View Full Version : Colors: Coyote Brown vs Flat Dark Earth
Are these two colors essentially the same (or at least very close)?
I think coyote has a little mustard yellow hue, whereas FDE I believe has a grey tint
They all look the same to me. Some are just a little darker than others
ColtSeavers
04-17-16, 23:50
CB is definately more natural looking, I could see the desire to say yellow tinted.
FDE is dead pan, I could see the desire to say grey tinted.
hopefully this helps
39018
titsonritz
04-18-16, 01:30
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/finishes/H-265Q/flat-dark-earth/
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/finishes/H-160Q/colt-coyote/
If ever I start making my own guns, they will be offered in:
Hershey Brown, UFO Grey and Iron Skillet Black.
If ever I start making my own guns, they will be offered in:
Hershey Brown, UFO Grey and Iron Skillet Black.
WTF... No Turkey Turd Tan ???
I used doo doo brown on patterns, but it just looked like big blobs against the spring foliage.
I took a key ring full of cerakote swatches all over my hunting plot and took photos. I then randomized the photos, put numbers on the swatches and had friends rank them. Not the best test but it's all I could do on a budget of 30 bucks. As a single color, far and away coyote did best against grass, some trees, deadfall, bushes...
Funny enough, what did FDE and Magpul FDE do best on?
Various shades of concrete. Dried asphalt. Stone. Freshly tilled soil. Compacted soil. "Earth" apparently means what it says.
If you hold some Coyote nylon next to some FDE (at least magpul), the FDE is slightly darker. slightly less yellow. Thing is, came second in the rank overall in every sample not made of poured concrete or mud. I didn't quantify, just ranked. I wish I still had the photo set and data. I can't seem to find it.
SomeOtherGuy
04-18-16, 09:44
The problem is that there is no standard used by everyone. Company X creates a tan color and calls it either one. You are left to figure out exactly what shade it is.
However, the samples here and comments above are a good representation of what seems to be typical - FDE is generally a lighter tan, and CB is generally a light brown with slight reddish hues:
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/finishes/H-265Q/flat-dark-earth/
http://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/finishes/H-160Q/colt-coyote/
Definitely different colors, with different acceptable shades by .mil. (Ex: This spring you could not get Coyote Garamont T8 boots anywhere as the production batches were rejected due to not matching the shade.)
Most of the existing poly & nylon stuff I see called FDE is in the same ballpark as what the Army calls "Sand" (camo color 500?). But with some close to Tan 499. Though you do see some that is darker, or more mustard, or even bronze. (SCAR's come to mind). Cerakote's & LMT's "FDE" appears fairly close to Tan 499 and much darker than Sand. Where magpul, B5, and many of the polymer FDE colors seem pretty close to sand.
The Army camo color for Coyote tan is "498".
FS standards are the big thing, and the most recent mapping I can find is:
FS 20150 = Coyote 476 / 498
FS 20180 = Tan 499
FS 23525 = Desert Sand 500 (used for UCP in old ACU's)
This issue (apparently) is that as relatively new colors, 499 and 498 are not entirely dialed in as far as pigments & dyes yet. Where most of the other FS colors have pigment definitions listed in the FS entry.
The Army pictoral from the OCP ALARACT (http://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/396739.pdf) makes the difference fairly clear:
http://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/396739.pdf
It does not help that some of the vendors have been listing Sand or Tan 499 as "Coyote", and others calling the same as FDE.
It's a mess. Also, there was an old "Coyote" from Marpat days that had more mustard in most implementations than the current Army definitions. I can't tell if that was just dye issues, or if they changed the color, as there was some issue with Near Infrared on the Marine Coyote. You'll sometimes see mfg's refer to it as M-Coyote.
This image shows Tan 499 and the old Coyote side by side. The OCP fleeces also seem to be the more mustard Coyote, where most of the currently acceptable Coyote boots do not have that mustard influence.
http://www.hyperstealth.com/coyote/P1020527.jpg
There are many sites where you can plug in the various FS colors and see what they look like. This one works fairly well and has the new (2008) colors:
http://www.e-paint.co.uk/Colour_alternatives.asp
The problem is that there is no standard used by everyone. Company X creates a tan color and calls it either one. You are left to figure out exactly what shade it is.
Not entirely true, the FS standards exist and have been published since at least 2008. The problem is most companies do not have appropriate test setups to match the standard, nor were good reference samples easily available.
There are also multiple examples of vendors either ignoring the standards and names, or choosing to vary. Recently one gear mfg knowingly changed their "coyote" color to tan 499, yet still refer to it as Coyote.
