PF9 gets a facelift

Here's a little PF9 that I've been working on. This thing was ugly as home-made sin when it came from the factory. Granted, it's not a beauty queen now but every little bit helps. The frame grip was stippled to make it easier to hold on to. The PF9s are very thin and light so the recoil from a 9mm +P is fairly strong from this pistol. The stippling helps assure that it stays in my hand. Duracoat has been applied to the frame grip and slide. The color is Magpul OD green. The Magpul colors are quickly becoming some of my favorite offerings from Duracoat. As you Kel Tec owners know, the barrels are bad to rust. To prevent this we bead blasted the barrel to an even sheen and applied Duracoat satin clear. This made for a slick finish on the barrel the will prevent any rust from building. It doesn't look too bad either.

Kel Tec makes a fine little pistol. However, they are lacking in a few areas. These modifications seemed to have made this a better carry piece.

looks good, I like the stippling.

That's a good looking little gun now, nice work.

Did you use a modified soldering gun to do the stippling. Ive read that's what some use. Or is there a tool out now.

If there's a tool made specifically for stippling I'm not aware of it. I use a high temp soldering iron with interchangeable tips. You can use different tip to achieve a different patterns. Any old soldering iron will probably work on most soft polymers. However, a high temp iron is necessary for Glock and other stronger polymers. An el-cheapo Radio Shack iron will barley put a dimple in a Glock frame.

Looks real good. I thought their barrels were stainless. Mine hasn't rusted a bit. I'm pretty anal about keeping atleast a thin coat of oil on everything though.

I don't think that's stainless. Mine have shown a lot of corrosion. But then again, I don't keep a lot of oil on my pocket guns and stainless can show surface rust. Either way, it's not a problem now.

Just curious, what kind of time investment on the stippling? Keltec could sell a few more if they could make'em look that good.

The first time I tried stippling it took me several hours to do a sub-compact Glock. Now that I've got my technique down I can probably do the same gun in 30-45 minutes. It's not that hard it just takes some practice. If this were going to be done in a manufacturing environment it would have to be more efficient. A skilled engineer with a large budget could probably find a way to cut the process time down to a couple of minutes.

A word to the wise: If you're going to try stippling you might want to do a few mag floor plates first. They are cheaper to replace than a frame.