Mauser lover
Member
And yet we regularly read of bullets from "celebratory gunfire" coming down and putting holes in roofs and heads. A Baen's Barfly recently reported a perfectly round hole in the hood of his car and a .44 or .45 bullet on the engine.
This here. I'm guessing it wasn't actually the acceleration added by gravity, but the energy remaining from the horizontal vector of the bullet's trajectory. Unfortunately, this is just a guess on my part. Hatcher's work for the .30-06 is of limited use, as bullet shape is going to influence terminal velocity.
If this is the case... it is actually safer to shoot straight into the air than just kinda mostly into the air! If we did this, celebratory gunfire might actually be safer than firecrackers!