Requesting help with a color-match from folks with good eyes

[Diamondback]

Well, the build is underway on a C8, and I need to ask for help with matching a shade of green.

First, the samples we have to work with. First pic is Larry Vickers's C8, which appears to be two different shades with two different levels of fade.

Suggestions from the manufacturers were:

• Duracoat: Norwegian Army Light Green (stock), South African Light Green (everything else)
• Cerakote: Noveske Bazooka Green (everything)
• KG Gunkote: 2402LF Light OD Green or 2402OA Oasis Green

Narrowing the options to those, a friend who does interior design/decorating as a hobby thought Oasis Green was the best of those five options, but since then a buddy who's a CF armorer popped up this shot of unmounted fresh furniture on his bench:


Question is, based on this added and much better sample, would you guys say Oasis Green is still the winner, or does the crown go to one of the others, or should I look at some other shade entirely? Since Retro Rifles hasn't gotten back to me about if they can supply a full set in green or stock only, I'm also debating whether I should buy a green stock and just have my handguard and grip refinished, or buy a black one and do all four pieces at the same time...

Bottom line: What would you all out there in M4C Land do if *you* were trying to make the iron below the closest possible match to the Vickers build without having access to actual Colt Canada parts?

[SomeOtherGuy]

Attempting to match colors on a typical monitor, especially with some random flash photo taken indoors, is a nightmare. If your buddy could get another photo taken with a photographer's white balance card then someone could correct the colors and do a better match. Without that, the second photo is of limited value.

I would just do Cerakote Noveske green, but I'm not into accurate reproductions.

Have you contacted Aervoe? They sell milspec camo paint to the US military and might know what Canada uses. It's not as durable as Cerakote but it's good paint. If Aervoe doesn't know or doesn't make it, do the C8 parts have a specific color name/number from the Canadian military? If so, can you get that, match it to a NATO spec, and go from there? Or is it possible that the exact paint color is available for sale in Canada, the way that Aervoe and other brands of US milspec paint can be found here?

[Doc Safari]

Attempting to match colors on a typical monitor, especially with some random flash photo taken indoors, is a nightmare.

This. I have posted photos on forums, and when I looked at them on two different computers the colors looked significantly different.

Here's another thought too: you shouldn't worry about it. As a fighting tool the important thing is reliability and not a perfect color match.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Looking at your first photo again, that's a typical professional photo with good color balance for printing. Because the rifle is black with dark green furniture, it was lightened in processing to have a good color and tone balance - in this case, lightened a lot. If you had the actual rifle in front of you it would look much darker than that.

I looked for some additional photos searching "canada c8 rifle green stock" and can see that the stock is a slightly different green than the grip and handguards. That will require paint. However, the grip and handguards look to me, in all photos I've found, to be the exact same color that US makers of those items typically call "OD Green" even though it's not as dark or brown as what I would otherwise call ODG. If you simply order a grip and handguards from a company like Damage Industries in ODG I think you will get the right color. I have some "ODG" furniture from DI and some older furniture from Cavalry Arms (apparently no longer in business, not even for medical kits?) and both look to be the same color as this. To state the obvious, I don't think this is foliage green or at all close to it.

[Diamondback]

Thanks, guys--back when I was a scale modeler I might have been more successful at handling this myself, but as I enter middle age my eyes aren't what they used to be and even when younger I was greatly helped by the limited color palettes used on Air Force and Navy aircraft. (Other than ONE pesky shade of blue that the hometown fighter squadron just HAD to pick for their unit markings, peeing in the punchbowl on building a prof a model of his old "boss bird"... LOL)

Here's another thought too: you shouldn't worry about it. As a fighting tool the important thing is reliability and not a perfect color match.

Doc, the entire point of this build is as accurate a clone as I can get with a few concessions to practicality--I have other guns for fighting, this one's for fun. (I wouldn't use the crappy Canadian BUIS on a Serious Social Work gun, for one.) I'm usually the guy who's "not picky about color," buys whatever is on clearance and breaks out the Krylon, but this one's a project for the girlfriend so I really want to impress her.

Looking at your first photo again, that's a typical professional photo with good color balance for printing. Because the rifle is black with dark green furniture, it was lightened in processing to have a good color and tone balance - in this case, lightened a lot. If you had the actual rifle in front of you it would look much darker than that.

I looked for some additional photos searching "canada c8 rifle green stock" and can see that the stock is a slightly different green than the grip and handguards. That will require paint. However, the grip and handguards look to me, in all photos I've found, to be the exact same color that US makers of those items typically call "OD Green" even though it's not as dark or brown as what I would otherwise call ODG. If you simply order a grip and handguards from a company like Damage Industries in ODG I think you will get the right color. I have some "ODG" furniture from DI and some older furniture from Cavalry Arms (apparently no longer in business, not even for medical kits?) and both look to be the same color as this. To state the obvious, I don't think this is foliage green or at all close to it.

