Another day, another paintjob. Long story short my younger brother had a luminous green SSG10 that needed sorting out.. as you can see from the first photo he would definitely be rather easy to spot! At the last gameday we went to the opposition were even saying that he was given away by the rifle's bright colour. Somehow I don't think that's going to be as big a problem now.

The reason the barrel/receiver is all that was painted is because he asked me not to paint the stock since it's that Novritsch rubberised stuff. Personally I think he should just let me tape and paint it but he's adamant he's getting a rifle wrap for it at some point.

Anyway.. onto what I did. I used scapa tape as a base layer and put it on in strips, tried to crease it here and there to add texture. Other than the disassembly, that is what took most of the time really, then I masked off the parts I wanted to make sure no paint got into. I didn't bother to prepare the non-tape surfaces (mainly out of laziness) so I expect the paint may lift there but I did at least hit it with primer.

For painting I applied a DDR green coat as a base layer, then I used some scarf/netty material to get the grid effect seen and I cut a fern/bush in my garden for some spots, though I feel like they didn't really translate into much patterning on the end product. Still, 6 different paints used and I think it doesn't look all that bad for about an hour of painting's work.

The piece in the receiver covering the cylinder is some polyproplyene/plasticy material that is 0.3mm thick cut to fill the receiver and leave a space for the stopper/sear. I painted this separately outside of the gun and left it to dry in the sun, as otherwise it would be only the slot you see painted and if it shifts when the bolt is cycling you would just see the white colour of the material. My idea with it is you can paint it, so it looks cool but also it removes a big slot for crap to get into your cylinder. I have seen some people 3D print covers but this works quite well for me. You have a lot of margin inside the receiver so the thickness doesn't /need/ to be 0.3mm but you might as well get that, especially if you do a carbon cylinder guide mod, since that's the thickness of material you'll want for that job and it is pretty cheap. I got like 10 A4 sheets off amazon for £5-10.

My thoughts are painting the scapa is definitely faster work than painting onto a plastic/metal surface. I feel like you can get away with being more heavy handed as it doesn't run on the tape, just saturates it. For my next paintjob I might merge this scapa based process with some stencils to see what that looks like but I think that's for another weekend.

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I did a full writeup for a flecktarn camo job I did on my M4 with stencils, it has much more detail on the process used, though that was a completely different process over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Airsoft_UK/comments/1thn1l8/flecktarn_airsoft_rifle_paint_job_lessons_learned/

Similar materials were used the only additional material was scapa tape.

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Regarding SSG10 performance - it's had it's spring changed to a rapax 2J and it fires 0.43g BBs at 2.18J/330 fps with hop applied consistently.. like +/- 5 fps consistency. Just in case anybody wonders if it's all looks - no it performs as well.

I saw a YouTuber taped their chrono to a cardboard box, which got me thinking (dangerous I know), I could have a go at that.

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Tried the box, ended up with a BB somewhere in my room that I'll never find. It did have some stuff in it to absorb energy, just not enough apparently 😂

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This Jura tin stuffed with soft material on the other hand is what I've been using as a shot trap for a while, so I just took a notch out and taped my chrono to it, works as intended and is much easier than what I was previously doing.

Just a PSA to organise your tabs in standard so you don't have to organise them during the next league event.

This is something I started doing in Merc league but kept forgetting to jump into standard so every league I started and had a disgusting mess of a stash tab setup.

Suppose this would be a good time to discuss - how do you like to organise your stash tabs?

EDIT: Since people seem to not realise, you can hide remove-only tabs by going into the cogwheel at the top right of the stash interface, screenshot in comments.

I painted my rifle in a flecktarn-inspired pattern using rattle cans and adhesive stencils. It came out pretty well overall, but I learned a lot along the way, especially about prep, colour choice, stencil adhesion and how easy it is to overcomplicate the process. I've got a table of links at the bottom of the post with all the resources you might ask me about in comments.

