Nerd stuff · Field science
What's the best distance to zero a hunting rifle?
Your zero is a measurement. Stop asking it to also be a guess.
Quick answer
Zero at 100 yards if your scope can dial or your reticle can hold, and at 200 yards if you refuse to do either. Our engine puts a .308's 200-yard zero 2.18 inches high at its peak and 8.8 inches low at 300. A 300-yard zero rides 6.27 inches high at 164 yards, which is a miss you never see coming.
This argument has run for decades on rules of thumb: two inches high at 100, three inches high at 100, zero for the country you hunt. So we stopped arguing and solved it. One hunting rifle, three zero distances, every number below computed by the same engine that runs inside Wrist Dope. Here is what each zero really does to the bullet, what point-blank range honestly buys you, and the price of a far zero that almost nobody puts on the page.
6.27in
How high a 300-yard zero rides above your crosshair at 164 yards. Nothing marks the spot.
264yd
True point-blank range for this .308 inside a 6-inch vital circle, from a 225-yard zero.
5.8in
Error at 400 yards that a 300-yard zero inherits from one breezy day at the wrong elevation.
The three candidates
What each zero actually does to the trajectory
Your scope sits about an inch and a half above the bore, so every bullet leaves below your line of sight, climbs across it, arcs over the top, and falls back through. Choosing a zero distance only picks where that falling branch crosses your crosshair a second time. Push the crossing out and the whole arc lifts, which is the entire trade: less drop far away, more rise near you.
One .308, three zeros, same box of ammunition
Bullet path relative to your crosshair, in inches, from 25 to 400 yards. Above the line means the bullet is high.
See the numbers
| Distance | 100-yd zero | 200-yd zero | 300-yd zero |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 yd | -0.63 | -0.10 | 0.63 |
| 50 yd | -0.09 | 0.97 | 2.43 |
| 75 yd | 0.13 | 1.72 | 3.91 |
| 100 yd | 0.00 | 2.11 | 5.03 |
| 125 yd | -0.49 | 2.16 | 5.81 |
| 150 yd | -1.34 | 1.83 | 6.21 |
| 175 yd | -2.59 | 1.11 | 6.22 |
| 200 yd | -4.23 | 0.00 | 5.84 |
| 225 yd | -6.28 | -1.53 | 5.04 |
| 250 yd | -8.77 | -3.49 | 3.82 |
| 275 yd | -11.70 | -5.89 | 2.14 |
| 300 yd | -15.10 | -8.76 | 0.00 |
| 325 yd | -18.99 | -12.12 | -2.62 |
| 350 yd | -23.37 | -15.97 | -5.75 |
| 375 yd | -28.28 | -20.35 | -9.40 |
| 400 yd | -33.73 | -25.28 | -13.59 |
Read the far end first, because that is what people buy a far zero for. At 400 yards the 100-yard zero is 33.7 inches low, the 200-yard zero 25.3 inches low, and the 300-yard zero 13.6 inches low. Twenty inches of drop saved, which sounds decisive until you look at the middle of the chart.
Maximum ordinate
The number the argument usually skips
Every zero has a high point, the maximum ordinate: the most the bullet will ever be above where you aimed. It is the part of a far zero you never see, because it happens between you and the target and nothing marks it. Miss high at 160 yards and there is no hole in the paper to explain it.
How high the bullet rides, by zero distance
Peak height above the line of sight and where along the flight it happens.
See the numbers
| Zero distance | Peak height above sight line | Where it peaks | Low at 300 yd | Low at 400 yd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 yd | 0.13 in | 78 yd | 15.1 in | 33.7 in |
| 200 yd | 2.18 in | 115 yd | 8.8 in | 25.3 in |
| 300 yd | 6.27 in | 164 yd | 0.0 in | 13.6 in |
A 100-yard zero peaks 0.13 inches high, which is nothing: point of aim is point of impact from the muzzle out to 182 yards inside a 3-inch band. A 200-yard zero peaks 2.18 inches at 115 yards, still comfortably inside a deer's chest. The 300-yard zero is a different animal. It clears 3 inches at 59 yards and stays above 3 inches all the way to 263 yards, peaking at 6.27 inches. That band of yardage is where most game in North America is actually shot.
Six inches is not always forgiving. On a broadside elk it disappears. On a coyote at 150 yards, or a javelina, or any shot where you are threading past a shoulder blade, 6.27 inches of unannounced rise is the entire vital zone.
