Did LHO fire a shot that missed everything? If so, when did he fire it?

[John Corbett]

The ballistic team of Luke and Michael Haag did experiments which showed Oswald's bullet would not have ricocheted off the pavement. It would have created a small crater in the asphalt and the bullet would have been pulverized. The crater in the asphalt would have been smoothed out by environmental forces within days of the bullet striking the pavement.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-shot-that-missed/

They also tested to see if the oak tree could have caused any deflection of the bullet. Their experiments indicated there would be very little deflection.

[Andrew Mason]

The reenactment film made the same mistake you did with your sketch. It has JFK too far to the left. JFK had his elbow resting on he side of the car. The reenactor has his arm entirely inside the car. There is no question Oswald missed JFK by a significant amount but given he inherent difficulty of he shot, it certainly is not an unreasonable miss.

The JFK stand-in is sitting in a regular Lincoln convertible:



so the dimensions, width-wise, should be fairly close.  The stand-in does not have his elbow on top of the side of the car, but if he did his right rib-cage could move over another arm-width or about  4 inches.  But JFK did not have his rib-cage pressed against the side of the car. His arm extended out from the shoulder to the top of the side of the car on Elm St. This photo from Main St. shows him leaning as far right as possible and that is consistent him being about 4 inches farther right:
 


A 4 inch difference isn't going to make much difference - still a pretty big miss: