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I've never had a cerekoted rifle. Without sounding too rookie(ish), what are the benefits of it over stainless?

I read Mule Deer's article and while informative, it concentrated more on how to properly apply cerekote as opposed to the benefits of it, other than providing corrosion and chemical resistance.

I have a factory cerekoted rifle that my brother inlaw tried shutting a tailgate on twice in the dark. Not a mark, supprised
the heck out of me.
He shut a boat hatch on a new rod tip of mine once, it didn’t fair to well
Lol

You probably don’t gain a bunch IMO. It’s more an aesthetic thing for me.

On saltwater based hunts stainless will get rust spots and discoloration. Kimber Montana’s are particularly bad at that. My uncoated kimber montana 6.5 cm looks horrible. Coating keeps the salt off but you still have the stainless bore. I try to buy rifles now that are coated like xcr2, mesas, and seekinsph2.

Well, in my experience you're wrong. Have hunted a lot with both stainless and Cerakoted rifles, and the stainless steel generally used for rifle barrels will rust, especially in coastal ocean salt-infused air, and in saddle scabbards infused with salty horse-sweat.

John is right, stainless gun barrels will rust. Slower, but rust nonetheless.

Common stainless gun barrels are made with 416R grade SS.

"Alloy 416 is a martensitic, free-machining, chromium steel alloy that is generally considered to be the first free-machining stainless steel. It has the highest machinability of any stainless steel at about 85% of that of a free-machining carbon steel."

Machinability being of high value to produce a high quality durable bore and rifling. It also possesses the strength required to withstand the pressures when it is heat treated.

Its level of corrosion resistance can be found in this link.

https://www.interlloy.com.au/our-products/stainless-steel/416-martensitic-stainless-steel-bar/

Stainless steels engineered with higher levels of corrosion resistance have far less machinability and strength in regards to the operating pressures of a gun barrel.

What about Birdsong Black T versus Cerakote?

Not a fan of the looks Cerakote gives myself.

My response was to the bold in Tiny’s post. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but he had already touched on the rust/corrosion.

I've had Kimber SS pistols rust sitting in a holster. My Montana has the same rust, more like micro pitting rust that is hard to clean up and in the grain. Love hard chome as an option too.

Cerokote will hold up to wear and dings better, but Black-T is slicker, if that matters to your application. They're both great.

Yup, agreed. I’m pretty rough on it. I’m not sure what would better? Maybe nitride?

Thanks for everyones input. Especially appreciate Mule Deer's response.

I forgot all about Birdsong Black T. Might give them a go since they are close to where I live.
Still undecided so far.

Don’t know if it’s better? Had this one parkerized 25+ years ago and it has held up great. Pretty sure stainless can’t be parkerized though?

I have one parkerized rifle with a chrome-moly barrel and I prefer that finish any day over a blued finish. You can't parkerize a stainless barrel as far as I know. I'm having a stainless barrel and chrome moly receiver cerakoted in graphite black at the moment. After having quite a few rifles cerakoted, my conclusion is this: graphite black is ideal for a chrome-moly barrel or action because if it scratches you can touch up the scratch with cold bluing (or touch up black paint) until the whole barrel needs redoing in creakote or it is shot out. For a stainless barrel (including the action), a medium gray is best on the basis that any scratch won't be as obvious as with a black or olive finish, yet the medium gray will still "camouflage" well. I always tape the muzzle unless I'm not in brush and it's a fine day, so as to look after the bore, more than an un-taped barrel.

Don't know what "looks" you like, but this is my CZ 550 9.3x62 that's Cerakoted with a blue-black finish, designed to look like matte blueing.

When hunting in Tanzania in 2011 toward the end of the hunting season the rainy season started, and the rifle got wet. But then the clouds drifted away and it got hot and dry quickly.

The slightly damp rifle than picked up a thin layer of red dust, and the PH told me my rifle had rusted. I told him no, it didn't it's just dust.

But he insisted it was rust, so I took one of the drinking-water bottles from the cooler in the Land Cruiser, and poured the the water over the metal parts of the CZ--and the "rust" washed right off!

XCR finish is a vapor deposited coating and I think the machinery for that would be prohibitively expensive for a small shop. Mesas I have owned/own were cerakote. I do not know what the seekins has as far as a coating.

I don't want to be able to pick a gun up and immediately be able to tell it has a coating.

This is Midnight Blue Cerakote as BSA mentioned in his post. The barrel is stainless, so I chose to have the rifle coated.





Or, you can color outside the lines a bit if you like. This is my first experience with Cerakote beyond a few small parts, so can't comment on durability. So far, so good.

Do you consider bluing a coating?

Not really.