).But.....can I blame it if I'm shooting straight East or straight West...?
I get that if I'm shooting North, the bullet is being propelled northward, but also is going to the right around 1,000 miles per hour due to earth rotation, as if it is in a very-near-earth orbit. So if it travels for a whole minute, it would go 1000/60=16.6667 miles to the east in addition to its northward travel of 20 miles or so (assuming a really, really good ballistic coefficient....
) but by then will be closer to the earth's axis, at a part of the earth maybe only travelling 999.9 mph to the east, so the earth under my bullet will only have travelled 99.9/60=16.6650 miles, and I'll be 0.0017 miles or about 9 feet off. (...I know the numbers may be off but you get the idea...)
So if I do the same thing shooting to the South, the part of the earth I'm on may be the 999.9 mph part, and I'm shooting towards the 1,000 mph part, so it will move farther eastward than the bullet, making the bullet appear to beer right again, this time westward.
And if course all the opposite if I'm south of the equator.
But.....two questions for long-range competitors:
1. What, if any, effect happens if shooting straight East or west, and if there is an effect, why...?
2. Minimal effect would seem to exist near the equator, where 1,000 vs 999.9 mph may be the case, but if you were near the north pole, say about 3.8 miles out, so the circumference there was 24 miles, your eastward motion would only be one mile per hour, yet at 1.9 miles from the pole, only half that. A much larger difference, but much smaller numbers; do the effects of latitude cancel out, or must the long range shooter take into account latitude as well as (or not) compass direction.
Inquiring minds want to know...
Besides, like I said I plan to use all this as excuses next time I'm at the range....