These are the colors that I know.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71rCvZOvcTL._SL1073_.jpg
eightmillimeter
04-18-16, 22:33
WTF... No Turkey Turd Tan ???
Baby sh/t green
Definitely different colors, with different acceptable shades by .mil. (Ex: This spring you could not get Coyote Garamont T8 boots anywhere as the production batches were rejected due to not matching the shade.)
Most of the existing poly & nylon stuff I see called FDE is in the same ballpark as what the Army calls "Sand" (camo color 500?). But with some close to Tan 499. Though you do see some that is darker, or more mustard, or even bronze. (SCAR's come to mind). Cerakote's & LMT's "FDE" appears fairly close to Tan 499 and much darker than Sand. Where magpul, B5, and many of the polymer FDE colors seem pretty close to sand.
The Army camo color for Coyote tan is "498".
FS standards are the big thing, and the most recent mapping I can find is:
FS 20150 = Coyote 476 / 498
FS 20180 = Tan 499
FS 23525 = Desert Sand 500 (used for UCP in old ACU's)
This issue (apparently) is that as relatively new colors, 499 and 498 are not entirely dialed in as far as pigments & dyes yet. Where most of the other FS colors have pigment definitions listed in the FS entry.
The Army pictoral from the OCP ALARACT (http://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/396739.pdf) makes the difference fairly clear:
http://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/396739.pdf
It does not help that some of the vendors have been listing Sand or Tan 499 as "Coyote", and others calling the same as FDE.
It's a mess. Also, there was an old "Coyote" from Marpat days that had more mustard in most implementations than the current Army definitions. I can't tell if that was just dye issues, or if they changed the color, as there was some issue with Near Infrared on the Marine Coyote. You'll sometimes see mfg's refer to it as M-Coyote.
This image shows Tan 499 and the old Coyote side by side. The OCP fleeces also seem to be the more mustard Coyote, where most of the currently acceptable Coyote boots do not have that mustard influence.
http://www.hyperstealth.com/coyote/P1020527.jpg
There are many sites where you can plug in the various FS colors and see what they look like. This one works fairly well and has the new (2008) colors:
http://www.e-paint.co.uk/Colour_alternatives.asp
Hyperstealth has a lot of good info on camo solids.
The old coyote in that picture is far different than coyote now. It was essentially a darker/more tanish khaki color. It seemed Eagle, LBT, and TAG all had the same color for coyote (at least back in the mid 2000's). I had a bunch of TAG "coyote" in 2008/2009 and it looks nothing like actual coyote. I still have a one of my old TAG bags and a newer LBT bag in coyote. I will have to take a pic and compare the old TAG stuff to the newer coyote.
Moose-Knuckle
04-19-16, 03:08
Anyone ever notice FN's SCARs are three different shades of FDE lol? I remember the first ones to hit the US consumer market (that fetched $10K+ on Gunbroker) actually had metallic gold anodizing on the uppers.
http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc432/Tengo1pics/photo_zps001be4e0.jpg (http://s1211.photobucket.com/user/Tengo1pics/media/photo_zps001be4e0.jpg.html)
That stock almost looks like a Desert Tan-ish color.
My LWRC bought in '08 is multi colored like that for some reason.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not to be outdone, Winchester now has their "Dark Earth Defender" (kinda sounds like a "Lord of the Rings" character):
http://www.winchesterguns.com/products/shotguns/sxp/sxp-dark-earth-defender.html
...and the Desert Defender, if you're feeling a bit lighter toned :D
http://www.winchesterguns.com/products/shotguns/sxp/sxp-desert-defender.html
Presumably all the Modular Handgun competitors will have a similar color scheme?:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/02/24/beretta-releases-photos-mhs-model-apx-handgun/
FromMyColdDeadHand
04-19-16, 14:42
I remember when we got the fabric sample of UCP and we were looking to do IR optimized color matches and my tech director and I took one look at the fabric and we both said "That won't last long"...
I don't know if it is the chicken or the egg, but I might have seen when the coyote colors split. We had a few samples of coyote made up and sent them down the plastics parts chain and it came back that the army liked one version and the marines liked the other. Now I don't know if they had different versions already picked out and the versions looked like one or the other options, or if they split then- at least for the plastic bits. The colors IIRC were not that far off from each other.
I heard stories from the paint guys that in the 1990s for Desert Storm, the paint companies received barrels of dirt and sand from the middle east and were told -'Match this'.
Hmm, I must admit I am partial to baby poop RAL 8000.
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