Silver Bullet is a Behr color that, on paper, should be the perfect neutral gray. In reality it’s a frosty blue silver with some chameleon-like tendencies.
Let’s bite the silver bullet and see this color in real homes, check out some dupes, and find coordinating colors!
What Color is Behr Silver Bullet (N250-2)
Behr Silver Bullet is a gray paint color that ranges from silver to pale blue in appearance, although most often it does look blue.
LRV and RBG of Behr Silver Bullet
Behr lists the RBG of Silver Bullet as Red 197, Green 197, and Blue 195.
A true gray will have equal amounts of each color, thus why on paper Silver Bullet is a much truer gray than it generally appears in real life.
Hex Code: C5C5C3
The LRV of Silver Bullet is 56.
What is an LRV anyways?
The LRV of a color indicates on a scale of 0 – 100 how much light a color reflects (or doesn’t reflect). True black has an LRV of 0 and pure white has an LRV of 100.
In the paint world, we are working in a range of about 3 – 93 because no paint color is purely black or completely white.
At 56 Silver Bullet still reflects light rather than absorbs it. You will find most whole-home paint colors have a similar LRV.
What Are the Undertones of Silver Bullet
While Silver Bullet is not actually blue, like many gray paint colors it kind of has a mind of it’s own.
It definitely has blue undertones, and will most often look like a silvery gray or blue.
Sounds great, but you should also be okay with beige, because it can have warm greigey tones on occasion.
(Which is probably closer to what you would expect from this color family.)
In my opinion Silver Bullet can also have sliiight purple tones.
You will see more of Silver Bullet’s variations when we look at photos in just a minute!
Is Silver Bullet Warm or Cool
This is a tricky one. Silver bullet most often looks cool, but it can occasionally have a slightly warm greige tone.
If you need to know, plan to use it like a cool color.
Behr Silver Bullet Color Strip
On paper, the Silver Bullet color strip is probably the truest gray collection that Behr offers:
The other colors on this strip are:
- White Metal N520-1
- Flannel Gray N520-3
- Cool Ashes N520-4
- Iron Mountain N520-5
- Asphalt Gray N520-6
- Carbon N520-7
Lighter Version of Silver Bullet
White Metal is the shade one lighter than Silver Bullet. It has an LRV of 63 so it is lighter but not so much that it is in off-white territory.
Darker Version of Silver Bullet
Flannel Gray is one shade darker than Silver Bullet on the same strip. It has an LRV of 42. You might notice that it doesn’t look much darker on the color strip, but the difference between an LRV above 50 and one under 50 is usually more drastic than you would expect.
That’s because the color all of a sudden absorbs light rather than reflecting it.
Behr Silver Bullet Color Palette
This cool-toned blue, gray, green, color palette will bring a restful vibe to your home.
Coordinating Colors to Use With Silver Bullet
Behr Frost (57)
Frost is a cool white by Behr. It actually has a green undertone so it coordinates well with Silver Bullet.
For me personally, I think a crisp white like Frost looks best with Silver Bullet.
Behr Iron Mountain N520-5
Iron Mountain (not to be confused with the Benjamin Moore color of the same name) is much further down on the Silver Bullet color strip, so it makes for a great accent color.
It is a cool charcoal very reminiscent of the ever popular Sherwin Williams Iron Ore, so you could definitely swap it out.
Behr Black Locust PPU25-02
I love Black Locust!
Something about dark gray greens really gets me going. If you keep seeing dark greens around here that I’m proclaiming to be my favorites…Guilty! I love them all.
If you’re saying “Wait, what?” Yes. Black Locust is a gray green even though the swatch looks very much gray.
This color is a nice alternative to Iron Mountain if you wanted something outside of the exact same collection as Silver Bullet.
Black Locust is quite a chameleon. You can see a few pictures of it in my post Ultra Sophisticated Gray Green Paint Colors.
Behr Riverdale (N410-3)
Riverdale is a very mysterious Behr color. They list it as one of their top sellers, and yet you won’t be able to find a lot of real photos of it!
Maybe they’re fronting, maybe not, but I do think Riverdale is a very pretty gray green and it would look really nice with Silver Bullet!
Complementary Color for Silver Bullet
Officially, complementary colors are the colors that sit directly across the color wheel from one another. With grays that is very tricky because you can easily say “Oh it’s in the yellow family, so the complementary color must be purple!” but when the color actually looks blue, what then?
For Silver Bullet I would choose a green as its complementary color, which is why I included Black Locust, Frost, and Riverdale in my palette. It’s a nice safe bet because green adjoins both yellow and blue in the color wheel. It’s not technically correct, but here we are.
What Trim Colors Go With Behr Silver Bullet?
There are two main choices when it comes to trim: Wood of some variety, or white.
Here is a look at how Silver Bullet looks with wood trim:
I find that the warm tones of this wood trim do tend to make Silver Bullet look a little purple. In recent photos the owners have opted to paint the trim white.
White Paint that Goes with Silver Bullet
I would stay bright and neutral/cool with white trim. Try Behr Ultra Pure White or Sherwin Williams Extra White.
If you do want something with a hint of warmth, consider Behr Polar Bear or Sherwin Williams Pure White.
I would not choose a really warm white like Swiss Coffee with this one, unless you like the more purple side of Silver Bullet.
Behr Silver Bullet for Your Home’s Interior
Finally it’s time to take a look at Silver Bullet in real life!
