My new 300 whisper was fully Cerakote by a gunsmith in Sydney.
The barrel, action, bolt, scope mount and rings.
The whole job costs me about $AU 300 (about $US 240) and takes 4 weeks!!!

I brought it home, and I rack the action a few time and the coating on
the bolt flakes off!!! AAARGHHH!!

Now, this is the very first time I cerakote anything and trully I don't know what to expect.
But from the rap sheet of the cerakoting company, told me that the coating
would act as a bearing surface for rubbing parts, and the fact that I do not
have to worry about oiling the action much, only the occasional drop,
because the coating would not need any lubrication.

Now, here I am 4 weeks since I sent the rifle out, I get some spray painted
parts that flakes off simply by rubbing it with my fingernail!!!
Also, on the barrel, there is a scratch when I test fired the gun on a sand bag last Sunday.
I thought this should not happen, the coating is proven weaker than a standard blueing

I am going to S C R E A M at the conman who do this job,
the problem is he is not available until after the Easter break, and I am
planning to use the whisper on the Easter break.

Anyone have these happened before?
Should I just blue the gun with tried and proofed method of blueing?


Gelan

Gidday Gelan.....how are you mate?

Who did you get to put the finish on your rifle mate? I don't think that there is any question of a warranty claim. In fact, I would be sending the rifle back to him and having him strip the whole thing and do it again from scratch. If that doesn't work then I'd be talking to the parent company.

Good luck with the Easter hunt mate.

Cheers, Vince

I had to look that up...A glass (well sort of) finish on your rifle? Why? Cadilac used ceramic liners in , I believe, their North star engine a few years back. Don't know if they still do. But the stuff is somewhat sensitive to being struck in a direct manor. As long as the fit is correct it can make a good sliding surface though. But on a rifle?

Never heard of this stuff before, maybe for a good reason. tr

Some rap about cerakote are in this site

or here

So it flakes off huh gelan? Must be too high tech for me.

Sounds like your surface may not be preped correctly. Most applied surface treatments (baked or otherwise) require a clean, warm, rough surface, to start with. A heated, sand blasted surface is best, but bead blasting is a bare minimum if the treatment is to stick. The coating must have something to grab onto, else it just fluffs off with almost any contact.
Ed

swampfox hit it on the head.. its the prep work that did it in!! with anything like this if the prep work is crap the job is crap.. document the damage on the action and anywhere else, with photos if possible, use the rifle for what ya want to, go back after he is available and show him the damage, tell him you want it taken care of, and ya also want something for time lost due to having it done twice!! a well done cerakote, or even a well preped and done powder coating on rifles and handguns will be the last thing you will do to it! but the metal, especially on firearms needs to be CLEAN!!! and i will bet this is where the trouble was in the bolt.. as far as the scratch from the sandbags, this sounds like the stuff didnt cure correctly.. once agan leading back to the prep work..

Uh.. There is a few more wrongs done to the rifle.

1. Cerakote flakes off... (told that already) Now a few days after it was done,
I found that it even flakes off my barrel.
I had already have the WHOLE gun sand blasted MATT, it still did not stick on??

2. Trigger assembly were removed and NOT assembled correctly,
thus the firing pin sometime shoot forwards as the bolt is locked.
(This is EXTREMELY dangerous)

3. I suspect that the gunsmith do not disassemble my bolt when coating it,
and I suspect he BAKED the bolt completely with the FIRING PIN SPRING in it.
Now my firing spring seems to be weak and do not indent the primer
reliably. I got 50% chance of the ammo did not go bang when I pull the
trigger..

AAARRRGGGHHH.... I am soooo frustrated. I have contacted him about the problem and
sent the gun to him this morning. I hope he will do things right this time around.

On the brighter side though, the 300 Whisper gives a single hole when I fired 10 shot (whenever it works) through it at 100 meters I could cover the hole with a 10c Australian coin Yeah!!!

Gelan, PM me mate. I am extremely curious to find out who the gunsmith was that did this work for you.

Cheers, Vince

Sent you one Vince.

An update to what happened so far.

Just after Easter, I returned the rifle for re coating.
I heard nothing from the guy since.

Yesterday, more than 2 months later, I got a phone call, telling me that my rifle has now been PARKERIZED.

When asked how come? the answer is, he tried to cerakote my rifle twice already and both times it fails. So he want to cut his losses and parkerize the gun instead.
ALSO, he refuses to refund my money and also refuses to communicate further.

This fellow's name is James Clapham from Sydney.
I think this fellow is uncouth and a charlatan. I would advise anybody for NOT to have anything to do with him especially with firearms business. This hacker is very dishonest and childish in his business dealings.

Our sport is getting enough bad publicity, and this fraud may make it worse if a gun under his care happens to blow up.

Well, there you go. A bad review for a fraud gunsmith. You have been warned!!

ok so what you are telling us is you are changing your name to SUE?? i sure would be looking into some sort of legal ramifications towards this guy, cause this just is not right at all!!

Hi gelandangan;sorry to hear of your problems with that (supposed) gunsmith.I guess phonies even get into our sports industries too!BTW-what is a .300 whisper,I have never heard of that caliber before,can you point me toward some information or website about it?Thanks in advance.....TRBLSHTR.....

It's a good bet I won't be using that smith with AO as a main deterent, though a crappy review is noted.....

The last Rifle I had Cerekoted was done by Fit 4 Duty in Kansas, USA. Now known as Ultracoat. I know Doug and Bill on a first name basis and they good people. They're doing BIG things for Big People at the moment and ain't doin' a lot of sittin' around.

I've tried and I can't seem to hurt anything they've done for me, tuff as woodpecker lips.

Sent Doug a set of Talley LW's as an afterthought to compliment the Rifle mentioned, and got a call from Doug to expect them to be at my door in a day or two.

On aside, the other mounts, windage adj. Leupolds, which were coated when the rifle was done.....were an SOB to lap. Gettin' the compound to bite in and do something was no small feat.

Done right, Cerakote never don't work..........