How Far Was Lee Harvey Oswald From JFK? The Distance Most People Get Wrong

When you stand in the "sniper’s nest" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository today, looking down through the glass at the white "X" painted on Elm Street, your first thought is usually: Wait, that’s it? It looks close. Like, "I could hit that with a rock" close. Honestly, if you grew up hunting or even just spent a few weekends at a shooting range, the distance feels surprisingly manageable. Yet, for sixty years, we’ve argued about whether a lone gunman could actually pull it off.

So, let's talk numbers. How far was Lee Harvey Oswald from JFK?

The short answer is that the distance changed every second as the motorcade moved away. But the specific measurement most people care about—the distance of the fatal head shot—was exactly 265.3 feet. That’s roughly 88 yards. To put it in perspective, that’s shorter than a standard football field.

Breaking Down the Shots: It Wasn’t Just One Distance

One of the biggest misconceptions about Dealey Plaza is that the shooting happened all at once at a single fixed range. It didn't. Oswald was tracking a moving target that was traveling down an incline at about 11 mph.

According to the Warren Commission and subsequent FBI ballistics tests, here is how the distances actually shook out:

The First Shot (The Miss)
The first bullet likely fired when the limousine was only about 175 feet (58 yards) away. This is widely considered the "easiest" shot of the three because the car was closer and moving slower, yet most historians and ballistic experts believe this is the one that missed entirely. Why? Likely because of that infamous oak tree obstructing the view from the sixth-floor window.

The Second Shot (The "Single Bullet")
By the time the second shot struck the President in the upper back and exited his throat (the one that also hit Governor Connally), the distance had increased to about 190 to 220 feet. At this point, the car had cleared the oak tree, providing a clear line of sight.

The Third Shot (The Fatal Hit)
The final, fatal shot occurred at a distance of 265.3 feet. By this point, the limousine was nearing the Triple Underpass.

Why 88 Yards Is Such a Controversial Number

If 88 yards sounds like a "chip shot" for a Marine-trained marksman, that’s because, in a vacuum, it is. Most deer hunters in the Midwest regularly take shots at 100 or 150 yards.

However, the "Oswald distance" is complicated by the equipment and the timing. He was using a surplus Italian 6.5mm Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle with a cheap 4x side-mounted scope. To fire three shots in roughly six to eight seconds requires working the bolt twice while keeping the target in the crosshairs.

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Some experts, like those from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), noted that the scope was actually slightly misaligned when they tested it. This has fueled decades of "second shooter" theories. If the distance was so short, why did it take a "miracle" to hit?

The Angle Matters More Than the Yards

While we obsess over how many feet away he was, ballistics experts often point to the vertical angle. Oswald wasn't shooting level; he was perched roughly 60 feet up in the air.

Shooting downward at a 17-degree to 21-degree angle changes the "perceived" target. As the car moved down Elm Street, the angle actually became more favorable for a shooter in that specific window. The car was moving almost directly away from the Depository, meaning there was very little "lateral" movement. Oswald didn't have to lead the target much; he just had to account for the drop and the slight curve of the road.

Basically, the farther away the car got, the straighter the shot became from the perspective of the sniper’s nest.

Comparing the Distance to Modern Events

It’s a bit eerie, but this specific distance—265 feet—re-entered the news cycle recently. FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that the shooter involved in the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump actually Googled "how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?" just days before his own attack.

For comparison, that shooter was about 400 feet away from his target. That’s nearly 1.5 times the distance Oswald dealt with. It goes to show that while 265 feet is "short" for a rifle, the historical weight of those few yards is massive.

The Verdict on the Distance

When you look at the raw data, the distance wasn't the hard part. The hard part was the time pressure.

• Distance: 88 yards (81 meters).
• Rifle: 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano.
• Target Speed: ~11 mph.
• Time Window: 6.8 to 8.4 seconds (depending on which film analysis you trust).

Most professional marksmen who have attempted to recreate the feat have found that while the distance is easy, the "cycle time" of the bolt-action rifle is the real bottleneck. If you ever find yourself in Dallas, go to the Sixth Floor Museum. Stand at the window next to the sniper’s nest. You’ll see that 265 feet feels incredibly intimate—and that’s exactly why the debate never seems to end.

Facts to Take Away

If you're looking for the technical specifics for a project or just to settle a bet, keep these numbers in your back pocket:

1. The fatal shot was 265.3 feet away.
2. The rifle was zeroed for 100 yards, meaning Oswald actually had to aim slightly lower than his intended target to compensate for the shorter distance.
3. The vertical drop from the window to the street was about 60 feet.

To truly understand the geometry of that day, you can view the official Warren Commission Exhibit 884, which provides the frame-by-frame distance breakdown relative to the Zapruder film. Studying the maps of Dealey Plaza reveals that the "kill zone" was a very specific, narrow window of space where the car was far enough to be clear of the trees but close enough to remain a viable target for a 4x scope.