As a sidebar... Kudos again to the NSS folks; the barrel, action wrench, barrel nut wrench, recoil lug, and barrel nut all arrived very well packaged and protected exactly when they said it would. Placed my order Tuesday, arrived less than a week later.

Earlier I mentioned making a trigger guard out of a piece of bar stock... that project due to a lack of proper tools did not go well so ordered a new one from Midway along with a few other items for the build.

Going to try out DuraCoat's rattle-can in MagPul FDE and will post pictures of the process and end results as well. Figured for $30 the worst thing that can happen is I have to take it all to a friend's house and bead blast it off if it looks like garbage. Best case is I end up with a good matte finish on the action and barrel that won't spook any of my future freezer stockers.