Height Over Bore: Why Your Bullets Don’t Go Where You Aim
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Escape from Tarkov includes many realistic mechanics that influence how your bullets behave, but one of the most misunderstood (or not known) is Height Over Bore (HOB). It’s simple once you see how it works, yet ignoring it can make you miss “easy” headshots at close range. Here’s what it is, why it exists, and how it affects the point of impact at different distances.
Where Bullets Actually Come From in EFT
First, a key distinction:
In many arcade-style FPS games, bullets are fired from the center of the screen, as if they came from the player’s eyes or directly from the reticle.
In Escape from Tarkov, bullets are fired from the muzzle of the barrel, following the true angle of the weapon.
This means:
your sight line (iron sights or optic) starts higher,
the bullet trajectory starts lower, from the barrel.
These two lines don’t match at the start; they only intersect at certain distances.
That initial offset is what creates the Height Over Bore effect.
What Height Over Bore Actually Is
Height Over Bore is the vertical distance between the barrel’s axis and your optic.
the barrel is lower,
the optic is higher.
Since Tarkov fires bullets from the muzzle of the barrel, at very close range your shots will land (Point of Impact, or POI) below your Point of Aim (POA).
How much depends on:
how high your optic sits, which depends on the weapon layout and other factors (riser mounts, tall rails or scopes),
the engagement distance,
and the zeroing setting.
When POA and POI Finally Meet
Even though your point of aim (POA) and point of impact (POI) start out misaligned because of Height Over Bore, they will eventually meet at specific distances.
This happens because the barrel is angled slightly upward relative to your sight line, causing the bullet’s trajectory to rise and intersect that line for the first time (the near zero).
At this distance, your shot will land exactly where you’re aiming, because the upward arc of the trajectory compensates for the initial offset between optic and barrel.
Beyond this point, the bullet continues upward for a short stretch before gravity takes over, after which it begins its downward arc, eventually crossing the sight line again (the far zero) and then continuing its trajectory below it.
How Distance Changes the Effect
Let's see what happens when a weapon zeroed for 50 meters fires a bullet in Escape from Tarkov.
0–20 meters: the realm of Height Over Bore
At extremely short and short distances:
the bullet has just left the barrel,
it hasn’t “caught up” to your sight line yet.
Practical result:
Aim at the head at 5–10 meters, and the bullet lands lower, hitting the neck or chest instead. And if the enemy is partially behind cover and only the head is exposed, the shot can strike the cover instead of the body.
The closer the impact distance is to the near zero (50 m), the more the bullet's trajectory rises and the less pronounced the HOB effect becomes.
50 meters: the bullet meets your sight line
At the distance your weapon is zeroed (in our case 50 m):
the bullet’s trajectory rises ,
it crosses the sight line for the first time (the near zero).
Here, your point of aim and point of impact are usually very close, often effectively identical.
Medium-long and long distances: above, then below the sight line
After the first intersection with your sight line:
the bullet continues to rise and goes slightly above it,
reaches its highest point,
begins to fall,
crosses the sight line again (the far zero),
and then continues dropping below it.
Depending on your distance and your zeroing:
the impact can be below, above, or below again relative to the reticle,
even though your aim hasn’t changed.
Notice that for long-distance shots and higher zeroing settings, the far zero comes into play instead of the near zero, and if you’re using a tracer round, you’ll see the tracer appearing to come from above.
To keep this article focused on Height Over Bore, we stop here, but if you want the full ballistic picture (near/far zero, complete curvature, practical charts), you can read the in-depth companion article here: We are not shooting laser weapons: EFT ballistics explained
And What About Zeroing? Does It Affect Height Over Bore?
Zeroing does not change the physical distance between the optic and the barrel; that part of HOB is constant.
What zeroing does change is the angle at which the barrel points, so the bullet meets your sight line at a specific distance (50 m, 100 m, etc.).
In practice:
At very close range, the bullet will always hit lower than the reticle because it leaves from the barrel, not the optic. Zeroing only changes how much lower, not whether it happens.
As distance increases, the combination of:
Height Over Bore,
bullet trajectory,
and zeroing
determines whether the shot lands low, exactly on point (near zero), high, exactly on point again (far zero), or low again.
Depending on your zeroing, your shots can still land lower than your point of aim at medium distances. For instance, with a 150 m zero, aiming at the head of a target at 50 m may result in a neck hit unless you hold slightly higher. But this is no longer the HOB effect, this is the zeroing effect.
How to Apply This Knowledge in Real Fights
A quick practical summary:
Under 15 meters:
The bullet starts from the muzzle of the barrel → it will arrive below your aim point.
For headshots, aim slightly higher.
Around 50 meters (with a 50 m zeroing):
The bullet is crossing the sight line → expect near point-of-aim accuracy.
Beyond 50 meters:
Bullet drop, near/far zero, and zeroing become the main factors.
This is where your deeper ballistic knowledge becomes essential.
Height Over Bore in Escape from Tarkov is not just a technical curiosity, it’s the reason your bullets sometimes refuse to land where your reticle is pointing at close range.
Understanding that:
bullets originate from the muzzle of the barrel,
your optic sits higher than the barrel,
and the sight line intersects the bullet’s path only at specific distances,
helps you:
avoid missing close-range headshots,
aim correctly at different ranges,
and connect the dots between Height Over Bore, zeroing, and full bullet trajectory.
As mentioned above, you can read more in-depth info about EFT balistics in the article We are not shooting laser weapons: EFT ballistics explained
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