KG Industries Site Kote
Reviewed by Harwood Loomis (Hawkmoon, )
KG Industries is a major manufacturer of industrial coatings. They are perhaps best known to firearms owners as the manufacturers of the Gun Kote line of modified polymeric gun coatings. The M1911 Pistols Organization has been discussing with KG Industries for quite awhile the possibility of testing their products to determine how easy or difficult they might be for the typical home gunsmith to apply. KG responded that they would be happy to let us play with their products but were in the midst of revamping the product line.
The new products are pretty well settled now, and recently I received a care package from the folks at KG Industries. They sent along samples of two different Gun Kote products, but to my surprise they also included a cornucopia of other "stuff." I actually had to break the cardinal rule of do-it-yourself males and read the included literature to figure out what all I had.
Many of the samples are from a very extensive line of firearms cleaning and lubricating products. We'll look at those on another occasion. They also included samples of their Site Kote product, in a variety of colors. Circumstances conspired to provide a perfect opportunity to test this product: I recently received an order from Brownells that included some 3-dot sights. The problem was that, although the dimples were drilled into the sights for the dots, the manufacturer forgot the step that involves putting white paint in the dots. I had already been through this once before with Brownells. It isn't their fault, it's a problem of the manufacturer, and it would have been a real nuisance for both me and Brownells to return them and hope that Brownells could find some sights that actually had white dots.
KG Industries to the rescue! Although the Site Kote product is suitable for painting an entire front site if that's what you need to do, Joe Fazio of KG Industries assured me that it would also be perfect for filling in the vagrant white dots on my sights. Having nothing to lose except some time on a rainy evening, I decided to give it a try.
Here's what we started with: two rear sights and a tenon-style front sight for a typical 1911:
I took these sights out of the sealed plastic baggies just before I started work, so I wasn't concerned that they might be heavily dirty or oily, but I did perform a cursory cleanup to ensure that the paint could adhere to the sights. I decided that the best applicator for a tiny spot like a sight dot would be a plain wooden toothpick. My first attempt was a qualified disaster. I dipped the toothpick much to deeply into the paint and immediately over-filled both dots. This picture is a bit fuzzy, for which I apologize, but you can see how far up the toothpick the paint extends. BAD!
I found that the best result is accomplished by having only a tiny droplet of paint on the every tip of the toothpick. I was then able to scrape the paint off on the sharp shoulder of the dot recess, without any smearing on the flat face of the sights. The viscosity of the Site Kote is perfect for this method of application: not too thick to work with, and not so thin and runny that it can't be put exactly where you want it. (I think to paint an entire sight blade, a very small artist's brush would be the preferred applicator.) The second rear sight was much better than the first, and the front sight (which I did last) came out almost perfect.
After smearing the excess around even more by trying the clean it off the first sight before it dried, I gave up and left the sights to dry for a couple of hours. I then used a small corner of very fine grit automotive sandpaper to sand off the excess on the flat surface. This exposed some bare steel, which I touched up using Brownells Oxpho-Blue cold bluing.
The end result is indistinguishable from a factory sight, and I saved both myself and Brownells the bother of returning sights that are perfectly serviceable except for the missing white dots.
Site Kote is available in White, Safety Red, Neon Red, Yellow, Orange, and Green. One of those colors should be appropriate for virtually any imaginable circumstances or conditions. Another possible use would be to change a set of existing white dot sights to something you might consider more visible -- even perhaps making the front dot a different color than the rear dots.
Thanks to Joe Fazio of KG Industries for supplying the samples. We'll follow up with tests of other KG Coatings products in the near future.
If you want to comment on this review or ask questions, please use this thread in our Forums Site:
http://forum.m1911.org/showthread.php?t=16533
Sources
KG Industries, Incorporated
16790 Highway 63
Hayward, WI 54843
USA
(800) 348-9558
(715) 934-3566 Voice
(715) 934-3570 Fax
KG Industries also offers technical support for their products. Questions can be submitted by e-mail to Chris.
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