Unfortunately I didn't think to take photos of every stage of the painting process but as you can see it's not rocket science. The key thing is short, overlapping sprays and light coats. Build up each coat, maybe do 2 full coats of the whole object. Your finger will hurt at the end if you've done it right. Also this took me 12 hours to do in total, if you want an idea on timescale. It's applying the stencils that takes this much time I think. Doing a simple 1 coat and done from prep to drying takes 40 minutes (did a simple paint job on another RIF I have).

I only know this because as I began doing the black base coat, a spray painter at this garage had a word with me and showed me how wrong I was doing things initially (I never painted anything in my life before with spray cans). Definitely saved me a lot of wasted paint that's for sure!

Disclaimer: I did use AI to generate this post initially, then tweaked it and I also used AI to prompt my way around getting the process right before I went ahead with it. I like to do things right first time where possible. I'm writing this post mainly for someone like myself that's not sure how to do something like this and what I found was the best way to do it. Maybe you have different ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Legal disclaimer: If you have a two-tone do not do this unless you have a UKARA number as technically it's manufacturing a RIF in the eyes of the law and very naughty, comes with fines etc. The UKARA is your valid defence. With that out of the way, let's get to the fun bits.

Materials I used

Paints: FOSCO military spray cans

I used FOSCO matt military spray paint. The colours I used were:

Colour	Use / notes
First coat: Flat Black	Base coat / darkest layer
Second: Flecktarn Braun	Brown flecktarn layer
Third: NATO Green	Looked greyer than expected
Fourth: DDR Green	Better dark green option for the look I wanted
Final: Flecktarn Grün	Came out brighter/lighter than I expected

The final coat ends up being your dominant colour when painting with stencils. I would swap my fourth and final layers around to get a better, darker flecktarn finish personally.

Source: the FOSCO 400ml cans should be all available through the eBay listing I have shared later in this post

Stencils

I used Freedom Stencils German Flecktarn stencil kit. They are adhesive, single-use style stencils designed for spray paint, Duracoat/Cerakote type jobs etc. You want a hobbycraftish knife to lift and place the stencils ideally.

Prep / cleaning

I sanded with 400/600 grit all the surfaces I wanted to paint, wiped clean with a lint free cloth and isopropyl alcohol. Masked off where I didn't want paint getting to, then hit with Hycote Adhesion promoter. I would recommend having multiple cloths handy for the cleaning stage as if you're doing a two-tone they will end up very whatever colour your paint is with the alcohol clean stage. You could potentially try wiping a lot of it off before you start painting.

The prep is the worst part really. For the black basecoat I personally stripped the rifle and painted everything individually then reassembled for the stencil coats.

Oh also, you can hang with zip ties. That's what I chose to do and if you have any surfaces that are hidden by zip ties, just gently grab and manipulate the RIF to get access to the parts you need to paint.

Remember to mask your inner barrel/magazine well/places where BBs go etc

Useful extras:

Item	Why
Lint-free cloth / blue roll	Better than fluffy kitchen roll
Masking tape	For areas you do not want painted
Nitrile gloves	Stops skin oils getting back on the rifle
Heat gun or hair dryer	Helps warm stencils and reduce lifting, can also speed up drying of paints between coats
Matte clear coat/lacquer	Protects the finish, but test first

Main lessons learned

1. Prep matters more than the paint

The paint job is only as good as the surface underneath. Clean the rifle properly, degrease it, and avoid touching cleaned surfaces with bare hands before paint. Oil, silicone, grease and skin oils can all mess with adhesion.

2. Do not rush stencil adhesion

The biggest issue I had was underspray from stencil edges lifting. Flecktarn uses lots of small shapes, so there are loads of tiny edges that can lift. Press every stencil down properly, especially around curves, corners, rails and textured polymer.

What I’d do differently:

• Warm the stencils slightly before applying.
• Press the edges down properly.
• Avoid stretching them over awkward shapes.
• Use smaller pieces on curved areas rather than trying to force big stencil sections to conform.
• Spray lighter passes to reduce paint being blasted under the edges.

