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, Sydney Sleeper, Machina, Hitman's Heatmaker, AWPer Hand, and Shooting Star, as well as a fully charged shot from the Classic (scoped or unscoped). 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 instantly kills any class regardless of overheal, except a Dead Ringer Spy, which requires a fully charged Machina headshot. The hitbox for the head of any class always remains centered on the Y-axis of rotation, no matter what the onscreen appearance may dictate.

In contrast, a bodyshot is a successful attack to any part of the enemy's body outside of the head, scoped or unscoped.

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. Headshots with the Ambassador yield 2 points on the scoreboard.

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 achievements

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

• 

  Sniper Rifle (Used since 2007 up until its replacement with the current headshot icon in the Engineer Update)

Update history

October 2, 2007 Patch

• Fixed headshots not always registering for crouched players.

December 17, 2009 Patch (WAR! Update)

• Added headshot death animations.

Bugs

• If a player is Crit boosted (such as a Kritzkrieg Übercharge) and hits a headshot in circumstances that normally don't result in a headshot (such as a Classic shot that isn't fully charged), the kill icon still displays it as a headshot.

Trivia

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