Point-blank range
Maximum point-blank range, honestly explained
Maximum point-blank range answers one specific question: if I refuse to adjust anything, how far can I hold dead center and still land in the vitals? You have to choose the vital circle before the math means anything. Deer hunters usually take 6 inches, which is 3 inches of allowance above your crosshair and 3 below. Then you pick the zero that makes the arc's high point exactly touch the top of that band, and the bullet rides inside a 6-inch pipe until it falls out the bottom.
The bullet inside its 6-inch pipe
A 225-yard zero, the setting that maximizes point-blank range for this load and a 6-inch vital circle.
See the numbers
| Distance | Path vs sight line | Inside the 3-inch band? |
|---|---|---|
| 25 yd | +0.06 in | yes |
| 50 yd | +1.31 in | yes |
| 75 yd | +2.22 in | yes |
| 100 yd | +2.79 in | yes |
| 125 yd | +3.00 in | yes |
| 150 yd | +2.84 in | yes |
| 175 yd | +2.29 in | yes |
| 200 yd | +1.35 in | yes |
| 225 yd | -0.01 in | yes |
| 250 yd | -1.80 in | yes |
| 275 yd | -4.04 in | no |
| 300 yd | -6.74 in | no |
| 325 yd | -9.92 in | no |
| 350 yd | -13.61 in | no |
For our .308 the answer is a 225-yard zero and 264 yards of point-blank range. The arc touches exactly 3.0 inches at 127 yards, crosses your crosshair on the way up at 24 yards and on the way down at 225, then leaves the bottom of the band at 264. Allow an 8-inch circle instead and the numbers move to a 251-yard zero and 296 yards. Nothing about those figures is a rule of thumb; they fall out of the load and the circle you chose.
The 200-yard camp is basically right
Close enough to optimal that the difference does not exist in the field.
- Point-blank zero
- 225 yd
- Plain 200-yd zero
- usable to 244 yd
- Peak rise
- 2.18 in
- High at 100 yd
- 2.11 in
- Turrets touched
- none
Where point-blank thinking stops helping
Past the pipe, the drop runs away faster than the guess can track it.
- At 264 yd
- 3.0 in low
- At 300 yd
- 6.7 in low
- At 350 yd
- 13.6 in low
- At 400 yd
- 22.6 in low
- What you needed
- a number
That is the honest shape of the argument. If you will never touch a turret, a 200-yard zero buys you real, free capability inside 244 yards and asks you to remember nothing at all. There is a reason the setting has survived every internet fight about it. What it cannot do is tell you when you are past it, and a rifle that is 22.6 inches low at 400 yards does not warn you first.
The hidden cost
A far zero remembers the day you shot it
Here is the part the zero-distance debate leaves out. A zero is one measurement: the angle between your bore and your sight line. Every other thing that moved the group while you were measuring gets absorbed into that angle and stays there. Air density and wind both count, and both scale with how long the bullet is in flight, so a far zero collects far more of them.
What the zeroing day writes into your turrets, permanently
Air: a sea-level 59 °F zero carried to 8,000 ft and 20 °F. Wind: a 5 mph full-value crosswind you centered out without noticing.
See the numbers
| Zero distance | Air baked in (MOA) | 5 mph crosswind baked in (MOA) | Combined error at 400 yd |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 yd | 0.025 | 0.35 | 1.6 in |
| 200 yd | 0.108 | 0.72 | 3.5 in |
| 300 yd | 0.264 | 1.13 | 5.8 in |
| 400 yd | 0.513 | 1.56 | 8.7 in |
The air alone is modest and grows fast: 0.025 MOA baked into a 100-yard zero, 0.264 into a 300-yard zero, 0.513 into a 400-yard zero. Wind is the bigger thief and gets talked about less. A 5 mph crosswind pushes this bullet 0.37 inches at 100 yards, which vanishes into normal group scatter. At 300 yards the same breeze is 3.54 inches, and centering that group means you just dialed 1.13 MOA of windage into the rifle and called it a zero. Take it to a calm day and it is 4.7 inches of horizontal error at 400 yards, with the air adding another 1.1 inches of vertical on top.
A 100-yard zero is not immune, it is just too short for any of this to get traction. The same 5 mph wind is worth 0.37 inches, the same elevation change is a tenth of a scope click, and neither survives contact with a three-shot group. We measured that portability in detail in do weather conditions matter when zeroing a rifle, and worked the physics all the way down in the white paper on atmospheric conditions and your zero.
