Re: Reasons and drawbacks for painting a rifle?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 81Z4ME</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I kyloned/camo'd my vARmint rifle mostly due to that big shiny stainless steel barrel.
I kryloned/camo'd the GI synthetic stocks on the M1A's to make them look a little better than they did when I got them.
I kryloned/camo'd the S&W M&P15 because I didn't have anything else to do that afternoon and I wanted to experiment with ripped strips of masking tape to make the "stripes" in the two tone camo job.
I painted the synthetic stock on the M1 Garand to make it look better.
The krylon is cheap, it's changeable and it's easy to touch up when I scar it up enough to need a new coat/pattern.
The kylon comes off with carb. cleaner and a tooth brush if you scrub it while the paint is wet with the carb. cleaner. It didn't damage the plastic AR stock/handguard but I know it will damage some other types of plastic so if you go that route to strip krylon off test it someplace "out of sight" first. </div></div>
this is the kind of answer that makes sense. even saying "because I didn't have anything else to do" is a good one. I wasn't aware that you could get the spray off that easily, never tried so... yeah.
During riding season I regularly visit a certain motorcycle forum and one time posted a series of pics from when I chopped my mufflers in half and repacked them - EFI adjusted for the new back-pressure and they sounded great ... but of course there were the folks that had to come back with "it'll hurt your resale!" and all that. But it was something fun to do.. and I never plan on selling the bike anyway. Why would I? It's not an investment it's for putting miles on.
Same goes with guns of course. I don't understand the trailer queen motos and guns that never leave the safe. Maybe I just don't have enough money to be buying guns that don't get used and shot all the time. Granted some guns are actually collectors items and you don't want to mess those up but if you're buying a sniper / LR type of gun it's made to be out in the dirt. I don't want to bust up my guns with scratches but that's only so I don't have to spend money on new parts more than required. From an aesthetic viewpoint I prefer most guns without camo (although the digitized ones look pretty good) but that's just me.
Resale value is kind of a nonsense notion - unless there's something really special about a gun you're rarely going to get anywhere close to what you paid for it if you do sell it. I have, with two exceptions over the last several years, a no-selling-guns policy. For what you get in cash you might as well keep it and shoot it or wait a while and give it to your kid when you have a kid.
edit: as to the gucci thing, good accurate guns aren't cheap and just having one sitting around not being in a match or hauled out into the woods/desert/etc to be used doesn't make sense. I guess some people don't mind forking over money for an object and then looking at it but why bother if you're not going to use it for what it was made for? function function...
