50/200 Yard Zero | What Is It and How To Do It

by Scott WitnerNovember 21, 2023
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What is a 50/200 yard zero?

A 50/200 yard zero allows you to have point-of-aim and point-of-impact at both 50 yards and 200 yards.

At 25 yards, your round will impact roughly 1.5" low, and at 100 yards 1.5" high.

Because of this ballistic performance, the 50/200 yard zero is a great battle zero for combat-effective hits.

What makes this method stand out is its ease and speed. It involves a straightforward target design featuring two dots with a 1.9-inch separation.

The top black dot is your aiming point, while the lower gray dot, positioned 1.9 inches below, indicates where your shots will land. This setup simplifies aligning your point of aim with the point of impact, which is essential for an approximate 50/200 yard zero at just 10 yards.

How to Boresight Your AR-15 for a 50/200 Yard Zero

Step 1—Place your target at 10 yards. How far is 10 yards? Roughly 30 feet. Most of us have 30 feet to work with inside our homes, so this can be done indoors.

Step 2 – Use the black dot as your point of aim. In other words, put your red dot on that black dot.

Step 3 – Adjust your red dot sight for windage and elevation until your boresight laser is on the gray dot. The result should be your red dot on the top dot and your boresight laser on the bottom dot.

Step 4 – Head to your local range and verify at 50 yards.

Boresight Target

the boresight target used for the 50/200 yard zero is extremely easy to use. You can download the target created by Jerking the Trigger or make one using a standard-sized piece of paper.

Downloadable Target

Make Your Own

To make your own boresight target for the 50/200 yard zero, you need only a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, a Sharpie, and a digital caliper.

Open up the caliper to 1.9 inches and mark the two points on the center of the piece of paper. The dots can be up to 1 inch in diameter, based on your preference.

50/200 yard zero

You can use a ruler to measure the 1.9 inches, but I wanted to be as precise as possible since I already had the digital caliper.

Why Choose a 50/200 yard Zero?

While the 50/200 yard zero may not be perfect at both distances, the impact deviation is so small that it’s irrelevant for combat-effective hits. This zero is your ticket for quick point-and-shoot from 0 to 200 yards. The deviation is so small that you will essentially be point of aim—point of impact from 0 to 200 yards.

I’m not using this zeroing method to get competition-like precision, I’m using it to get quick effective hits at the most common distances you would be engaging a threat with an AR-15.

See the following external ballistics charts (for common 5.56 loads) to prove my point.

External Ballistics

The best way to visualize this is by looking at the bullet’s flight path from the muzzle to the past 200 yards. This shows us just how viable a 50-yard zero at 10 yards can be.

Before heading out to the range, though, we will use a boresight target for the 50/200 yard zero to ensure we’ll be on the paper when we send our first rounds downrange.

Depending on your rifle, ammo, and other variables, you may or may not need to make any adjustments when you verify your zero.

55-grain M193

62-grain M855

77-grain BTHP

Looking at the above ballistics charts, 55-grain M193 and 62-grain M855 have deviations of roughly 1.6 inches to 2.1 inches.

The 77-grain BTHP has a slightly larger deviation of 3.7 inches. Regardless of this larger deviation, you’ll still get combat-effective hits if your point of aim is the high torso area.

Again, you should verify your external ballistics with the ammunition you use at the range. Your mileage may vary.