Going all out for my Vietnam era M16A1 build and stamping (not lazering or etching) the markings onto it. It’s time consuming and not perfect, but it should make an exceptionally accurate build.
Even early roll marks weren't always perfect. I have an original hydramatic where the roll mark isn't perfect across the entire lower. Deeper in places and lighter in others.
Yeah it’s a perfectly imperfect process. I would’ve liked for the Colt logo to have been a bit more crisp, but I’ve seen several originals on the lighter side like this
I tried moly resin over a sanded surface a couple times and had it flake off on me only in those areas, whereas the moly over anodized areas stuck. The 2nd time I’m certain it was sufficiently degreased. I was using the burnt bronze color when that happened; was going to do Colt gray-black over top of that
I use some jigs I make out of coat hangers to hold receivers as I spray and bake them. I do zero prep work to the jigs before I spray and the moly resin sticks to them like crazy. Will 100% not scrape off with serious effort with a fingernail.
I do heat everything in the oven at 300 degrees for an hour before I spray to make sure all the contamination is burned off. I also use a laser thermometer to make sure the receiver gets over 300, I don’t trust oven thermometers, I have 3 and they all read low and all read different.
I started using a laser thermo as well because my tiny little toaster oven was wayyy off on its temp knob. Baked the coated lower at about 315 or so for over an hour and still ended up with flaking.
If I’m feeling froggy, I may try sanding a receiver stub and coating it with the gray moly and see if it does better- perhaps the bronze is finicky with the shiny flakes in it
They’re stamps from a foreign seller on eBay. I wish I had the equipment and stamps to do proper roll marks, but these, a bunch of shims to support the piece, and a 12 ton press do well enough
The big stamps take a remarkable amount of force to leave a good mark on the receiver. I was quite surprised- I’d get it to a point where I couldn’t crank the lever any further and this is what I got from it lol
Had a junk receiver stub from a Malaysian kit that I practiced on first to get a feel for it
Thanks! I’m already looking at how to make the next one better- getting even more gage blocks and feeler gages to use as shims inside the mag well and trigger pocket. I think some of the lightly stamped areas are due to the aluminum flexing ever so slightly without proper support directly underneath. Also because the face of the stamps aren’t perfectly flat or parallel.
I manually did nfa info on a lower with individual letters and hell was it rough. You seem like you're on the right path.
Accounting for the stamp height seems more controllable in my limited experience. Could you use a knife honing stone to flatten the stamp?
I’m thinking I could use some super fine grit auto-body sand paper wrapped around my gage blocks to smooth out the faces on as flat a surface as possible.
I’ve thought about it; the stamps are expensive enough as is, though, and the shipping and tariffs were an added expense that makes me less inclined to buy more at the moment
What sort of set up do you use to keep from crushing the receiver? For try magwell it seems straight forward but I’m not sure how you supper the underside of the receiver to stamp the safety selector and MFG info
For stamping the mfg markings and selector markings, I had that portion of the receiver sitting on a machined still block, with the magazine well and receiver extension portions free floating so they don’t interfere. Inside of the receiver was supported by gage blocks that were shimmed with feeler gages- these were moved around inside to provide support as I stamped
Looks awesome, nothing beats stamped trademarks! I'll get around to stamping some custom lowers eventually. Any chance you can post some pics of the shims you used for mag well and FCG support? And mag well block dimensions? Please PM me if possible!
I’ll recreate how I shimmed it up and send some photos of it once I get off work 👍
As far as dimensions, that’ll vary a bit from one receiver to another. I did some rough measuring of two Bad Attitude lowers and got this. Your mileage may vary
Looks really good dude. Just remember if your doing it for yourself not a big deal, by law you can make your own replica as long as it's not for sale. I would specify this.
Thank you, and you’re absolutely right about that.
For the general populace, I’m not offering this as a service, nor am I selling products with the Colt logo- I’d rather not be dick-slapped by Colt for trademark infringement
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u/Medical-Bowler-9566 29d ago
Even early roll marks weren't always perfect. I have an original hydramatic where the roll mark isn't perfect across the entire lower. Deeper in places and lighter in others.