CS2 Damage Calculator
Pick a weapon and see how much damage it does to each hitbox — with or without armor and a helmet — plus how many shots it takes to kill. Great for learning when a body shot is lethal and which guns still one-tap through a helmet.
Approximate close-range values (100 HP). Real damage drops with distance; helmets only protect headshots, and legs are never protected by armor.
How CS2 damage & armor work
Each weapon has a base damage and an armor penetration value. Hitting an armored body part reduces the damage by that penetration; a headshot multiplies damage ~4× but a helmet then applies armor reduction to the head too. Stomach shots do more than chest, legs do less — and legs ignore armor entirely.
Dial in the rest of your setup with the crosshair generator, launch options and binds in the CS2 tools hub, then take it into ranked with how to get better at CS2.
How damage is calculated in CS2
Every bullet that lands runs through the same formula. The weapon's base damage is scaled by a hitbox multiplier for where it hit, then reduced by range falloff the further the target is, and finally by armor if that body part is protected. The calculator above does this for you, but knowing the pieces helps you understand why some duels are one-taps and others aren't.
- Head — roughly a 4× multiplier. With no helmet, almost every rifle one-taps. With a helmet, high-penetration rifles (AK-47, guns that "one-tap through helmet") still kill; weaker guns don't.
- Chest & arms — the 1× baseline. Armor cuts this significantly, which is why body-spraying an armored enemy takes more bullets.
- Stomach — a slight bonus (~1.25×), so stomach shots out-damage chest shots.
- Legs — reduced damage (~0.75×) and legs ignore armor, so leg shots are consistent but weak.
Why armor and armor penetration matter
Kevlar absorbs part of the incoming damage on the chest and arms, and a helmet extends that protection to the head. Each weapon has an armor penetration stat that decides how much of its damage gets through armor. That's the whole reason the AK-47 (high penetration) one-taps a helmeted head while the M4 usually needs two, and why an armored opponent survives sprays that would drop an unarmored one. Buying armor isn't just extra HP — it changes how many bullets you can survive.
Range falloff
Damage drops with distance. Pistols and SMGs fall off hard, so a Deagle body shot that's lethal up close might not be across the map, while rifles keep most of their damage at range. When you're trading long angles, aim for the head — the multiplier beats the falloff.
Practical takeaways for duels
Turn the numbers into habits: always aim head-height so natural recoil and movement still land lethal shots; against a helmeted enemy with a weaker gun, a quick stomach-then-up spray often beats chasing the head; and when you're low on money, remember legs ignore armor — an eco pistol to the legs is more reliable than you'd think. Knowing whether your gun one-taps at the range you're holding decides whether you should pre-aim head level or expect a spray.