The Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects from a straight path when they are viewed from a rotating frame of reference. In layman's terms, it means that long range fire (artillery shells and sniper rounds) will not appear to fly in a straight line from the shooter to the target because of the rotation of the Earth on its axis. Rather, the round or shell will appear to curve. In actuality, the shot is flying in a straight line but the turn of the Earth moves the target so it will look as if the round or shell is curving. Artillery gunners and snipers are well-trained to compensate for the Coriolis effect by actually not aiming directly at their target, but off to the side so that by the time the bullet makes it to the target distance, it has "curved" to hit the target.

At the ranges snipers shoot at there is NO effect from this. You guys make me LAUGH. HAHAHAHAHA. Thats a good one. If you are worried about this you dont need to be interested in snipers. I gotta pass this one to my buddies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a well-explained answer, thumbs up... and for the jerk who try to make himself a funny kid, PLEASE growup, and respect other people's talking, the man who answers did a nice work and spent a time, even a small while, trying to explaine the question when he didn't have to,,, he didn't "worry about sniping" as your naive brain said to you,,,i hope you deal with this "misconception" of yours before criticizing a subject i'm sure you don't know shit about it... go play CS kid, i'm sure this is why you feel like you are a certefied sniper who's ready to kick some asses...

coriolis effect= earth spin: say i shoot a buzooka from north poll to an axact location on equador. buzooka in air doesnt get effected by earth spin, but earth under it is. buzooka misses

Snipers are taught different things about the coriolis effect. If the sniper is shooting at (1760 yards = 1 mile) or more, then everything comes in to play. Humidity, elevation, tempature, wind, spin drift, and even the coriolis effect. So you ametuers that don't know nothing about sniper's better get your shit straight.

The Coriolis Effect (CE) will typically move a 1000yd shot around .5 moa (Minute of angle) (depends on the distance from the equator). The coriolis effect actually affects all bullets, but is ignored at closer ranges. In the Northern Hemisphere, the effect moves bullets to the right and in the Southern Hemisphere, it moves them to the left. The amount of movement is related to the time of flight, amount of drop and the distance from the equator (further=more). Newton and his cronies were trying to put their finger on this effect hundreds of years ago and actually got pretty close to figuring it out. Newton supposed that anything falling toward the ground, actually should spiral toward the center of the earth (this is actually what the coriolis effect is!). Unfortunately, they couldn't measure it back then. Another effect that impacts bullet flight is called Spin Drift (SD). SD will move a bullet to the right for barrels with right hand twist rifling and will move it left for barrels with left hand twist rifling (right hand twist is by far the most common). The amount that SD impacts a bullet is related to the amount of drop and the rate of spin (higher spin rates are used on heavier/long range bullets to keep them stable). A typical SD will be .2moa at 1000yds. SD is actually a torque that acts perpendicular to gravity (check out the 'right hand rule' in physics). SD and CE add together for right hand twist barrels in the northern hemisphere (or left/southern). Their total affect is usually less than 1moa at 1000yds (10.4"). Serious long range shooters will zero their windage at a long distance (say 800yds), this will split the effect and cause closer shots to hit slightly left (assuming northern hemisphere) and further shots to hit slightly to the right. This limits the impact of CE and SD to the point of being able to ignore them, except for very extreme range shooting (in which nothing can be ignored). Extreme range shooting (2000yds +), is typically done with the aid of PDA's and/or Laptop computers. The real trick to hitting something at long range, is judging the wind correctly. For hunters and snipers, judging the wind is the toughest part of making a long distance shot. Hope this helps, AJ

The coriolis effect has no impact on the distances that can be covered by any sniper rifle. It is only taken into account when dealing with long-range shells (ie, covering 25+ miles). If we take a muzzle velocity of 1000m/s and the mean angular velocity of the Earth (from Earth's rotation) of 7.2921150 × 10−5 radians per second, we get a coriolis acceleration of about 0.07m/s2. If the target was 1km away, the bullet would take 1s to get there, resulting in a deflection of 35mm. To compensate for that, you'd have to shift your rifle by 0.004178066°. Of course that only applies if you are shooting directly north or south. If not you'll have to work out the exact angle.

RC Loves Ice Cream, Actually, a 7.62x52 (308 winchester) takes about 1.7 seconds to get to 1000yds. The 338 Lapua magnum (a higher powered sniper round) takes around 1.4 seconds. The amount of Coriolis affect is dependant upon the latitude. You are not describing the Coriolis affect, as it's horizontal component does NOT depend upon the direction of fire. Do a bit more research about the Coriolis effect, it's not as simple as it first appears. AJ

As an ex British markman/sharpeshooter, we are trained to take everything into account, the coriolis effect is taught but very rarely acted upon, your generally close enough to see someones face when taking a shot. The Barret M95 has an incredible range, and when your talking anything over 1 click, wind, humidity, spin are all more important than the coriolis effect, but when it comes to taking a shot you do not want to miss, a miss can get you killed, you keep your mind on all variables.

8-2-2017 At the equator the earth moves about 1,000 mph which is 1500 feet per second. If a bullet travels at the speed of sound it takes five seconds to go a mile. So if it goes directly north or south, it has to be aimed about 7500 feet east of where it is seen at the time of firing. Of course that depends on exactly what weapon and what bullet, and the numbers are different at other latitudes.