50 Cal colors

The M2 is a flat black overall. Some have wooden handles on the back plate group, but most have black plastic ones.

/been there, fired, disassembled, cleaned that

Welcome to the forum!

I would say a flat black base dry brushed with gun metal to have an almost new gun. To represent an older weapon: gun metal base, black wash and steel dry brush.
I use Humbrol enamels for this jobs:
Flat Black 33
Gun Metal 53
Steel 56

To have a brownish look use sepia china ink (Pelikan 15) instead of the black wash. This tone comes from a mixture of rust and grease on the real weapons.

The parkerizing on most of the .50 cal's I've seen give them more of a gunship grey to gun metal look. I never saw a really "black" ma duece. I did see a few tanish brown ones in Afghanistan but then again EVERYTHING turned tanish brown over there. I'd paint them dark gunship grey with a flat black wash, and gun metal drybrushing. I'll qualify that statement by saying the only 50's i've worked around were mounted on the ramp of Pave Pigs (MH-53J's) or on Hum-V's.

We had five .50's on our ship, and I remember the brand new ones being flat black, but after a couple cleanings it was a semi flat black...


....then after a few combat missions...

it seemed they took on a faded black/brownish appearance.

I guess it depends on how you're going to display your Pave Low; assembly line finish or weathered vet.

Take care,
Frank

None of my .50's were black either. I start with medium and dark gray on the different assemblies to break up the monotony. Then wash with black and highlight liberally with #2 pencil graphite especially on all the corners. Black for the charging handle and spade grips.