Headshot

Sniper 

 Heavy

“

Boom. Headshot. Click to listen — The Sniper

”

A Headshot is a successful attack to the head of an enemy with a scoped shot from the Sniper Rifle, Bazaar Bargain, Machina, Hitman's Heatmaker, and AWPer Hand. A Huntsman/Fortified Compound arrow or an Ambassador bullet can also deal headshots. Headshots deal guaranteed Critical hits; unless a damage reducing effect is active, a fully charged headshot from the Sniper Rifle will instantly kill any class, including an overhealed Heavy. The hitbox for the head of any class will always remain centered on the Y axis of rotation, no matter what the onscreen appearance may dictate.

Additionally, a Pyro can headshot an enemy by reflecting a Huntsman/Fortified Compound arrow that hits the head of an enemy.

Killing an enemy with a headshot yields an extra half point, for a total of 1.5 points per headshot kill. Scoring a lethal headshot with a Huntsman arrow yields an additional half point, for a total of 2 points.

Items related to headshot

List of items related to headshots
Sniper	Primary			Can only perform headshots after waiting 200 milliseconds while scoped in.
		Sniper Rifle†	AWPer Hand
		Machina	Shooting Star
		Bazaar Bargain	Hitman's Heatmaker
				Pyros can perform headshots by reflecting arrows with the compression blast.
		Huntsman†	Fortified Compound
				Can only perform headshots when fully charged.
		Classic
				Mini-crits on headshot and reduces cooldown of Jarate by 1 second.
		Sydney Sleeper
Spy	Secondary			Can only perform headshot when at full accuracy. After every shot, the Ambassador is unable to deal headshots for 0.95 seconds. Headshots beyond 1200 Hammer units deal normal damage instead of a critical hit.
		Ambassador†
All classes	Action			Headshots with this item deal 2 damage, while regular hits only deal 1 damage.
		Grappling Hook
Note		†Includes Festive, Botkiller, and Australium variants.

Related achievements

General

Grey Matter Get 25 headshots as a Sniper.

 Sniper

Parting Shot Headshot an enemy player the moment his invulnerability wears off. Socket to Him Headshot an enemy Demoman.

Self-destruct Sequence Headshot 10 enemy Snipers.

 Spy

Skullpluggery While using the Ambassador, kill 20 Snipers with a headshot.

Who's Your Daddy? Headshot 3 Scouts with the Ambassador.

Kill icons

• 

  Sniper Rifle

• 

  Huntsman

• 

  Deflected Huntsman arrow

• 

  Ambassador

• 

  Machina penetrating headshot

Unused kill icons

• 

  Flaming arrow

• 

  Deflected Huntsman arrow

• 

  Deflected flaming Huntsman arrow

• 

  Ambassador (Used since the Sniper vs. Spy Update until its removal in the Engineer Update)

• 

  Ambassador

Update history

October 2, 2007 Patch

• Fixed headshots not always registering for crouched players.

December 17, 2009 Patch (WAR! Update)

• Added headshot death animations.

Trivia

• There is a 25% chance that a player killed by a headshot will enter a special death animation appropriate to that class (for example, the Pyro does a backflip).
  • Any sword or axe for the Demoman and Half-Zatoichi for the Soldier will also have a 25% chance for the player killed enter the special death animation, since these weapons also remove the enemy's head after a successful kill.