Here is a classic silver look to Silver Bullet in this hall by Positive View Interior Design (@positiveviewinteriordesign):
Next we see Silver Bullet with a subtle blue added to its silver, in the entrance of Lisa (@bighouseontheshore):
You can really see how clean it looks with a nice crisp white!
The next two walls are super interesting, and show another side to this color. (Actually it’s just one wall, but different angles.)
Jaymes (@jaymescatherine) used Silver Bullet in her home, and behind the macrame hanging you can see that it finally does look a little warm and greige-y for once.
In the very next photo you can see that it looks like a similar color in the left side of the photo, but on the right (towards the edge of the wall) it definitely looks more blue.
Behr Silver Bullet in a Living Room
Let’s flip back to that living room where we saw Silver Bullet with wood trim:
It’s interesting that in this photo with less trim showing, I find Silver Bullet looks less purple and more like a true gray.
Meaghan (@criptonite43) shared two more photos that also look drastically different from one another:
She has said that the photo without the couch is the more accurate of how Silver Bullet usually looks, which is kind of the blue-gray goodness we expect at this point!
Behr Silver Bullet in a Bedroom
Here is Behr Silver Bullet in a bedroom with Sherwin Williams Distance on the other wall:
Behr Silver Bullet Exterior
Behr colors are always hard to get good examples of, and I was not able to find Silver Bullet on an exterior. What I was able to find, is a pretty good lookalike:
The siding on this house is pretty much what you can expect from Silver Bullet. On exteriors, every color will look lighter, and Silver Bullet will be a subtle gray, almost an off-white.
The top half of this photo is pretty bang on for being the right color. Where it loses it just a little, is the lower half around the bay window. There you can see that this particular gray is a little more green.
Silver Bullet Compared to Other Light Gray Paint Colors from Behr
Of course the best way to see the true spirit of a color is to look at it in comparison to others. Let’s contrast Silver Bullet against some other popular Behr choices that you may be considering.
Behr Silver Bullet vs White Metal
White Metal is one shade lighter than Silver Bullet on the same color strip:
Behr Silver Bullet vs Dolphin Fin
Dolphin Fin is a bit warmer than Silver Bullet. It also does tend to have cool blue undertones, which is confusing from the swatch. You can see that Silver Bullet is quite blue in comparison.
Dolphin Fin is more popular than Silver Bullet, and also more likely to do all kinds of different things on the wall.
Behr Silver Bullet vs Silver Drop
Silver Drop is lighter and warmer than Silver Bullet. It is on the same color strip as Dolphin Fin, but is slightly less likely to look blue.
Behr Silver Bullet vs Silver City
Silver City is slightly more green than Silver Bullet.
Behr Silver Bullet vs Classic Silver
Classic Silver is a bit darker than Silver Bullet, with an LRV of 48, and also more green. I would say that Classic Silver is still a blue-gray, but where Silver Bullet leans blue-gray-purple, Classic Silver leans blue-gray-green.
Behr Silver Bullet vs Silver Shadow
Silver Bullet is definitely more gray than Silver Shadow, even though both can look quite blue. When Silver Shadow looks blue it tends to look like a powdery blue, where Silver Bullet has a bit more depth.
Silver Shadow is also lighter than Silver Bullet.
Silver Bullet Dupes
Time to check out some dupes and doubles for Behr Silver Bullet!
Here are the best matches that I found from each brand:
Benjamin Moore Silver Bullet Equivalent
From Benjamin Moore I actually chose two dupes, because they are both pretty close to Silver Bullet but in slightly different ways. They are Silver Chain and Metro Gray.
Benjamin Moore Silver Chain (1472)
If you want my opinion, I prefer Silver Chain ever so slightly over Metro Gray. Silver Chain has a similar LRV to Silver Bullet, but it is ever so slightly warmer.
It is a little less likely to look blue than Silver Bullet, which is the major difference between these two.
I find that Silver Chain stays neutral gray a bit more than Silver Bullet does.
Benjamin Moore Metro Gray (1459)
Metro Gray is a bit cooler than Silver Chain, so it is a slightly better tone match for Silver Bullet. It is a bit lighter than Silver Bullet however, and therefore more reflective, so you may find that Metro Gray tends to have a blue undertone more often than Silver Bullet.
Valspar (Lowe’s) Equivalent to Silver Bullet
The best alternative to Silver Bullet from Valspar is their color Gray Morn.
Valspar Gray Morn (8006-11B)
Gray Morn is a little bit lighter than Silver Bullet, and is technically a “perfect” gray. It has equal parts red, green, and blue.
Gray Morn has the same neutral to cool qualities as Silver Bullet.
Silver Bullet Sherwin Williams Equivalent
The best dupe that I could find for Silver Bullet is Sherwin Williams Passive.
Sherwin Williams Passive (SW 7064)
Passive is a little bit lighter and cooler than Silver Bullet, but it reads very similar on the wall.
I think it’s the closest of all the dupes in terms of how it actually looks.
Silver Bullet Pros & Cons
That’s my rambling done for this one! Let’s summarize with a few pros and cons:
Pros
- Soft and soothing gray blue
- Coordinates well with crisp whites and other cool tones
Cons
- If you have a lot of natural light, you may find that it looks blue more often than not. (Not necessarily a con as long as you expect it.)
- Not really a neutral
