I paint my Tikka camoflage-

[Tom Kat]

Yes I did! I think this will blend in better than the factory all black look-

 

[Rick in Oregon]

Tom, nice job. If you want to spell it correctly, it's "camouflage".

No biggie, but I know you want to do it right. (Who knew? Most of us have been spelling it wrong forever.)

 

[pdog06]

Nice job! Blends in really well!

I did pretty much the same thing to 2 of my guns recently, for the same reason, not liking the plain black stock. Just a different design and I didn’t do the barrels. Yet.
One was a brand new ruger 17hmr. I camo’d it before I even mounted a scope to it or fired it. It just needed some color.
The other was a Savage 308 build I threw together for bear season. However I already had the stock camo’d for it. It was a spare factory Tupperware I had lying around, and was my test stock before I did the ruger!

 

[alf]

Here's the last one I did, was a Manners plain jane tan to begin with.

I painted it 1st with flat black, then overlayed shelf liner & spritzed it with silver to mimic carbon fiber, then sponged on the brown & tan. Either the brown wasn't dark enough, or the tan wasn't light enough for better contrast, oh well....

 

[SVT_Tactical]

One I Duracoated Kuiu Camo for a buddy who shoots on the wrong side.

 

[Tom Kat]

So tonight I did a quick test. The action screws were not all that tight and I torqued them to factory spec of 30 inch lbs. This gun and load (and shooter!) have done better than this in the past and I bet I get it doing better than this.

 

[Lefty2506]

I rattle canned a couple of rifles back in 2009 and put together a tutorial on it. I can't figure out how to attach the entire document, so I'll try to capture a few pictures that pretty much shows how I did it.

I made a stencil out of some twigs from an evergreen bush and some scrap lumber. Its the only good use I've ever found for those darn bushes (they are all gone now).



Painted stripes after taping off everything that I didn't want painted



Applied contrasting colors over the stencil.




Done with the tape removed.



After going for a walk in the snow, and shooting a doe, I leaned it up against a tree and lost it. I knew where I shot from, and where the tree was from that spot that I leaned it against, but I had to backtrack my footprints in the snow to actually find it.

 

[Rick in Oregon]

Lefty, if you had to 'hunt' for that rifle leaning against a tree, I'd say you did quite the good job of it!
Looks good, well done sir!

 

[209jones]

I have a 10ft wood pram out back that was suffering a bit on the finish, 8 yrs old now. Had a whack of camo paint around, found one of the plastic leaf pattern thingys in one box and went to town on the pram with it. Fun making like a regular Rembrandt on it. I do have a Tikka stock I could spruce up a bit, good project for when it warms up in 6 mos or so.

 

[RabbitSlayer]

I just keep accumulating Tikka stocks. Be some good camo projects for someone.

 

[ELR LVR]

I think it's great to put some subdued colors down on an all black stock to blend in with the local surroundings
Cool thread, lots of great ideas
Here is one I did
and a Coffee Laminate to show the big difference when side by side

 

[ELR LVR]

what I did was study how animals in nature blend in so well
such as the Clouded Leopard
there is a very subtle secret to this which I will keep secret
When you study it enough, you may pick up on what's going on to help enhance outline break-up
and blend in with foreground as well as dead space

 

[Lefty2506]

Here's a pic of a young bobcat that got hit in front of my coworkers house that can also be used as a reference. One of my deer stands is on the edge of some CRP ground. I watched one of these walk down my shooting lane in the CRP and stop 40 yds in front of me, sit down, and start grooming itself. Even though I was staring right at it, when ever it would stop moving, it would completely disappear against the various shades of tan weeds and shadows behind it. Hen pheasants can do the same thing. To me the key is alternating light and dark colors, but doing so with more of a fade instead of having distinct edges. Also, the dark to light fade always happens in the same direction.

 

[ISS]

I had a friend do a real nice deep woods pattern. He laid it on the ground to hit the head about fifteen feet away, and it took him about forty minutes to find it...

 

[ELR LVR]

Here's a pic of a young bobcat that got hit in front of my coworkers house that can also be used as a reference. One of my deer stands is on the edge of some CRP ground. I watched one of these walk down my shooting lane in the CRP and stop 40 yds in front of me, sit down, and start grooming itself. Even though I was staring right at it, when ever it would stop moving, it would completely disappear against the various shades of tan weeds and shadows behind it. Hen pheasants can do the same thing. To me the key is alternating light and dark colors, but doing so with more of a fade instead of having distinct edges. Also, the dark to light fade always happens in the same direction.
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You got some good points about them blending in
I studied how and why animals such as rabbits and deer can do the same thing
1) their grayish/brownish/tanish color simply blends in well with background
2) but even more importantly
---they have hair fibers that are hollow/colorless
the phenomenon that happens next is, that hair then acts like a fiberoptic
to then mirror it's immediate surrounding background
in effect, their hair acts like a Chameloen or Octopus to blend in to its surroundings
I observe this constantly with the deer that walk through my back yard
I have taken many pictures of deer not 20 yards away to try to demonstrate this
such as what you said
"as soon as it stops, it disappears, like the legendary bigfoot, the all time hide and seek champion"
the pictures of the deer in plain sight do no good because there is no proof a deer is even there lol
even when it is 20 yards right in front of you
It is literally amazing
---
I used the same concept of being able to mirror and mimic the background for crafting a ghillie
works pretty good for sneaking up on animals
1) 20 feet away - no Ghillie
2) me in the Ghillie
3) making it obvious where I was
4) fox I stalked for awhile and snuck up on
5) fox got so comfy he laid down to take a nap with me close by in the Ghillie

 

[Treerat-sniper]

I have 5 Tikkas with factory stocks, I have sponge painted them all.