My adventures with Rit Dye - ported over for posterior. Posterity ;)

Ok, so I recently bought a CMMG .22 upper and a stack (8) of their .22 mags. These mags are ugly, a sort of bright-battleship-grey and look like something for a $6 airsoft gun.



I decided to fix this......

This thread on Arfcom was my inspiration: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_17/48...RY.html&page=1

Simply put, I am using Rit fabric dye to change the colour of my CMMG magazines, but it will also work on my FDE Magpul AR furniture! This thread will document my tinkering with the palette of colours Magpul intended.

First, the CMMG mags and a test Magpul FDE magazine cover.

This is my setup. AR mags will -just- fit in a 1 gallon paint can and as my CMMG mags come apart clamshell-style, I can fit four mags (eight pieces) in and have them totally submerged. The stainless steel tray is to prevent me dying my kitchen counters orange, as is the towel. Rit dye WILL permanently dye skin, scratched/porous plastic, wood etc so be careful.

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Here's the filled dye-vat. I used an entire bottle of Rit Sunshine Orange and just under a gallon of water. I brought the water to the boil, turned off the heat and transferred it to the can then added the dye in, mixed it and then carefully (avoid splashing!) inserted my eight magazine halves.

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Here is the same can with the lid on to prevent stuff floating (it doesn't float well, but I figured WTH) and to keep the water hot as long as possible. Notice all the overflow streaks! The would turn your wife's kitchen counters very, very, very orange.

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Here are the finished halves after half an hour in the tank. It is hard to see but the finish is a little uneven and not as blazing orange as I was hoping for. After you pull the pieces out of the tank you just run them under cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Unlike paint this is soaked INTO the plastic and won't smear and has the added benefit that any scratch less than 1 or 2mm deep will still show the coloured plastic. Be aware that rinse water will also dye things pretty well.

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Here is a mag body after another 10 minutes soaking. Still not orange enough for me [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/www.carolinashootersclub.com\/styles\/default\/xenforo\/clear.png"}[/IMG2]

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Here is a batch after soaking for several hours (until the water was tepid). Notice how much it looks like the Russian bakelite AK74 mags in tone and texture [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/www.carolinashootersclub.com\/styles\/default\/xenforo\/clear.png"}[/IMG2] This makes me very happy.

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Here's a comparison pic with the two different generations of CMMG mags (the old ones got a little darker than the new ones, but both looked great) and a Magpul FDE PMag cover.

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To me the FDE Magpul stuff looks exactly like Bakelite after a good soak, so once I am done patterning these CMMG mags (they are getting masked for dunking in black dye next, for a tiger stripe effect) I am very likely going to make myself a set of Magpul MOE "Bakelite" furniture with 5 matching PMags!

I'll post the next steps as they get finished......

Well, here are the fruits of my labour and suffice to say I am damn pleased! As these are all crappy indoor pics it looks darker than it is, I'll snap some daylight shots outside tomorrow.

Parts fresh out of the tank (again I used the 1 gallon paint can full to the brim with one bottle of sunshine orange) and rinsed down.


MOE handguard upper section, wiped down. Love that colour!


The Fakelite is complete! CMMG upper and mags, Del-Ton lower, MOE furniture rear BUIS and RVG.

Daylight pic



Another project I did later, in blue (was going to be an Umbrella Corp build).



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Hope this is worth porting over!

I remember this from CSF. I appreciate you bringing it here.

NCLivingBrit said:

Daylight pic

Another project I did later, in blue (was going to be an Umbrella Corp build).

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Hope this is worth porting over!

Click to expand...

This is awesome!

Maybe a stupid question, but not recommended for a stripped polymer handgun frame is it? Seems like a cheap alternative to cerakote? if Nothing else, my xd and glock mag baseplates will probably be taking a ritdye bath. Thanks for the info!

I remember years ago, folks on the FN forum were doing this with their green ps90s and fs2000s. Used mostly black dye with a little green mixed in to offset the purple hue the black dye has. Most turned out pretty good.

Thank you for this post/information!

Metalliman27055;n9424 said:

Maybe a stupid question, but not recommended for a stripped polymer handgun frame is it? Seems like a cheap alternative to cerakote? if Nothing else, my xd and glock mag baseplates will probably be taking a ritdye bath. Thanks for the info!

Click to expand...

Depends on the plastic and if you can dry all the nooks and crannies without promoting rust.