Ion Bond vs CERAKOTE

[SMS2]

Any advice especially from personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

I am in the process of purchasing another open gun. I presently have one in hard chrome and one in Ion Bond. The one I am purchasing was just refinished in cerakote which I have no I have no experience with. The upper and lower as well as the comp (Bedell Titanium) has been cerakoted. I know that some finishes, while perhaps fine for Limited, will not hold up to the abuse of an Open.

Any insight as to the practicality, or any issues for that matter, of using cerakote on an Open.

Thanks,

Stephen

[cecil]

all my competition guns are hard chromed..

[donnyglock]

The cerakote holds up well. The nice thing about a race gun is it wont get holster wear.

[Chris iliff]

Got it on my Open gun and so far so good. The nice thing is it is fairly inexpensive, just about re do it once a year at Cerakotes price point. I wouldn't worry about it. I'd shoot the crap out of it and when it wears replace it with whatever you want.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Chris iliff

[Snapple]

Cerakote holds up well and is supposed to have some lubricating properties

[SMS2]

From what I've learned it seems to have some properties, such as hardness, oxidation resistance, lubricity, as well as layer resistance, that exceed those of Ion Bond.............which I've been very pleased with. Any thoughts or experience as to how or if it would hold up on a compensator?

Thanks

Stephen

[OpnGnerr]

From my experience cerakote holds up nice and is a very attractive finish as long as its done right/professionally. But I've never seen it on a TI comp so I'm interested to see how it does. I have a bedell upper I'm thinking about having cerakoted for a two tone with the hard chrome frame, but I'm unsure if I should do the comp?

[Iceman2733]

I also have the same experience as everyone above. Cerakote is a great coating and is very cost effiecent, and if you want to change colors it doesn't cause huge issues. It holds up very well and is great for use in the weather.

[1911Prof]

Do any of these coating provide additional protection to the breach face or other areas to help reduce wear

[Solvability]

Cerakote does not do well on a gun holstered in Kydex - wears through pretty fast.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Solvability

[SMS2]

I agree about the Kydex holster on Cerakote. But I think Kydex can be rough on all finishes. That's one reason I use DAA Racemaster holsters

[40S&W]

+1 cecil, same here. Hard Chrome is the only way to go.

Edited December 10, 2013 by 40S&W

[Meat Target]

Cerakote seems to hold up well on the comp ports but if it touches any part of a holster it will show wear signs fairly quickly. I think builders like cerakote because the prep is quick with just sand blasting unlike poslished hard chrome where every little scratch will show through.

[SMS2]

Thought I would pass this on from another thread I just came across. It seems the consensus is that aside from Hard Chrome wearing better aesthetically it also maintains a tighter slide to frame fit over time as gun wears as opposed to others finishes..

[stardust tommy]

I've done pistols with Cerakote. on CZ's and Glocks there is no problem with the frame/slide fit. I've done a few STI's and they need a little love to get the frame and slide together. you can scrape the coating of the frame rails and use some lapping compound.

cerakote done right is some work.

function check the safeties and the pistol (customers always bring perfect functioning pistols...)

clean the gun (sometimes I get some lead/powder residue with a inside a pistol...

sandblast (I prefer to make some wire hooks on smaller parts before sandblasting, it is not fun to search for small farst in a sandblasting cabinet)

soak in aceton for 30 to 60 min

gas out in the oven for 60 min

cool down / prepare the coating

coat (doutone you have to clean your airbrush in between colors)

bake for 120 min

check your work, maybe do a retouche and clean your airbrush etc

reassemble and funtion check

but you can do it all yourself, hard chrome isn't something you do at home

[donnyglock]

I agree with Tommy. Cerakote is a fine product if all the steps are taken. Yes you can do it at home. I also agree that hard chrome is the best all around finish I have ever had.

I bought a sand blast cabinet an oven and built myself a filtered paint booth to do my stuff in cerakote.

[donnyglock]

[sandrooney]

How does it hold up on the safeties, grip and thumb with a lot of use ?

[donnyglock]

It holds up pretty well. It will rub through eventually. Like all spray on finishes it wont last forever.

[sandrooney]

Thanks

[bthunter019]

Cerakote lets you pick a lot of different colors and color combo's

[steel1212]

I've got a lot of draws in dry fire and live fire on my CORRECTLY Cerakoted guns and you can barely tell. I've posted pictures numerous times in threads like these so do a little digging and you'll see. Is Cerakote hard chrome, no but nothing is. What it is is one hell of coating that retains oils and looks damn good.

[2o2ll]

cerakote and extremely durable, not to mention how good it looks considering you can mix damn near any color with it!

[jcc7x7]

cerakote seems slippery to me. which could be good on the rails etc for lubricity. But not if you have to rack the gun from a table start etc.

I like more traditional finishes. Blueing, Hard Chrome, etc

[StraightUp_OG]

Cerakote is cheap, extremely customizable, durable, slick and really protects against the elements. I can do it myself (think I am going to do my open gun today).

DLC is cool, trendy, expensive, and I can't do it myself.

Advantage Cerakote.