Quote Originally Posted by mattm0812 View Post
Very nice.

What did you do to prep it?
matt, 150 grit sand paper to every surface getting painted, and a good wipe down with alcohol to remove all oil/ect. I painted it in 3 separate parts: receiver/barrel/rail, bolt body, and trigger guard. In the last parts of prep I removed the trigger/safety mechanism from the receiver, and wedged the tips from q-tips in the muzzle to seal that off. A .308win muzzle takes precisely 3 q-tip heads carefully wedged in to get a complete seal at the crown, without the cotton going everywhere. The bolt got heavily taped with 3M painters tape, except for the bolt body. Other than that, I hung everything down in my heated utility room using a heavy duty nylon twine that can take the weight. The "paint" used was Brownell's Alumahyde II in earth brown. In the above picture it almost looks like a WW2 era flat O.D. green, but it is definitely not. Once it has hung/cured for awhile I will get that rifle assembled and try to get you folks some completed pictures in proper lighting. And once my replacement rail screws from EGW arrive (hopefully Monday), I can get the Shilen setup prepped, painted, and curing as well.

With how easily the factory trigger/safety mechanism came out, I do not forsee any issues in swapping the factory trigger for a Rifle Basix Sav-1 and getting it adjusted nicely. In fact, the most difficult thing that I have done so far was to remove the magazine from the factory tupperware stock. That one took a lot of very careful prying with a flathead screwdriver to accomplish. However, installing it in it's new O.D. green B&C Tactical Medalist stock was the exact opposite. Extremely easy.

This week will see orders of match grade ammo and cases for the rifles, once I know what length I am going to need. It is crazy how close this project is getting to completion. I am also getting really excited to see my buddy's reaction, and find out who is right. His wife, or myself. Is he going to cry as she suspects? Or is he going to kick my butt for spending so much on him, as I suspect? Maybe both? Only time will tell!