So my 6mm creed build is at the smith right now. It’s going in a manners t5 stock that is currently OD green but being cold cerekoted in manners gap camo. I’m curious as to what colour I should do the metal or just leave it black. I’m leaving the bolt on the kelbly action untouched as my stiller that was cerekoted isn’t as smooth as it was before the cerekote. So it will be action and barrel maybe cerekoted and bolt left black nitride, but what colour should I go?
None. You have paid good money for a tight tolerance action. It will run smoother and maintain those tolerances better bare than with any spray on coating that you cant control film thickness on.
camo to match. No one said you have to do anything to the inside of the action if you do not want to.
Black isn't a bad choice to go with GAP, nor is a mix of OD/tan to come up with a lighter tint of OD. I'd agree with leaving the bolt untouched - I've done CeraKote on all five of my Bighorn-based rifles, masked off the bolt bodies & coated the handles only, as I wasn't about to screw up the NP3 coating on their bolts. Most recently, I bought a Vudoo V-22 bbl'd action that had already been CeraKoted in sniper gray, and put it in a Manners PRS-1 in Elite GAP camo. Take your pick - GAP goes well with a wide variety of colors on the bbl'd action & bottom metal.
If you do not have your raceways or bolt coated, should not change the smoothness of operation. I did a light sand color cerakote in a gap camo, it was sharp. But I wiped it down a lot with 409 to get the grime off it. Cobalt would look awesome, as black does.
Thanks everyone! I’ve been debating between leaving the action black, and black cerekote on barrel but it wouldn’t match as ones nitride and others cerekote. Or changing to another colour and leaving the bolt untouched. I’m just so worried about it messing up the smoothness of the action
You can always just coat the barrel for a 2 tone also, I got into buying nitrided Impact Precision actions and have a tough time coating them myself.
Thought about that as well but actually prefer the look of something like black barrel, tan action and black bolt but that doesn’t help the fact I’m worried about cerekote getting inside the action to bind things up a bit lol
Not that I'm some fashion king, my wife says I dress like a clown, or 4 yr old, take your pick, but the color of the action gets swallowed up by the stock. The barrel accents the stock. If that Kelby is nitrided, I'd run it with the first barrel in it's state, get a feel for it and break it in, coat on the 2nd barrel if you need to. Nitriding can make an action, I have one very popular brand, SA 308 bf, I hated it, tried to sell it on here, no takers. I sent it off and had it nitrided, I like it more each outing. So I have 4 actions nitrided, I can't see them ever getting painted.
Maybe I will just leave the action for now. Decide on doing something with the barrel or leaving it. I can always do that after
