Some Questions about my M16.

[Adravor]

So, in an knee-jerk reaction i´ve bought an M16 Steelhelmet...
I was relatively sure that the shell is original, and the price seemed fair, so i thought why not.

The shell has at least 3 layers of paint, a grey-greenish tone on top, a grey layer under it and the comes a red one.
It was probably restored by the sellers dead uncle, where he found the shell. The rivet holes where also filled with some black overpainted stuff, that is gladly easy to remove.
It also came with a half chinstrap, but it is definitly not the original M16 one... i´m not sure what it really is, maybe remains of a field repair? Something out of the 60 or 70´s?
I will add seperate photos of it.

Do you think it is a good idea to remove the layers of paint... i´m not really hoping to find the original paint beneath, i would just like to give him a more fitting apperance as a littel project, my only fear is that under all that paint is more rust then helmet... also tipps to remove that paint would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
A.

The Helmet Itself:


The weird chinstrap:

[MAP]

Looks like a relic shell that was stripped, had some bondo added and then repainted a few times.

[Adravor]

So you guess theres just rust beneath? Or is it possible there is an intact steel shell remaining?

[MAP]

So you guess theres just rust beneath? Or is it possible there is an intact steel shell remaining?

It looks like an original relic shell that has been cleaned, rust removed, maybe some auto bondo added, sanded to make it smooth, primed (red) and then repainted a few times.

But this just what I think from the photos.

[aicusv]

What the heck, you can't make it worst. If the price is right, I'd strip it down to see if I could get to the original finish. If I couldn't I'd do a better restoration. It can always be used by a re-enactor.