Gunmetal Gray Color Codes

Gunmetal Gray is a mid-tone neutral grey with the hex code #808C8C, RGB values of 128, 140, 140 and an HSL value of hsl(180, 5%, 53%).

HEX	#808C8C
RGB	128, 140, 140
HSL	hsl(180, 5%, 53%)
HSV	180°, 9%, 55%
CMYK	9%, 0%, 0%, 45%
LAB	57.31, -4.34, -1.49
CIELCHuv	57.31, 6.72, 192.17°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 444 C ΔE 3.1 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: gray ΔE 5.9

Community source color-name-list, community color-name index

Gunmetal Gray Color Hex Code

The Gunmetal Gray color hex code is #808C8C. Those six digits are three pairs, 80 for red, 8C for green and 8C for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#808C8C

Gunmetal Gray Color RGB Code

The Gunmetal Gray RGB code is rgb(128, 140, 140). Green carries the most light at 140 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(128, 140, 140)

Gunmetal Gray Color HSV Code

The Gunmetal Gray HSV code is 180°, 9%, 55%. Read it as a hue of 180 degrees, 9% saturation and 55% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

180°, 9%, 55%

Gunmetal Gray Color CIELChuv Code

The Gunmetal Gray CIELCHuv code is 57.31, 6.72, 192.17°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 57 means mid-toned to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 7 is how far it sits from grey.

57.31, 6.72, 192.17°

Tonal scale

What are Gunmetal Gray Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Gunmetal Gray Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #808C8C. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

The opposite hue is #8C8080, a mid-tone neutral grey. Complements carry the strongest contrast of any two-color scheme, so this pair suits a call to action better than a background. Neither is especially saturated, so this pairing stays calm enough for large areas of both.

Analogous

Its two neighbours are #808C86 and #80868C. Because they overlap heavily in hue, nothing in the group competes, and the eye reads the whole set as a single color with variation.

Triadic

#8C808C and #8C8C80 complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #8C8086 and #8C8680. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #8C8080, and #86808C with #868C80. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

3.47:1

3.47

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Black background

6.05:1

6.05

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Against white Gunmetal Gray reaches 3.47:1, enough for large text and UI borders, but short of the 4.5:1 that body copy needs. Darken it for anything set small. Text placed on it should be black, which gives 6.05:1. With very little saturation it behaves as a neutral, which makes it a good background or a supporting tone alongside a stronger accent.

Check Gunmetal Gray against another color →

Color vision

How Gunmetal Gray looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#85858C

Gunmetal Gray shifts slightly here. ΔE 6.4

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#85848C

Gunmetal Gray shifts slightly here. ΔE 7.1

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#818C8C

Gunmetal Gray holds up almost unchanged here. ΔE 0.4

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#8A8A8A

Gunmetal Gray shifts slightly here. ΔE 4.6

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

To a deuteranope, the most common form, Gunmetal Gray reads as #85848C. That is a shift of ΔE 7.1, so it is a different color to roughly one man in sixteen. The widest shift is under deuteranopia, at ΔE 7.1. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Gunmetal Gray in code

:root {
  --gunmetal-gray: #808C8C;
}

.example {
  color: var(--gunmetal-gray);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'gunmetal-gray': '#808C8C',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let gunmetalGray = Color(
    red: 0.502,
    green: 0.549,
    blue: 0.549
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="gunmetal_gray">#808C8C</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const gunmetalGray = Color(0xFF808C8C);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Gunmetal Gray Color?

Gunmetal Gray reads as quiet. It is muted enough to work as a background rather than a signal, and at 5% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 57 it behaves as a neutral color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Gunmetal Gray Color?

The closest CSS keyword is Gray (#808080), though it is not a match: Delta-E 5.9 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 444 C at #898E8C. The name Gunmetal Gray comes from the community color-name index rather than a standards body, so you will meet it under other names elsewhere.

How is Gunmetal Gray Color Made?

On a screen Gunmetal Gray is made by additive light: 128 red, 140 green and 140 blue out of 255, with green leading and 128 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 9%, 0%, 0%, 45%. Starting from the pure hue at 180 degrees, Gunmetal Gray is a tone, so it is that hue knocked back with grey.