A point before I begin - coming back from the range a few weeks back my friend and I were discussing how guns are an acceptable place for men to really care about aesthetics. Guys on forums will ask questions about which spray paint most closely matches Magpul's Flat Dark Earth color (for my money, short of a high end cerakote job, it's Rustoleum Satin Dark Taupe). That gun is beautiful, the camo paint job you did looks sharp, that stock really balances out that gun's look. Guys will openly compare their AR-15 to a Barbie doll, or make that Simpsons joke about how a new stock is like Malibu Stacy's fancy new hat. I find it mildly amusing and I enjoy participating in it.
Anyway, I've been working on a few things in the last few months, and I thought I'd describe them here.
1. Hexagonal Camouflage
After seeing lots of cool rattlecan camo paint jobs, I felt like trying one of my own. I've limited myself to PMAGs since it's a lot easier to swallow an ugly $12 magazine than an ugly $800 firearm (I'm aware that there are options for removing spray paint, but baby steps). Since I'm just doing the mag and I don't have a need for actual camo, I wanted to try something different. I like Boards of Canada and futuristic things in general, so I started looking at hexagon designs, and found inspiration in the camouflage of the "CELL" private military corporation in the Crysis games, which is hex-based.
I cut some stencils out of paper and, after some setbacks, made this:
Currently I'm working on a slightly different technique. In MSPaint I made some boxes, the size of the magazine, with pseudorandum arrangements of hexes. I did 3-5 different boxes with different arrangements for the 3 sizes of hexes. Once these are cut out, I'll be able to hold the box up to the mag, spray, and then all of my big hexes are down at once; same with the other sizes. I can mix and match for different arrangements. I also got these laminated, so hopefully they'll hold up a little better (the hexes are a pain in the ass to cut out, though). Hopefully this will be a more attractive result than my first attempt.
2. Target Stand
Back in March my friend and I went out to the unmanned range in Oregon, MO. It's a solid hour and a half away, but worth the trip when you're in the mood to shoot without being subject to the rigid Parma atmosphere. The only problem with this range is the target situation - the 25, 50, and 100 yards are marked with orange plastic safety fence and nothing else. It's difficult to affix targets to this fence, especially since it's very rarely replaced and as a result is pretty shot up.
Even though we saw a park ranger hassle a guy once there for shooting at a homemade target stand, I've decided to build one. I think it's absurd to hassle someone for taking the initiative to build something that can actually hold a target when there's really no alternative. I guess we'll see what happens. At any rate, I based it off of this reddit post:
http://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/1p85fl/diy_portable_steel_target_stands/
I followed that cut list just about exactly and got a 2x4 cut at Home Depot. The clamping and gluing process made the receptacle for the post a little too tight, so I've had to file it out a bit. I'm not using steel targets at the moment, so I made a basic rectangular 2'x1' frame out of 2x2 and am currently figuring out the best way to attach the frame to the post to be stable and yet portable. I may have to sacrifice portability. At any rate the expected use for it is attaching cardboard to the frame and then taping targets to the cardboard.
3. Ammo Can
Back in high school, when my gun-owning dreams were little more than a twinkle in my eye, I bought an old 50 cal ammo can for all of $4 at a flea market. I've held onto it all these years. Last year I took my dremel to it in an effort to get the rust off. I've halfheartedly continued this effort since then, but after using it to hold ammo at a few recent range trips I decided to get serious about it.
I used the dremel's wire brush a few more times, as well as steel wool, to get the rust off as best I could. After a blasting of brake cleaner, I covered the whole thing with gray Rustoleum primer, and then painted the whole thing with that Rustoleum Satin Dark Taupe I was talking about.
I then got on my computer and messed with a picture of my AR and a picture of my pistol. Using the pen tool in Gimp I created a shape out of the gun, filled it in all black, and printed it out. I carefully cut it out with a hobby knife and used double-sided tape to stick the stencils on the can.
I then covered the whole can with Krylon Camo green. After removing the stencils, what I have is a nice flat green can with no visible rust (you can kind of see it, though), and nice FDE-color pictures of the guns whose ammo I use the can for the most often. I think if I had bought some spray adhesive for the stencils it would have looked better with cleaner lines, but I'm still pretty happy with it. An easy project if you have one of these cans laying around.
