DuraCoat can withstand temperatures as high has 500-600 degrees F. With "normal" shooting, your barrel will never get close to being that hot. If you are an individual fortunate enough to own a transferable machine gun, are a Law Enforcement or Military organization, or if you like to "blaze" with your semi-auto, do not put DuraCoat on your barrel, as your barrel temperature could rise to over 1,000 degrees F. In those cases, we would recommend using DuraHeat.

DuraHeat is a High Temperature Ceramic coating can handle temperatures up to 1,800 degrees F, but the color selection is limited and items can typically only be done in one solid color.  DuraHeat is available in Matte Black, HK Black, Woodland Tan, Woodland Brown, Woodland Green, Stainless, Pewter, and Clear.

We will be testing DuraCoat and DuraHeat on suppressors as they get significantly hotter than any barrel to evaluate the real world performance of DuraCoat and DuraHeat.

UPDATE!

We just completed (8/17/2010) the first of a series of DuraCoat and DuraHeat temperature tests which will be of interest to many.  We tested a Coastal Gun LRT .308 Suppressor on a HK91 to see what would happen.  It was painted in a light  desert tan to show any discoloration easily.  The end cap of the suppressor was painted in Woodland Tan DuraHeat.

Initially we put 20 rounds through the rifle at a moderately rapid rate of one shot every 2 seconds and by the end of the 20 rounds the suppressor exterior temperature had risen to 200-220 degrees farenheit as measured with a hand held infared industrial thermometer accurate to +/- 2 degrees.  There were no adverse effects noted.  We then changed the pace to try to see if we could get the suppressor into the 550-600 degree range where DuraCoat is supposed to fail.  We were only able to get it up to 515 degrees and the finish did not fail but the pigmentation of the DuraCoat started to fail at around 370 degrees, at which point it started to discolor and rapidly changed from a desert tan to a chocolate brown, in some spots a dark chocolate brown.  (See pictures below.)

The endcap which was painted in DuraHeat, was not affected.  At the end when the Suppressor was still reading in the high 400's the barrel reading was around 250-260 degrees.

So what did we learn??

1)  DuraCoat survives up to at least 515 degrees so the claim of 550-600 degree finish failure is probably accurate.

2)  Although the finish did not fail, if you are interested in maintaining a  colored or patterned finish on anything likely to get hotter than 350 degrees farenheit, you should use DuraHeat.

3)  DuraHeat easily survived the 500 degree plus, as one would expect, since it is a ceramic coating rated to 1800 degrees.

4)  Barrel temperatures run significantly (about 200 degrees, in this case) lower than suppressor temperatures.

Picture 1:  Suppressor Before (Note Woodland Tan DuraHeat onThreaded end on Left)

Picture 2:  Suppressor After - (Original Color Threaded Endcap shown for contrast)

Picture 3:  Unscathed Woodland Tan DuraHeat Threaded Endcap After

If you would like to view the video of the full test, click BELOW

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!

Our next test will be to evaluate some other factors with DuraHeat by using a AAC M4-2000 suppressor on an M16 with an 11.5' barrel and running a C-Mag through it.  The questions we are looking to answer are:

1)  How hot will the can get and will the DuraHeat survive?

2)  If DuraHeat is patterned, will the second and or third paint layers remain bonded at high temperature?

3)  How hot will the barrel get in this case and how much is the suppressor-barrel temperature delta?

We also intend to shoot some video and test pistol caliber suppressors on SMG's and Pistols to see how hot they really get to in both typical and worst case situations and what the actual temperatures achieved are for general reference, as there is no definative data available that we could find on the web.

UPDATE #2!

Our primary rest objective stated above was not obtained due to weapon malfunctions (just goes to show you shouldn't count on a brand new, unfired weapon as a test bed!) , we will repeat that test as soon as possible, since we barely got the suppressor up to 380 degrees.

We did, however, perform our secondary tests successfully and in the four cases tested we did not see suppressor temperatures any higher than 180 degrees farenheit.  The weapon/suppressor combinations tested were as follows:

Cobray M11/9 with Coastal Gun Inc. M.I.M.S. Suppressor in a full 32round mag dump.  With a cyclic rate of 1200 rounds per minute, we expected this to have the fastest temprature rise.

Cobray M11/9-380 Conversion at 650 rounds per minute in a 32 round full mag dump.

HK MP5-SD with which we did two 40 round mag dumps back to back with only a few seconds between to check temperature.  The MP5-SD operates at around 900 round per minute.  The HK was the hottest of the four and reached a maximum if 180 degrees.

UZI 9mm with a Coastal Gun Inc. M.I.M.S Suppressor mounted directly on the barrel nut location.  We ran two (2) 32 round mags back-to-back as for the HK above.   The open bolt UZi 9mm operastes at a cyclc rate of 600 rounds per minute.

Conclusions:  We are comfortable that it would be next to impossible to get a pistol caliber SMG to exceed 350 degrees farenheit during even a maximum stress of multiple, successive magazines as the temperature increases noted from successive magazine dumps inducated, to us at least, that the gas volume of a pistol caliber SMG is insufficient to reach such temperatures.  (This makes some intuitive sense as a 308 round holds around 45 grains of powder, a 223 around 25, and a 9mm around 6 grains.  Even withot considering that the pistol powders have a much higher burn rate, it holds only abot 25% of the 223 and around 13% of that of a a 308 powder charge.)

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!

We will have both stills and videos of these tests posted here in the next few days.  Come back and check them out!

Our next planned activity will be to repeat the aborted M16 tests as restated below:

We will evaluate  DuraHeat by using a AAC M4-2000 suppressor on an M16 with an 11.5' barrel and running a C-Mag through it.  The questions we are looking to answer are:

1)  How hot will the can get and will the DuraHeat survive?

2)  If DuraHeat is patterned, will the second and or third paint layers remain bonded at high temperature?

Test AAC M4-2000 Painted in Black (Complete), Woodland Green - Patterned (back 2/3rds), and Woodland Tan - Patterned (Back 1/3rd) DuraHeat

3)  How hot will the barrel get in this case and how much is the suppressor-barrel temperature delta?

Update #3!

We finally got to run our test at a neaby county law enforcement training range and got our answers!

The AAC M4-2000 got up to a maximum measured 953 degrees.  The barrel behind the suppressor measured 440 degrees and the bottom of the front sight tower was 380 degrees.  These temperatures are too high for DuraCoat in anything but a black finish which tells us that for rifle caliber weapons envisioned to fire in sustained full auto fire should have barrel and sight tower painted in DuraHeat, in addition to the suppressor.   The handguard appears to be safe to do in DuraCoat, as would be the case for the rest of the weapon.

Another key test objective was to see if the layering of the DuraHeat pattern would survive at high temperatures, and that passed with flying colors so our application technique was validated.  We did see some discoloration of the tan in the area where the suppressor made the most contact with the flash hider, but we are unsure as to the cause, as we knew that the tan was beyond its rated shelf life and the green in the same area did not have any noticable color change.

What this tells us overall is that we CAN apply patterned finishes in DuraHeat, so that we are not limited to solid color solutions in DuraHeat, although the color selection is limited.

See the video of the test below:

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!