Although this article will be about camouflaging only the rifle stock, I am sure some of you will want to go the whole 9-yards and camo the whole rifle. With that in mind, I will try to add suggestions on what to do if you want to camouflage the whole rifle, including the scope, action, and barrel. One of my project rifles has camo paint on all parts except the scope and it has worked out great. For some reason I am reluctant to spray paint a scope that is worth $500 to $1,000. However, if you are going all out and want your equipment to be as invisible as possible, you may have to bite the bullet and paint your scope, rings, and bases, along with the stock and barreled action.

The first step in this project was to pick a spot where I could work in an environment that was fairly dust free. Next, I tried to find an area where any paint overspray would not damage anything like the painted surface on my car/pickup, lawn mowers, ATVs, motorcycles or any other thing sitting in the work area. Move all that stuff out of the work area for the duration of your project. Another suggestion here is to find a spot where there won't be numerous people, any cats, dogs, or kids running around and rubbing against your work of art. The work area should have a good source of light so you can see what you are doing and some ventilation so you don't breathe too many paint fumes. (You don't want to fry your brain on paint fumes.)

My first step in doing a camouflage paint job on my stock was to remove the barreled action from the stock. The stock in the illustrations is a synthetic HS Precision thumbhole stock with aluminum pillars. I customized portions of the stock when I first received it because it didn't quite fit my Remington 700 BDL action. I cut off the bottom of the grip area to shorten it a bit, used body putty to fill in imperfections, sanded the whole stock, and then used the old red primer often used on auto bodies for the first primer coat. For the finishing coat I used a gray color and that is what you see on the stock to the right. In preparation for the NEW camouflage paint job, I sanded the old paint job lightly with 220-grit sandpaper and then used a rag dampened with acetone to clean off the sanding dust and any a portion of the old paint that wasn't real stable. I did one more sanding with 400-grit sandpaper and used a rag dampened with acetone to do the final cleaning before painting. (A word of caution here about using acetone or mineral spirits: test the acetone or whatever you use to clean off the oil, finger prints, old paint, etc. from the stock on a part of your stock that isn't critical, like the inside of the barrel channel. Acetone will dissolve some paints and also some of the synthetic materials from which stocks are made.) Test this first so you won't be sorry later!

During the sanding process I actually exposed some of the raw synthetic material. The image above shows some dark red spots and those are areas of old primer and raw synthetic material.

I used Krylon #1318 All Purpose Primer Gray for the priming paint. The illustration to the right is of the left side of the stock after I had completed the final coat of primer.

The picture to the right illustrates the course texture left on the surface of the stock. I sprayed several coats of the Firm Foot Slip-Resistant Epoxy on the forearm to get the gripping texture I felt necessary to prevent my hand from slipping off the forearm. I only waited a few minutes between coats during this process, but I was very careful so I didn't get any messy runs of paint. The shiny look was covered nicely when the gray primer coat was sprayed over the textured surface. I let this coat of epoxy sit for 12 hours before priming over it.

Here are two pictures of the bottom of the stock. The top one shows the sanded and degreased stock immediately before priming and the bottom picture is of the stock after the final coat of primer was applied.

Below are pictures of the right and left side of my stock after completion of the #8141 Khaki paint application. Once again, I did two coats of paint just to make sure I had good coverage. Both coats were fairly light coats so I didn't get any runs or drips in the paint.

I sprayed the Sage Satin color through most of the holes in the stencil over the entire left side of the stock. Then I waited about a half hour and used the stencil and Sage Satin color to do the bottom of the stock. I didn't wait more than maybe 10 minutes after that coat before I turned the stock on its left side and did the stencil work in Sage Satin on the right side of the stock. After I finished painting with the Sage Satin color, I used some Heavy Duty Flat Black Enamel by Velspar to paint just a few random black leaf patterns on the left and right sides as well as the bottom of the stock. In retrospect, I could just as well have used the Krylon #8412 Brown color in place of the black. The brown is quite dark and I did use that color on my third pass to paint a few random leaf patterns too. Krylon also has #8147 Medium Brown and #8143 Olive Drab that could be used as well. The picture below is of the cheek piece as it looked after all three colors were on the stock.

I'm not sure I will ever put camo paint on the scope and barrel of this rifle. The bead blasted, fluted SS barrel does not reflect a lot of light. I feel that if I don't move around as the predators approach my calling location, they are not going to notice the SS barrel. Besides, I often use a FoxPro electronic caller with a remote control and place the call about 50+ yards away from me. That usually keeps the predator's attention off of me and on the source of the sound. It gives me a "fudge factor" allowing me to get my rifle in position for the shot without spooking the animal.

Make sure you follow the directions on the sides of the Krylon spray paint cans. In particular, do as they say and shake the can vigorously for 2 minutes BEFORE you begin painting and then repeat shaking the can for 10 seconds after each minute of use. You want to make sure the pigment is mixed in with the propellant for a good coverage job. Apply the paint in thin coats so you don't get runs and drips. Keep the spray nozzle 10 to 12 inches away from the surface you are painting-this helps avoid runs and drips too.

If you don't want to buy a commercial stencil or stencil blanks, I read somewhere that stiff paper like construction paper or the paper used in file folders will work nicely too. Some types of construction paper may be too absorbent to really work well for you. Oh, you will probably want to let the paint on the stencil dry before you move to another area on the stock so you don't get wet paint smeared on areas of the stock where you don't want it.

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