Urban Camouflage?

Nature Boy said:

This is my Kelbly Panda F Class rifle.

Call of Duty Urban Camo (son’s idea)

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Completely undetectable at a Van Halen concert.

The pattern Browning put on Hi-Powers briefly was very effective at breaking up the shape of the pistols, if unattractive.

I would paint “Help Wanted” on the barrel. That’s been effective for my businesses in both urban and rural areas lately. No one will see it.

I transported rifles and shotguns around NYC, including on the subways, in hand lettered boxes marked “Venetian blinds”. Not an eyebrow was raised.

Urban Camo? Just dress like everybody else .

roscoe said:

In an urban setting the only effective camo is no camo.

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I have to disagree here. An unpainted gun "looks" like a gun. A gun that has some form of camo on it breaking its outline, doesn't, especially at a little distance.

Ive been painting guns since the 60's, and have always found that the gun thats been camo'ed, is less noticeable (as a gun), regardless the pattern.

As far as an "all around" camo goes, even in an urban environment, Multicam works really well. When it first showed up, the company that developed it, Crye Precision, had a pretty extensive gallery on their website, showing how well it worked in just about any environment you can think of, including urban/suburban environments, with brick, block, concrete, etc., typical city type backgrounds, and it still breaks the outline very well. The pics they had in urban environs were pretty amazing.

One other thing to consider, just wearing a cammie jacket around town, can create its own "background" to hide a painted gun.



Ive actually done just that a couple of times, just to prove the point to a couple of buddies. Even at almost contact distances, just passing by, its not really noticeable, unless youre really looking right at it, and even when you are, your brain isnt screaming "gun".

Anything that confuses the brain, can work.

Not really a thing. Whatever blends in with the vegetation in the area, since exterior movement is where you will most likely be busted. Chances are, final firing positions will be in a structure of some type anyway, in which case you could be naked, and it won't matter. The real challenge is using deception tactics to keep the position a secret before and after firing.

I missed the point that you were painting a gun.
I'd use colors that blend with your normal attire. Do you wear jeans, khakis, or something else? What are your general shirt colors?

Dibbs said:

Dumpster Green, Poo Brown, and Concrete Beige

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Don't forget smog tan as well

The BEST urban camo would be snowflake pink

Google "pebbled concrete texture".

This really isnt a good example, but it does still show the differences. Those are two AK's, one painted, one not.



I originally took these because of a discussion about night vision and how the paint was "supposed" to make things stand out like a sore thumb through NV. As you can see, at least through a cheap Gen 1 NV monocular, thats not the case.



Even there, its pretty obvious what the "black" item is, vs what the other "thing" is.

AK103K said:

This really isnt a good example, but it does still show the differences. Those are two AK's, one painted, one not.
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I originally took these because of a discussion about night vision and how the paint was "supposed" to make things stand out like a sore thumb through NV. As you can see, at least through a cheap Gen 1 NV monocular, thats not the case.

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Even there, its pretty obvious what the "black" item is, vs what the other "thing" is.

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Imagine if you had used Green as the base color. I didn't realize it makes that big of difference.

Bfh_auto said:

Imagine if you had used Green as the base color. I didn't realize it makes that big of difference.

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A light, "tannish" base, actually works better across the board than a green. or most other bases.

Varminterror said:

There was a white/black/grey (maybe two shades of grey?) multicam type which went around as “urban camo” probably 20yrs ago.

ETA: yup, it was 4 color white, grey, graphite, black.

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No, that was just your Macintosh monitor.

There were a number of "Urban Camo" pattern BDU sets available in the 1970's & 80's.

The Camo I really wish I had bought then or bolts of the cloth was school colors camo as in U of F heavy on Blue and Orange and FSU heavy on gold and Garnet...

AK103K has me thinking about making sleeves for my rifles out of Blue jeans material as I tend to wear jeans jackets in winter and blue overalls with blue shirts in the summer

-kBob

Urban Camouflage?

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Medium gray, if unicolor. Think of the "field gray" uniforms of WWII Germany which were scientifically researched to determine what had the lowest visibility under various conditions.

Use a combination of various shades of gray (avoiding large areas of white or black) if the garment is to be patterned.

Some admixture of light browns and tans may help IF the urban environment you envision fighting in has a lot of earth-tone brick and masonry; otherwise, stick to various shades of gray.

Avoid green and brown. The colors of the forest are not common in urban environments. Avoid patterns that have a lot of black. True black (as opposed to dirty dark gray) is actually rare in urban settings.

kbob wrote:
...AK103K has me thinking about making sleeves for my rifles out of Blue jeans material...

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In ANY environment, indigo blue is not a naturally occurring color. In an urban firefight, I know that a horizontal or vertical expanse of indigo blue is likely someone's leg - and thus a target - since shooting someone in the leg kills or disables my potential adversary.

Make a sleeve out of "serge de nimes" (i.e. denim) in blue indigo is, as far as I am concerned, all you would be doing is "outing" yourself as an armed person and attracting unwanted attention.

I’d think plenty of patterns would work well, something busy, chevrons of differing sizes not parallel to the length, wording that’s almost bumper sticker-ish, and my favorite I’ve seen lately, something like a repeating swirl pattern (think drywall plaster) in pie-like wedges of various sizes. Perhaps a tire tread pattern fading through different colors. It may even draw attention to itself but not in an alarming way. If nothing else, look at mousepads for inspiration; rocks, beading water, feathers.


These are shirts, no guns except the ones on the brunette.

mshootnit said:

No, that was just your Macintosh monitor.

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Nah, not THAT long ago. I had a laptop already 20yrs ago. Cost a ton, weighed two tons, and couldn’t do squat, but we were a long ways past B&W or G&B monitors by then!

But that 4 color “urban camo” was a brief but broad clothing trend. My high school’s football team T shirts in 2000 were that pattern even. I remember a bunch of guys had BDU style pants, a bunch of my buddies had boonie hats and pull over jackets for “snow camo.” We talked about how it matched our snow better than all white like I grew up hunting with in MN, because KS winters never got deep enough snow to totally blanket the mud.

city folk what color combinations work well for use in cities?

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I would think, make it look like a cell phone and stick it in front of your face, would work pretty well.

On 2nd thought just carry it as normal, unless you look like a cell phone screen, no one will pay any attention to you anyway.

I guess the next time I'm in an urban environment, (does Lawrence count..?), I'll have to look around at the wildlife and it's surroundings for research.