I was curious to see which was the longest recorded sniper kill and stumbled upon Craig Harrison. He was serving in Afghanistan and killed a Taliban machine gun team from 2,475 meters, or 1.5 miles away. According to a post, it took around 6 seconds to hit his targets. However, the [weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_International_AWM) he was using (L115A3) has a muzzle velocity of 936 meters per second. Using simple math, shouldn’t it have taken only 2.6 seconds to reach his target? Harrison himself claims that he had the perfect conditions with clear weather and no wind. Given all this information, what took so long for the bullet to hit? Was it because of elevation or some does my ape brain not comprehend this question?
In: 1
Air resistance. The muzzle velocity wouldn’t be constant over very long distances as the projectile is passing through air which slows it down.
At short distances this would be negligible but at longer distances it would become more apparent.
[This wiki article explains it in detail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ballistics)
> “The deceleration due to drag that a projectile with mass m, velocity v, and diameter d will experience is proportional to 1/BC, 1/m, v² and d²”
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