I've done 3. The hard part is in the prep work. You need to disassemble the gun completely. Then mask off any moving parts that don't need paint or areas you don't want paint ie the inside of the receiver, inside of the forearm, mag tube, etc, etc. I used really fine git sandpaper to remove any surface rust and imperfections. I took it down to shinny metal. I used a little rougher sandpaper on the synthetic pieces. Once you have the gun tapped off and sanded down, you need to remove all the dirt, oil, grease, etc from the gun. Wear gloves so the oil from your hands don't get left on the metal. I used a soap based water solution from a body shop they use in their paint process to wipe my gun down. You can use acetone or whatever you want. As soon as you get the gun wiped down and allow it time to dry lay a coat of primer down on the gun. Just make sure to do light coats to cover the gun where the primer doesn't go on so thick that it will run. I did 3 light coats of primer then sanded the gun down again to remove any high spots on the primer. I wiped the gun down again after sanding down the primer, and then did one more coat of primer.
The quality of your paint job and durabilty of your paint job will depend on the amount of time you spend on the upfront cleaning of the gun and foundation of primer. Once you have the primer on, the painting is the easy part. I took pictures of the entire process on the last gun I painted. I planned on doing a step-by-step set of instructions during the off season.
