Which Riflescope Zero is Right For You and Why?

There are a lot of different ways to shoot a rifle—and a lot of different places to shoot them. If you’re hunting out west, you may need to set your rifle up to take longer shots. Hunters back east in the woods are usually just fine with simple 100-yard zero. The long-range competition shooter might also go with a 100-yard zero for completely different reasons.

Below, we’ve got you covered. How you plan to use your rifle has a lot to do with what zero you choose, which is why we’ve gone through each of the most common zeros and described a bit more about the shooters who like to use them. Take this know-how to the range this year, and you’ll get dialed in for sure.

The Three Most Common Rifle Zeros

There are several kinds of rifle zeros, but we’ll go over the three most common. Out in the wild and on the range, you’ll likely run into one of the three listed below. Each has its own merits and drawbacks, depending on how you want to use your rifle. Here they are:

• The 100-Yard Zero: This is the simplest zero to use and offers the best baseline for trajectory adjustments if you like to dial for everything. Woods hunters and competition shooters usually use this zero.
• The 200-Yard Zero: Instead of zeroing at 100-yards, you’ll zero for 200. This will give you more wiggle room for longer shots should you need to shoot in a hurry. It’s also good for shooters who don’t have scopes with BDC reticles or turrets that are adjustable without tools.
• The Maximum Point Blank Range Zero (MPBR): This is the farthest a cartridge will hit within a specific target size if the shooter holds dead on the target. It’s a good zero to use when hunting in open country if you don’t have a scope with an adjustable turret.

The 100-Yard Zero

The 100-yard zero has been an old standby for any hunter who tackles terrain that’s full of vegetation. It’s simple because all you need to do is make sure your rifle hits dead-on at 100 yards. Hunters in the big woods typically have shots that are under 100 yards, and when shooting a run-of-the-mill centerfire like a 30/06, 308 Win, or 270 Win, you’ll be able to hit a deer-sized kill zone without a problem at any distance 100 yards and in.

More recently, with the popularity of precision shooting and scopes with adjustable turrets, the 100-yard zero has become a go-to zero for hunters and competition shooters in open country, too. It’s a good baseline to build a range card with established distances and their corresponding holdovers in either MILs or MOA. From there, shooters will range a target, make a ballistic calculation, and dial for the shot. If you’re running a 100-yard zero, you’ll need to dial for almost any shot you make beyond 100 yards. It takes a bit of extra work, but you can make incredibly precise shots like this.

If you’re setting a rifle up for a match, this is a good zero to go with, granted you spend time building a range card and practicing. It can work for hunting, too, but you may need a bit of extra time to dial in your shot. But if you’re a woods hunter, this is still the best zero to use, as you’ll need no time to take an animal under 100 yards.

The 200-yard Zero

You probably guessed it. The 200-yard zero is just like the 100-yard zero, except you’re setting your crosshair at 200 yards instead of 100. Hunters are frequent users of the 200-yard zero. It’s good for varying terrain, like woods and ag fields or open country mixed with timber. Your shots will land a bit high between 0 and 200 yards, but only by an inch or two. Out to 250 yards, you should be able to hold dead-on with most centerfire big game cartridges and land a hit within the vitals. Some hunters will push it out to 300 yards and just hold a little high. This is a good zero to use if you don’t have adjustable turrets on your scope or a BDC reticle.

If you only have a 100-yard range, you can still get a 200-yard zero by using a ballistics calculator. First, input the data for your cartridge (the more precise you can be with things like velocity, the better). Set the zero distance on your calculator to 200 yards and record how high you need to be at 50 and 100 yards. Zero at 50 yards, then 100, and check if your hits match the chart. If they don’t, your velocity is likely off, so tweak the velocity in the calculator until things line up.

If you can confirm your zero at 200 yards, great, but this should be close enough for hitting a target the size of a vital zone on an animal. One-hundred-yard zero shooters with adjustable turrets can also take advantage of the speed of a 200-yard zero by setting their scopes to 200 yards while out in the field. From there, they can still dial for longer shots if need be.

Maximum Point Blank Range Zero (MPBR)

The idea behind using a MPBR zero is to take the vital zone size of a game animal, compare that to the trajectory of your cartridge, and find the maximum range you can hold dead center on that animal and still kill it. Every cartridge is going to have a different MPBR, and flatter shooting cartridges will have a longer maximum point blank range.

Think of it as shooting down a long pipe that’s the diameter of the animal’s vital zone. For deer-sized game, I like to think of a 6-inch diameter pipe to err on the side of caution. At some point, your bullet is going to drop below that 6 inches and hit the wall of the pipe. Your cartridge’s MPBR is the distance before that happens.

Just as with the 200-yard zero, closer shots are going to hit a little high, while longer shots will hit a little low. This is a good zero to use if you limit yourself to a fixed distance, that distance being your MPBR.

To zero your rifle this way, you’ll need to know a few things. You’ll need the bullet’s velocity, G1 ballistic coefficient, and the height of your scope over the bore of your rifle. The important one to get right is velocity. If you have a chronograph, go for an average velocity of five shots. If you’re working with data on your ammo box or the manufacturer's website, your MPBR will be a bit more imprecise, but you can confirm hits on the range to get a better idea of how your cartridge will perform in the field.

Once you have that data, plug it into a free online MPBR calculator like the one offered at shooterscalculator.com. The result will give you a near zero, far zero, maximum point blank range, and a height to zero your rifle at 100 yards. What I then like to do is zero at the recommended height at 100 yards, then confirm my near and far zeros and maximum point blank range if I have that much distance to shoot.

Using an example of a 300 PRC loaded with a 185 grain Berger Hybrid Hunter, I’d have to set my scope to hit 2.59 inches high at 100 yards for a maximum point blank range of 295 yards. My near zero (where my bullet should hit dead on) would be 26 yards, while my far zero (where it should also hit dead on, would be 251 yards. With a zero like this, I could hold dead on a deer out to 300 yards and drop it.

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