PUBG Guide: How to Improve Your Shooting with Zeroing

PlayerUnknown’s roots as an ARMA 2 modder are apparent in PUBG‘s realistic approach to its gunplay, where players will need to account for bullet drop and varying bullet velocities during combat. And given that many firefights take place over distances measured in the hundreds of meters, it can be pretty tough even for veteran players to consistently land shots.

There are ways to compensate for distance when firing a weapon in PUBG, like leading the target or aiming above them — but one method that new players might not know about is zeroing.

What Is Zeroing Distance?

Your weapon’s zeroing distance is the distance needed between you and your target for your bullets to line up with the center of your crosshair when they land. When you aim down your weapon’s sights, you might have noticed its zeroing distance (though you may not have known what it meant).

Rounds fired from a weapon zeroed for 300 meters will continue to drop below the crosshair as they fly past 300 meters — and those same bullets will land above the crosshair if they impact at a distance under 300 meters.

How to Zero a Weapon in PUBG

You can adjust your weapon’s zeroing distance in increments of 100m by aiming down its sights and tapping the Page Up/Page Down button (or up and down on the D-Pad if you’re playing on Xbox).

Note that you used to be able to zero almost every weapon in the game, but an update in December 2017 changed it so you can only zero a weapon with an 8x scope, a 15x scope, or iron sights (either because the weapon doesn’t accept scope attachments or because you’re just not using one).

Tips for Zeroing Your Weapon

If you’re not comfortable with compensating for bullet drop by guessing how high your crosshair is supposed to be, then zeroing your weapon is a great alternative that will let you fight with your crosshair dead on your target.

That being said, zeroing your weapon can be pretty tough if you don’t know what you’re doing (especially if you’re taking fire). Luckily, there are a few ways to make your first zeroed shot land as closely as possible to your intended target!

• The #1 thing to know about zeroing your weapon is that every white square on your map is 100m/sq — so if you think your enemy is exactly four squares away from you, then zero your weapon to 400m.

• Building off that, each square is about 141m across diagonally, which you can just round off to 140m or 150m.
• Your minimap is about 400m tall and wide. Since you’re in the center of your minimap, you’ll never need to zero your weapon above 300m (the approximate length of the diagonals of two full squares) if your target’s position is visible on your minimap.
• You’ll eventually get better at eyeing distances by simply playing the game, but you can train yourself even faster by estimating distances before you check your map!

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Hopefully, knowing how to zero your weapon will give you the edge you need to win a few more chicken dinners — but knowing PUBG, you’re just as likely to wind up running into someone who’s equipped with the same skills.

If you’re looking for more tips on how to improve your PUBG game, you can check out more of our stuff here!