Long Range Shooting: From the Sharps to the AR-15

Long Range Shooting includes accounts covering 30-years of serious long-range rifle testing that began with a dream of emulating a history-making and future-changing shot Billy Dixon made at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, in 1874. Our journey of discovery continues, as we push ourselves to learn what is feasible with guns of all types, from bolt-action models and chamberings dating to the late 1800s, to the AR-15 in a chambering standardized in 2020.
As we move forward with our testing, our primary goal is to learn what is feasible with what is available today; a secondary goal is to fairly compare what a Sharps-Class rifle and chambering could do a century and a half ago to what more modern guns can do.
We have not, yet, included rifles and chamberings that are so specialized that those have little practical value outside of long-range shooting because the gun is either too heavy or too awkward for field use. We have nothing against such guns and chamberings but those have not interested us sufficiently to spend the small fortune required to build such a tool. For now, we have restricted ourselves to guns and chamberings you might see on any given day at any given rifle range or when out big-game hunting.
We have done considerable shooting past one mile and have a goal of extending that to at least two miles, as we continue to challenge ourselves and our guns and ammunition. In this journey, we have continuously been surprised to learn just how effective these tools can be when combined with quality sights and a spotter who can read the wind good enough to get the rifle on target and then help the shooter compensate for changing wind conditions.
This book compliments Bill Falin’s book, Down Range Data, which focuses on getting shots on target at long range when using a Sharps-class rifle and ammunition. It expands on the long-range target shooting accounts included in this author’s book, Replicating Billy Dixon’s Long Shot, which details the events surrounding the battle of adobe walls and covers a quarter-century of this author’s shooting experiences, while target shooting, varmint hunting, and big-game hunting.