When you fire a bullet into the air physics takes over. The first thing to understand is that all bullets drop because of gravity after leaving the firearm. Some bullets fired strait up can reach 10,000 ft before returning to earth. When firing strait up which is difficult to achieve the bullet slows because of gravity and friction with the air. At some point the bullet stops rising as all of its energy has been expended.
At that point the bullet starts to return to earth gaining velocity until air drag/friction prevents it from going faster. If it was shot perfectly up it would return to the firearm.
However, any wind conditions will change where the bullet actually hits the earth. This is one of the problems that revelers fail to understand when celebrating.
They fire into the air at a high angle without realizing that the bullet will return to earth at a speed that can/will kill and drift to some degree with ent wind….
