Long range shooting: I have never competed in the new long range shooting that is out there now. eight years of my military career I was a rifle competitor. Our course of fire was 200yd, 300yd and 600 yd with the M 14 this was the standard NRA high power course of fire and on occasion A 1,000 match. With the M 16 we competed at 100, 200 300, and 400 yds.
I learned a lot in the 1,000 yd matches, every change in conditions counted. Also I learned about supersonic bullets transending from supersonic to subsonic and losing their accuracy during the transion some to a great degree , like grouping into 1 1/2 minutes of angle at 800yds to not being to stay on the target board (about 6ft by 10ft) at 1,000 yds
Remember how airplanes in tests many years ago shook apart trying to break the sound barrier? this was a shock wave was formed as the sound barrier was broken. the damage occurred because the sound barrier was broken by different parts of the airplane at different times. The air had to travel over the sloped part of the air plane faster than the air than flowed over the flat or less sloped parts of the plane so the sound barrio was not broken fast and clean and did damage to the plane ..
The slope of a bullet has air passing over it much faster than the tip of the bullet and as the bullet is subject to leaving the speed of sound and the sound waves losing their effect on the bullet first to the tip then to the base of the bullet it's flight becomes erratic.
Fackler rebel's story above about shooting his garand at a mile and walking the hits to within about 4 ft of a dark piece of dirt was probably the truth in his mind, however his range estimation could probably use some work. A M1 with the service load using a 147 grain FMJ bullet leaves the barrel at 2,750 fps and at 812 yds goes subsonic at 1,119 fps (this at a altitude of 1,500 ft and a average air density) this is a little less than 1/2 of a mile, the rest of the journey would most likely be very eratic. also the sights on A garand go up to 1,200 yards if zeroed at 1,2oo yards the bullet would (if still stable) hit 34 ft low and would be dropping at the rate aprox. 8 ft for every 25 yds of forword travel.
My point is this if you want to shoot at long ranges 1st determine the longest range that you want to shot and find what cal and bullet that will stay supersonic at that range. then you can start solving the several hundred other problems to be able to hit at long range on demand
he went into younder village and never returned