We’re lucky to have two ranges on our island. The one near sea level is a little over 400 yards long and we have one up in the mountains that goes a little past 1800. Both usually get snowed in this time of year and the high elevation range probably won’t be open again until June. I dabble in a little long range shooting with a heavy-barreled .30-06 and 16x scope, however it’s almost too easy with a flat-shooting modern cartridge and quality long range optic. Learning to shoot longer ranges with the .50-70 I hope to gain a better understanding of doping wind and gauging bullet drop while using 19th-century technology.
But I’m also interested in pushing the limits of the .50-70 with black powder to see how far it can be made to shoot with reasonable accuracy, given the limitations of the cartridge especially case capacity. At some point rifle, cartridge and/or shooter will come up against the practical limits of what can be accomplished. I agree with you that the .50-70 is probably best at 600 yards and less. To push much beyond that, I will likely end up paper patching to get max powder behind the longer bullets and stretch out the range some. I do have Croft Barker’s excellent .50-70 Shooter’s Handbook. Although he’s done some great study on using heavy bullets in this cartridge, it seems to me there’s quite a bit of uncharted territory starting where his studies left off. I’m just about to order a rifle that will hopefully be suitable for wringing out the long distance potential of the .50 Gov’t cartridge. But I’ll be watching your posts as well for updates on your own long distance efforts with this cartridge. Keep ‘em coming!