[DCBryan1]

Earlier reply to sound signature and distance below:

It may be 600+ yards or more including drop. So there is all kind of sonic garbage going on there according to video. I'm still voting an AR/AK with a slide fire stock or ECHO trigger AR and 75 rd drum(s) or surefire mags. Ok 3-400RPM or more at muzzle (sounded weird and slow for belt fed MG)....time for the muzzle signature to reach the microphone...then sonic cracks as the bullets pass objects and hit objects (30 caliber bullet makes a hell of a crack when it hits the target at 600 yards)....and all of that echoing around.

The speed of sound at sea level is 340 m/s so if the shooter was 680 meters away it would take a full two seconds for the sound to arrive from the first shot.

Time of flight of the bullet is 1.6 seconds at 700 yards rounding up (If it was AK 7.62x39 variant faster if 7N6 round). So there could be a crack near target then the muzzle crack arrives a half second later.

Although it looks as if the bullet drops sub sonic at 550 yards...: Source: http://gundata.org/blog/post/7.62x39mm-ballistics-chart/

Conclusion: Extended range might have lessened the number of deaths and severity of injuries if my assumption is right. But its all speculation until we know the platform/caliber.
Hattip to Willbird

< 43 floors tall, he was on floor 32

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mandalay+Bay/@36.0932095,-115.1731837,454m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c8c5cffb824261:0x97f68a25c5b4ddef!8m2!3d36.0918777!4d-115.175245L

I measured a random car as .100", I tape measure 11-1/2 inches as a good general distance from motel to the back of that fenced area. So that is 115 car lengths...1996 caprice is 214" long.

So 115x214=24610 feet 24601/3=638 yards !? That is giving me 683 yards ??

so 350-400 to an area right in front of the stage is probably about right :-).

good exercise :-).

Easy shooting into that kill box. He could have done it with .22LR but with much less lethal effect.

[grobdriver]

Google Earth.
396 yards to the center of the area in your picture.

[Manly Warrior]

I looked at mapquest and it appears to be approx. 750-900 ft from the wing of the Manadaly to the center o f the concert area Given that the effective range to a target is horizontal, not the slant, he was indeed shooting into a kill zone approx. 250- 300 yards away. The slant range you determined may be pretty close- as an equation of a triangle with a heght of approx. 350’ ( 32 stories) and a base of about 900 feet would give a hypotenuse of around 1500’

Assuming he was using a 223/556 clone AR, with either 55 or 62 grain FMJ bullets, he was well within its mid range envelope.

As I have stated in other threads, this was not a random act performed on the spur, this was well planned and deliberately lethal. I doubt he was a lone wolf, unless he been planning such an act for a long while.

The only way he could have made it worse was to be only a few floors high, maybe 2 or 3, and then employ grazing fires that would assure even more casualty producing effect of ricocheting bullets rather than plunging fire that destroyed most of the misses upon impact wit the pavement....

Good analysis of the metrics, excepting the actual effective range of the scene.