Colour match on this dark grey?

[Hunter]

Could anyone give a colour match on the dark grey of the bodies of these rifles? Most greys seem to have a hint of blue in them, but the 2 examples below have a brown hue to them.

 

Closest I have is Humbrol 111 Field Grey Matt, although acrylic would be preferred. Thanks.

 

 

Hex #5a5148

 

Hex #53544c

Edited February 24, 2017 by Hunter

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

It's a parkerised gunmetal colour you want

[Giorgio N]

It's impossible to give a match for the grey of something like a rifle because the metal parts are generally not painted but chemically treated. M16s have aluminum alloy upper and lower receivers and these are anodized. This process can result in different colours depending on a number of parameters in the process.

Steel parts (like the barrel, flash hider, front sight) are generally "blued" but this term describes a wide number of different processes that can result in different colours (some like parkerization tend to be grey, others lead to blue hues, some others result in greenish and even brownish finishes). As the M16 variants have been made over several decades, rifles from different eras may have also been treated differently depending on the then current requirements from the Army.

Personally I'd choose a grey that looks close and add a little gun metal to give a metallic sheen. And a drop of blue

Edited February 24, 2017 by Giorgio N

[Hunter]

Yeah I know about the real process, but we have to deal with paint on here. I haven't found a close match yet, but will keep looking.

 

SovereignHobbies - Yeah I don't think one exists though? I would have to create my own I believe.

 

Thanks.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

We have one.

 

As Giorgio says though it wouldn't be hard to make at home.

[Steve Noble]

I always paint Matt black, then dry brush silver very lightly over the black. Then apply Matt varnish and finally a wash of raw umber oil paint. It gives a nice overall finish with some depth. Using a straight grey won't give the desired effect...

[Giorgio N]

You'll never find one single match for the finish of a rifle, even less for an M16...

As the aluminum receiver is anodized, these parts will change their finish over time as the process is not as durable as others used on steel. Today's rifles are finished in a very dark flat grey when new. Earlier rifles were a slightly lighter grey because the anodisation process was different (and used chemicals now banned because of their toxicity). With time the finish tends to become lighter and more "metallic", so much that on worn rifles the metal shows through. There are also cases of receivers with a different finish on the upper and lower part. The M16 family is very modular and it's very easy to assemble a rifle mixing parts form different manufacturers. While this is quite common for commercial rifles, military ones are a bit less mixed but 2-coloured receivers are not that uncommon.

So even without considering the more extreme cases, depending on the age and the type of M16 you want to reproduce you may need one grey or another to start with.

 

From a modelling point of view a lot would also depend on the scale: for a 1/35 rifle to be honest I'd just follow Steve's very good advice, to add some variation you may decide to use black for the steel parts and a dark grey for the receiver. If you're building a larger replica, for example one of the Trumpeter 1/3 models, then I'd still start from there but at that point the choice of paint may be a bit more important. Again, depending on the model you can start with a darker grey (say something like FS36081) or a lighter one (like 36152). For such a large model it's of course important to add some depth to the finish using variations of the base paint so you may relly end up using more than one grey anyway.

In terms of what colour to use, you can search for gun-metals, every model paint manufacturer has one. Or you can mix your own starting with a dark grey and adding some silver or steel. In acrylics I'd probably use the Vallejo colours and add some Vallejo air metallic paint. I'd use the Air metallic because their pigments are finer.

An interesting alternative is Lifecolor's reflective agent, that when mixed to any Lifecolor acrylic allows the paint to be buffed when dry and reveal a nice metallic finish. The same Lifecolor has a set of paint aimed specifically at guns and weapons. The set includes a couple of colours to represent wood (not relevant to the Armalite family), 3 metallic greys with different casts (grey, blue and red) and one port of reflective agent.

 

P.S. I may also add that the plastic parts of the M16 family have changed quite a bit over time, but let's just say that for these I'd use a very dark grey, for example Tamiya's NATO Black

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Giorgio N

[CharlieNZ]

Here's the Trumpeter 1/3 M4 I did.

 

I used so many different shades I'd struggle to remember them all, but I don't think I used plain black for anything other than a wash. I tried to make grey using different base colours depending on the material. The barrel used Tamiya field grey as a base to give it a green tinge representing parkerising. The plastic used german grey as a base. I think I used a red brown as a base for the scope. I used a blue base for the rubber parts. Very little of the surface finish was done with metalic paints.

 

I also used different surface finishes for the different materials, ranging from very matt to quite glossy.