Does the cartridge change the answer
Not as much as people hope
Run the same study on a 6.5 Creedmoor, 140 gr at 2,700 fps, and the flatter reputation earns about ten yards. Its point-blank range in a 6-inch circle is 274 yards against the .308's 264, from a 233-yard zero instead of 225. Its 300-yard zero still peaks 5.65 inches high. Trajectory shape is set by time of flight, and no hunting cartridge shortens that enough to change which zero you should pick. What changes the answer is whether you are willing to adjust.
The verdict
So what distance should you zero at?
- 1
Zero at 100 yards if you will dial or hold.
It is the cleanest measurement you can take, it confirms at any range in the country, and it carries almost none of the weather that made it. From there this .308 needs 2.02 MOA to reach 200 yards, 4.81 to reach 300, and 8.05 to reach 400. A solver hands you those numbers for the air you are standing in, which beats every rule of thumb on this page.
- 2
Zero at 200 yards if you will not.
Point of aim works from the muzzle to 244 yards inside a 3-inch band, the arc never rises more than 2.18 inches, and there is nothing to remember under pressure. For timber and brush country where a long shot is 180 yards, this is a good setting and always has been.
- 3
Skip the 300-yard zero.
It puts the bullet more than 3 inches above your crosshair from 59 yards to 263 yards, which is exactly where your shot is most likely to happen, and it absorbs the most air and wind from the day you zeroed. You are accepting a permanent mid-range error to buy reach you can get more reliably by dialing.
- 4
Whatever you pick, know the range.
Every setting on this page fails the same way, by being used past the distance it was chosen for. Point-blank range is a promise about a window, not about the shot in front of you. A rangefinder and a solution beat a memorized holdover at any zero distance.
The zero-distance question is really a question about what you are willing to carry. For a century the honest answer was to bake a guess into the rifle, because there was nothing at the firing point that could do better. That is no longer true. Wrist Dope solves the shot in front of you from the pressure, altitude, and temperature where you stand, so your zero can go back to being the one thing it is good at: a clean, portable measurement of your rifle.
The takeaway
Zero close. Let the solver reach.
A 100-yard zero is the cleanest measurement your rifle can give you, and it never expires: the charts above showed the mid-range arc and the baked-in weather that far zeros trade away to buy reach. You do not need to make that trade anymore. Reach comes from dialing, and dialing is only as good as the number you dial.
That number is what Wrist Dope is for. It reads the air where you stand, station pressure from the barometer on your wrist, altitude from GPS, temperature from live local weather, and turns your clean 100-yard zero into the exact come-up for this shot, in this air, at this range. The point-blank arc was a workaround. The solver is the answer.
Common questions
- Is a 200 yard zero better than a 100 yard zero?
- It depends on whether you will adjust for range. A 200-yard zero lets you aim dead center from the muzzle to 244 yards and stay within 3 inches, at the cost of riding 2.18 inches high at 115 yards, so it is the better setting for a hunter who will never touch a turret. A 100-yard zero is the cleaner measurement and the better base if you dial or hold, because the same .308 needs only 2.02 MOA to reach 200 yards.
- How high is a 200 yard zero at 100 yards?
- About 2.1 inches high. Our engine puts a .308 Winchester 175 gr load 2.11 inches above the line of sight at 100 yards with a 200-yard zero, peaking at 2.18 inches around 115 yards. The old range rule of thumb, roughly 2 inches high at 100 for a 200-yard zero, holds up well for standard hunting cartridges.
- What is maximum point blank range?
- The farthest distance you can aim dead center and still hit inside a chosen vital circle without adjusting anything. Pick the circle first: for a 6-inch deer vital zone you allow 3 inches above and 3 inches below your crosshair. For our .308 that means a 225-yard zero, a peak of exactly 3.0 inches at 127 yards, and a maximum point-blank range of 264 yards. Widen it to an 8-inch circle and you get 296 yards from a 251-yard zero.
- Should I zero my hunting rifle at 300 yards?
- For most hunting, no. A 300-yard zero puts our .308 more than 3 inches above the crosshair everywhere from 59 yards to 263 yards, peaking at 6.27 inches. That covers the distances most game is actually shot at, so you inherit a mid-range error to buy reach you can get more safely by dialing. A far zero also bakes more of the zeroing day's air and wind into the sight setting.
- What is the best zero distance for a .308?
- 100 yards if your scope dials or your reticle holds, 200 yards if you want point-and-shoot out to about 244 yards with nothing to remember. A 175 gr .308 at 2,650 fps needs 2.02 MOA to reach 200 yards from a 100-yard zero, 4.81 MOA to reach 300, and 8.05 MOA to reach 400. Flatter cartridges barely change the answer: a 6.5 Creedmoor 140 gr load gets 274 yards of point-blank range against our .308's 264.