Birdsong for a bolt because of the lubricity. For a semi or a pistol, I would go Ionbond for the durability as long as I wanted it black. NP3 also looks good on a pistol, but is a little glossy compared to Ionbond, which is flatter.