3. Light coats beat heavy coats

Heavy coats make everything worse: runs, bleeding, raised paint edges, longer curing time, and more chance of lifting when removing stencils. Several light passes are safer than trying to get full coverage in one go.

4. Colour choice is everything

The biggest aesthetic lesson was that the final colour balance depends heavily on the last/top layers. My lighter green came out brighter than I wanted, so next time I’d bias the job darker.

For a darker woodland/flecktarn style, I’d lean more toward:

• Flat Black
• Flecktarn Brown
• DDR Green
• Possibly NATO Green, but carefully, because it can look greyish
• Use the brighter green sparingly, or skip it if going for a darker rifle

For my next dark green rifle, I’d probably use DDR Green as the main green rather than relying on NATO Green.

5. Think about the order of colours

The later layers dominate the finished look. If the final/top colour is too bright, the whole rifle can look brighter than expected even if the base layers were dark.

6. Paint disassembled where possible

I sprayed mine fully assembled and I found that the hop adjustment access/dust cover wasn't staying shut after the fact. I think the tolerances on my rifle were tight so I ended up having to sand a bit of the paint away to get it sitting nicely again.. It worked, but it is not ideal.

A trick I used around my safety was to mask that area with stencils in one of the earlier paint applications. Oh also, removing the safety on this particular M4 was a nightmare, I do not recommend it. Just paint around it and don't go crazy like me trying to get a 90 degree screwdriver that fits!

7. Test on scrap first

The colours on the cap/listing do not perfectly represent how they’ll look on the actual rifle, especially over black or other base colours. A quick test on cardboard/plastic would have made the final colour balance more predictable.

8. Let layers cure properly

Touch dry is not the same as cured. If the paint is still soft, stencils can mark it, pull it, or leave adhesive residue. Cold weather also slows everything down. I made the mistake of picking the rifle up when the paint was still in it's drying phase and have a handprint mark around the grip as a result.

9. Clear coat is useful, but keep it matte

A matte clear coat helps protect the finish, but too much can make the rifle look slightly shiny or plasticky. Light coats are the way to go. Test compatibility first so the lacquer does not react with the paint.

10. Flecktarn is fiddly but forgiving

Because flecktarn is naturally busy, small mistakes disappear into the pattern. Underspray and imperfect edges are annoying up close, but once the whole rifle is assembled and used outdoors, most of it blends in.

What I’d do differently next time

• Use DDR Green as the main dark green.
• Use the bright green much more sparingly.
• Press stencil edges down harder and use smaller stencil sections on awkward shapes.
• Spray lighter coats from slightly further away.
• Disassemble or mask controls properly.
• Do a colour test card first.
• Give each layer more curing time.
• Lacquer after the paint has properly hardened, not just dried.

Scrim is fun

Get on alibaba and get yourself some cheap flecktarn pattern netting and cut it to fit the rifle to achieve the look I have in the final final photo. It was mainly to dull the colours down a bit because of the brightness of that blasted flecktarn grun, I think it adds a lot to the rifle but it is a very fiddly thing to get right. Worth the time spent though, IMO. What you see in the final image is a bit of netting, cut to fit the gun and give access to controls, held on with paracord.

Sources / where to get stuff

Item	Source
FOSCO spray cans	ebay listing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183396402957?var=690705798669&_ul=GB&toolid=10001&customid=eb%3Ag%3Avms%3Aeb%3Ap%3A183396402957-690705798669%3B
Flecktarn stencils	Freedom Stencils German Flecktarn kit: https://www.freedomstencils.com/products/flecktarn-camouflage-stencil-kit
Surface cleaner / degreaser	99% Isopropyl alcohol, personally I used: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SH9FY7G?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
Matte lacquer	Any compatible matte clear coat, test first, I used Hycote branded stuff from my local car parts shop myself.
Blue roll / lint-free cloth	Halfords, Screwfix, B&Q, Amazon, etc. I like these ones personally: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FK5D1QWX?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Masking tape	DIY/automotive shops/Amazon
Gloves	DIY/automotive shops/Amazon