50/200 Yard Zero | What Is It | 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 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 the process of aligning your point of aim with the point of impact, 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’. Most of us have 30’ to work with inside our home, 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 end 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 either download the target created by Jerking the Trigger or make one yourself using a standard-sized piece of paper.

Downloadable Target

Make Your Own

To make your own boresight target for the 50/200 yard zero, all you need is 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 personal preference.

50/200 yard zero

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

Why Choose a 50/200 yard Zero?

While the 50/200 yard zero may not be perfect at both distances, the deviation of the impacts is so small that, for combat-effective hits, it’s a moot point. 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 flight path of the bullet from the muzzle to out 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’re going to use a boresight target made specifically 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’re still going to get combat-effective hits if you’re point of aim is the high torso area.

Again, you’ll want to verify your external ballistics at the range with the ammunition you’re using. Your mileage may vary.