Supposedly Colt Canada doesn't use paint but this is dyed plastic right in the molding process, the color is called "Canadian Average Green." I haven't been able to find an RGB or Hex code--on the very first C8A3's after the edict came down from Ottawa to switch to green they just rattlecanned a shade similar to Krylon 4296 Woodland Light Green and I could easily just use the can on my shelf, but I was hoping to find an option a little more durable.

Here's what RR's stab at Canadian Green looks like for comparison, which looks like a pretty basic OD though guys up there say there is a bit of a difference:

[SomeOtherGuy]

With a name now...

http://hedgehoghollow.com/buzz/Colour_Guide/

A NATO stock #:
http://atlanticbraids.com/product/4020-21-882-9701/

And you can get a sample of this color for under $6 to use as a reference:
https://www.amazon.com/ITW-GrimLOC-C.../dp/B017TNGCKW

[chadbag]

I just wanted to point out, that since this is a Canadian build, you actually want a

Colour match.

A Color match won't work.

[Diamondback]

Thanks, SOG. Actually, I just pulled a fast one and fed the pic from your Amazon link into an online color analyzer I used to use back in the day...
https://www.colorcodepicker.com/

It reduced CAG to an RGB of 93,102,72. From there I moved to Excel and built a spreadsheet plugging in the RGB values from it, the color samples found in Gunkote and Cerakote swatches, and the raw RGB codes from Duracoat's coded swatches on their site. Next move was to come up with "Distance From Correct" scores, and here I started by taking the absolute values of each color's RGB values subtracted from those of CAG (eg, a green with Red values 8/255 higher or 8/255 lower both get a "Red Deviation" of 8) for a Total Deviation, then divided that by 3 for an Average Deviation. Would appreciate a "look over the shoulder" by any Stats wonks among us to refine my math methodology--it took THREE tries to beat statistics through my skull enough to satisfy my degree requirements, so this ain't exactly my strong suit.

Anyway, came up with a surprising result... the closest fit to CAG mathematically was Duracoat Multi Dark Green, scoring differences of -6R,-4G,-6B. In text hex codes, the difference is something like:
Hex 5D6648/RGB 93,102,72 Canadian Average Green
Hex 576242/RGB 87,98,66 Duracoat Multi Dark Green

[Diamondback]

I just wanted to point out, that since this is a Canadian build, you actually want a

Colour match.

A Color match won't work.

Lol, touche...

[Diamondback]

Just for the hell of it, I did some WAGging and playing around with mixes, and found that a mix of 153 parts Multi Dk Green to 4 parts pure white (RGB 255,255,255/Hex 000000) gets things a little closer. Then I just need to find another color that would give the additional two points each of Red and Blue...
Hex 5D6648/RGB 93,102,72 Canadian Average Green
Hex 5B6646/RGB 91,102,70 DC Multi Dk Grn (153 parts) plus pure white (4 parts)
Hex 576242/RGB 87,98,66 Duracoat Multi Dark Green

Duracoat's so darn close I might as well call them Case Closed, only reason to keep tinkering finding a mix on Cerakote or Gunkote is because my smith doesn't do Duracoat.

Adding a little black to Oasis Green for a target shade of Hex 5D664a/RGB 93,102,74 2/255ths Blue From CAG... ugh, this crap is giving me traumatic flashbacks. As I keep saying, Math is what made me a History major.

Oasis Green:black
133y+x=93
142y+x=101

x=93-133y = -25.2
x=101-142y= -25.2
93-133y=101-142y
-133y=8-142y
9y=8
y=8/9 ->0.89

So assuming my rusty-ass algebra's right, this suggests a ratio of 25 parts green to one part Vltor Black for Gunkote.

Cerakote, starting with H-400Q Jesse James Eastern Front Green, if my math's right 1 part pure white (RGB 255,255,255/hex FFFFFF) to 32 parts green gets us Three Clicks Low On Green Plus One On Blue.

Bringing it back for direct comparison:
Hex 5D6648/RGB 93,102,72 Canadian Average Green
Hex 5D664a/RGB 93,102,74 25 parts Gunkote Oasis Green : 1 part pure black
Hex 5B6646/RGB 91,102,70 153 parts DC Multi Dk Grn : 4 parts pure white
Hex 5D6347/RGB 93,99,71 32 parts Cerakote H-400Q JJ EF Grn : 1 part pure white
Hex 5E634A/RGB 94,99,74 123 parts Cerakote H-400Q JJ EF Grn : 10 parts H-242Q Hidden White
Hex 576242/RGB 87,98,66 Duracoat Multi Dark Green
Hex 555B3F/RGB 85,91,63 Cerakote H-400Q Jesse James Eastern Front Green
Gunkote 2402OA Oasis Green

I think any of the mixed options are pretty darn close (assuming I didn't make a complete pooch-screw of the math; this might be a good excuse to call one of my old profs and see how he's doing), past the point where my eye can tell the difference; heck, unmixed Duracoat Multi Dark Green is right in that "I can't tell" zone too as is straight Jesse James Green, though I can tell a clear difference on Oasis.