PVD/DLC Coating

[Th4tNinja]

Has anyone had their pistols coated with PVD/DLC? Any recommendations on who to send it to?

[ThatFishGuy]

Pvd* And yeah, I had it done to one gun. I sent it through Evolution Gunworks. Great dudes to deal with.

[Colt]

I have a pistol with ion bond slide. Really like it. The pistol has cerakoted aluminum frame. I like the ion bond much better (looks, and performance). I’m also looking into getting Black T on another item - it has been around a long time, and seems to be well regarded.

I had the Ion Bond done when I had the above mentioned pistol renovated.

[Fatcat]

Ionbond (PVD coatings) goes on very thin, when I got my Kimber done there were some areas on the barrel hood and slide breech where the coating came off. Rest of the pistol’s outer surfaces had no issues. I don’t believe the gun is sealed as I was advised to keep the surfaces oiled. Under magnification, the surface appears to have very small cylinders which I guess soaks up oils. Overall, a great coating but a hella $$$. The surface prep had to be immaculate, and clean. However the gun is before is how its going to look afterwards.

[epwegmann]

I don’t know if you’ve looked into it, but I ended up going with Melonite finish for a pistol I had a while ago.
I had looked at PVD and DLC, but found Melonite to offer a bit more in terms of wear resistance and protection.
I did have Springfield Custom shop do it when they still did customer requested custom work. I’m not sure who still offers the service.

[BajaJames83]

PVD/ Ion bond is very thin and will come wear pretty quick with minimal use. Looks great at first but wears easily.
There's a Reason why SIG is moving away from PVD on their legion series.
If you find a reputable vendor that does Cerakote IMHO that is the way to go for custom finishes.

[Fatcat]

epwegmann is right. My gunsmith did a test with some Melonite (salt-bath nitride) finished samples and left them outdoors for a year. He brought them in afterwards to examine, cleaned them off and there was no visible corrosion. Not a test of wear/abrasion but nonetheless impressive.
The only downside of the finishing process that I could research is the substrate material is subjected to about 1000 degrees when the parts are dipped on the molten salt bath. Not a big deal for most pistols, but maybe for some extremely fitted parts.

[Colt]

Not allDLC like coatings are Ion Bond. So, be careful about that.