Cerakote Durability Issues

[Hiland Arms]

Hiland Arms is there a test to determine if it’s rattle canned versus cerakote?

I doubt that it's rattle can. But you can wipe a little acetone, break clean, or your wifes nail polish remover on a part of it and see. All those solvents will eat right through spray paint but not hurt Cerakote at all.

My guess is they either messed up the hardener ratio or used old expired Cerakote.

Cerakote has a very short shelf life, they say a year but that's only if they store it correctly and even stored correctly it might not last a year.

That's my best guess. I see it a lot from shops that don't do Cerakote on a regular basis, they try to use the big bottle of Cerakote they bought years ago and it doesn't lay down smooth and has kinda a chalky surface to instead of smooth and slick like Cerakote should be.

 

[sniper22]

I decided to get a couple new AR builds cerakoted at a local shop known for cerakote.

The 300BO was ready for pick up yesterday and since I had planned to deer hunt this morning, I was hoping to make good use of it right away. They told me they had issues getting it to cycle earlier in the day and I mentioned the adjustable gas block (which I’m surprised wasn’t their first place to troubleshoot) but they called back a couple hours later and said it was cycle just fine so I picked it up. They ultimately said it just didn’t like Winchester white box ammo…

The cerakote itself looked great, but I was surprised to see a number of tooling marks from when they assembled it. Besides the fact that it still isn’t cycling with multiple types of ammo, the cerakote seems super soft. I carried it on a single point sling and just the fabric on my orange vest put a bunch of scratches on it. This seems like an application issue to me but wanted a sanity check here before making a fuss about it.

What do y’all think?

Have you taken to the owner/proprietor about the issues? Sometimes things just happen but if they make it right, you're only out a little time.

 

[fslc94]

I’ve seen some 💩 work, but man this thing is fubar! I’d blast their ass all over social media, if it weren’t taken care of👍🏻

 

[jpm2953]

playing devils advocate here. My experience with any sort of matte or flat surface finish is that it will show "rub marks" easily. Not a scratch but you can tell when something has been rubbing on it.

 

[ToyotaDude22]

I called today (after 4 phone calls and two messages) and got ahold of someone.

The owner was out but the person who answered seemed confident that they would make it right. I just need to stop in tomorrow and talk with them, but I will absolutely keep this group updated.

I see there being four distinct issues here:
- the cerakote quality issue
- the bad assembly (tooling marks, scratched gas block, marred up castle but on buffer tube)
- the fact that it won’t cycle and the gas lock adjustment is all the way out
- the fact that they charged me 2X market rate

That last one is on me, but I’m hopeful they make it all right. It’s a small veteran owned family business that im local to and I’m hopeful I just caught them on a busy month or something.

 

[cmshoot]

I should add that it cost $575 per rifle for the cerakote, which seemed really high, but I wanted to support a local business.

Did that price include complete disassembly of the firearm prior to Cerakoting, then reassembling after Cerakoting?

If so, how dirty was the AR when you dropped it off?

 

[ToyotaDude22]

Did that price include complete disassembly of the firearm prior to Cerakoting, then reassembling after Cerakoting?

If so, how dirty was the AR when you dropped it off?

Everything was brand new. I had assembled the lower on the 300 black out. Everything else was still in the packaging. It included the cerakote and assembly of both rifles. $1150 total cost.

 

[ReservoirDawg10]

I called today (after 4 phone calls and two messages) and got ahold of someone.

The owner was out but the person who answered seemed confident that they would make it right. I just need to stop in tomorrow and talk with them, but I will absolutely keep this group updated.

I see there being four distinct issues here:
- the cerakote quality issue
- the bad assembly (tooling marks, scratched gas block, marred up castle but on buffer tube)
- the fact that it won’t cycle and the gas lock adjustment is all the way out
- the fact that they charged me 2X market rate

That last one is on me, but I’m hopeful they make it all right. It’s a small veteran owned family business that im local to and I’m hopeful I just caught them on a busy month or something.

And #5: scope mount is backwards

 

[ToyotaDude22]

And #5: scope mount is backwards

Well, the scope isn’t backwards… the mount is. And that was intentional. With the shorter pistol brace, I needed the scope further backward than I could accomplish with it the other way. I’ve got other scope rings and optics im planning to run on it

 

[ToyotaDude22]

the shop was apologetic and plans to re-cerakote both rifles and promised to have them running properly upon pickup next week. Fingers crossed!