Blasting

[J-cat]

I want to refinish my Stark grip cuz they now come coated with some rubberized crap which does not match my Magpul furniture. I was thinking of blasting it with aluminum oxide. Is there a better way, maybe with a solvent to remove the rubber coating?

[Gunsmith Dan]

Unless you can get under the coating and blast is from underneath to separate it from the surface blasting a Rubber coating will not very good results. The way to make stuff resistant to sand blasting they are normally made from, or coated with, Rubber (blasting gloves are multilayered rubber). The amount of pressure and the size of material needed in most cases will remove the rubber but destroy the material it coated.

You also need to look close at your Stark grip because I believe the entire grip is a molded rubber with a small plastic insert just for the screw hole and selector spring.

PLUS

any solvent that dissolves rubber would dissolve most plastics as well.

[J-cat]

This sucks!

I have an older one that is hard plastic and it matches my FFE Magpul stock perfectly. This one is several shades lighter. It looks like the rubberized coating is real thin and sprayed on. That's why I was hoping a blaster would blow right through it.