Magpul Sand Magazines and Rit Fabric Dye

[spqr]

My first attempt at dyeing my Magpul sand magazines...5 tablespoons of Taupe Rit Dye, then 2 tablespoons of Frost Grey Rit Dye in 8 cups nearly boiling water and you get OD green? I had to let the mags sit in the mixture for a long time to get this deep color...15-20 minutes (maybe even longer)!

 

[LEaSH]

Looking on my phone, this looks like a nice dark OD.

Is the Sand color that much of an factor when you go this dark?

I have some Brownells repro furniture that I can only decribe as a cross between avocado and wasabi. I knew it was a nasty color before I'd bought the set, but it was on sale. I knew I was going to try this method when I find a good recipe.

 

[Spear Dane]

You watched the YT video on that?

 

[spqr]

I looked at the colors on this article: https://gunmagwarehouse.com/blog/ritdye_Sand_Pmags/
Based on what the Taupe looked like in the photos, I decided to try adding a little frost grey to it to darken it up...I got lucky and it seemed to make a nice dark olive drab!
I put the Sand in first then added the Frost Grey about 5 minutes later...the article said to leave the mags in the liquid 3-5 minutes, but I left mine in much longer...maybe the water was not hot enough? I heated the water but shut the burner off as it just barely started to boil.

 

[SmileDocHill]

Very cool! I never knew this was a thing.

 

[STFU]

Yep, it's a thing.

The one guy on YT trying to get his PMAGs to FDE is hilarious.
Mine turned out close to FDE...but still not happy with them. Too dark, even when using a very short time.
Experimenting with the dust covers helps. I will probably just order some FDE Gen3 PMAGs now that they are available.

 

[cosermann]

I had good success using the RIT dye to color a Magpul FDE handguard. Still looks good a few years later.

 

[SmileDocHill]

I had good success using the RIT dye to color a Magpul FDE handguard. Still looks good a few years later.

It started out as a FDE and you colored it to something else? Or started out as sand and you made it FDE?
I haven't looked into this yet, but in my mind I've resolved to not buy anything but sand colored PMags from now on for this reason.

 

[cosermann]

It started out as a FDE and you colored it to something else? Or started out as sand and you made it FDE?
I haven't looked into this yet, but in my mind I've resolved to not buy anything but sand colored PMags from now on for this reason.

It was FDE (or was it OD?) and I made it black. In any event, it's black now! Very hot water is the key. Did mine on a gas grill using a disposable foil roasting pan.

 

[STFU]

This gets hilarious at ~3:00 mins in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRk0ZE2GoBM&t=128s

LOL

 

[spqr]

Finally, dyed the rest of my sand mags! Color was consistent...took over 30 minutes to get this dark...I was too ambitious and tried to dye all 8 mags at once but did not have enough room on stove to keep all the pans warm enough! I too used disposable roasting pans. The hardest part of the project was sanding down the Gen M3 mags to fit all my 5.56 guns and to drop free when empty!!!