Please no flaming…..lol
I realize there is no perfect camo. I also realize that the best camo will depend on your surroundings. Rattle can will get you a good blended look, but I’m not wanting to go that route yet.
With that said, if you were going to pick a color to accent your rifle using factory color options for furniture and accessories, what would you go with, hoping to do the best job at blending in in every environment?
The upper/lower and barrel are black.

Keep it fun and ecducational if possible!

Question:
What color furniture/accessories blend the best in a variety of situations/areas

Choices:
Black
Magpul gray
BCM gray
OD green
Foliage
FDE
Other, and please explain

 

I picked od. Not that I don't like other options. I just like the combo of black and od. Good luck.

Your furniture should match the background of the tactical video game you're playing. If that doesn't work, go with what matches your shoes. An ensemble that coordinates with shoes is always good.

I suggest rattle-canning the furniture. Depending on what furniture you're using, there's a good chance it's all pretty affordable and somewhat "sacrificial". You can get a decent camo done without painting the actual gun. Larue index clips are a great option for rail coverings to be painted, then hit your grip, stock, and mags. A camo wrapping material can be used to good effect too. If all else fails, go with fritz' recommendation.

I voted for foliage, as I find OD to actually be a bit dark, for where I live.

Helped a coworker build his first & he went with a green that seems darker than OD to me.
Purely aesthetic but I really like how it turned out.

A company called Matrix Diversified has a bunch of different camo furniture kits made with Magpul components. I originally saw these at Cabelas but I don't see them online there now... Looks like PSA has some of them:

Example 1

Example 2

Other Versions


Looks like they come in both Mil-Spec and Commercial stock sizes so make sure you know which one you need if you go that route.



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quote:

Originally posted by m499:
A company called Matrix Diversified has a bunch of different camo furniture kits made with Magpul components. I originally saw these at Cabelas but I don't see them online there now... Looks like PSA has some of them:

Example 1

Example 2

Other Versions

I like example 1 in the above link.

That being said. Concealing the 6'2" 260lb chubby guy holding the rifle is a bigger issue.

Probably FDE.

Coyote or FDE is the new OD.

And military standard in theater deployment is to actually rattle can the gun with specific instructions on how to do it.

Basically keep paint out of the holes where things move, like safeties or bolt catches.

Woodland BDU's are still issue for Panama training, and Scorpion for most of the rest of the world. Since we dont travel on the .Gov nickel it's whatever your local conditions are - FDE for arid or winter, a faded OD for semi tropical. Anything BUT black, which wasn't the official color when the M16 was first issued. It was a medium charcoal shade with OD furniture then.

Black came later with the focus on SE Asia where it wasn't totally wrong. But it was a black boot Command mentality then, too, which took another 30 years to fix. They were testing brown boot roughouts at Benning in 1982 but didn't finally decide on it for another 20 years. We still have black uppers, lowers and barrels as getting the anodizing spec to change would require extensive testing and rewriting with multiple layers of command micromanaging the process.

So now we just rattle can them and it's good to go. As it wears it even works better.

There are tan/brown/dark earth shades fairly prevalent in the majority of environments, with a few exceptions like snow-covered high alpine/arctic.

In various US camo tests over the decades, heavily tan/brown patterns perform well in the majority of environments, even though it's rarely the #1 best in anything but desert/arid environments. Both USMC MARPAT patterns, as well as both Scorpion and All-Over-Brush (the two original US Army "universal" camo patterns developed before the abortive UCP disaster was adopted), are are all heavily tan/brown. Even UCP was tan-based, although the prevalent gray and foliage green pixels tends to overpower that light tan base and blend it all together to make it appear blueish-gray overall.

This is one of the reasons why most newer military guns, holsters, nylon gear, uniforms, etc. are coyote brown/FDE or at least based around that shade. It's a significantly better and more universal base than black.

So if you're looking for "jack of all/master of none" from your available color choices, FDE would be it.

However, understand that unless you're talking bright pink/solid black/neon yellow/etc., the color itself matters less than merely breaking up the hard outlines. This is why simply rattle-canning a rifle with a breakup pattern using really any subdued green/brown/etc. colors is effective in most environments.

The Matrix/Magpul kits-stock,carbine hand guard, x1 30 round magazine,grip,vertical hand guard grip and trigger guard- are great. I bought a couple for some of mine and at the time and I think I only paid less than $50 shipped. I got the "bounty hunter" coloring, which is a fde/brown color mix but not bad looking. Now they have a few of the kits for $50 + shipping,which is a heck of a deal for what you get. Worst case scenario, you don't like the coloring,you do your own.

I color matched the furniture on a Cav Arms A1 stock to paint the upper, lower, and handguard on my 6.8SPC. It was flat lacquer based and then sprayed Matte Clear over it. Monochrome.

The sharpest features are now worn back down to the black anodizing which is adding variations, the clear has slightly yellowed adding more. No need to add other color spots etc which will all wear down anyway. Ceracote will last longer but eventually even milspec anodizing will go down to the bare aluminum - some M16's the Montagnards still carry are as white as the M9 I was issued in Benning circa 2001. The Hydramatic I had in Basic had more finish.

Any firearm extensively used over time will wear the finish and that is exactly what distinguishes veteran guns the owner relied on for decades. Like an old farm truck, it doesn't have to be new, it has to start, run, and at the very least carry a tree home for the holidays. Dents and rust are optional.