[TexasCowboy]

At the second battle of Adobe Walls, a man named Billy Dickson knocked an Indian warrior off his horse with a Sharps Big .50 buffalo rifle with open sights at a distance of 1538 yards.

Billy Dickson went on to win a Congressional Medal of Honor for his action in another Indian battle called the Battle of Buffalo Wallow.

[Happy2BMe]

1,538 yards. Did have nerves of steel or what?

Plus, a .50 cal ball. That would have left an opening the size somewhere between a grapefruit and a basketball.

[WildTurkey]

a man named Billy Dickson knocked an Indian warrior off his horse with a Sharps Big .50 buffalo rifle with open sights at a distance of 1538 yards.

"For the rest of his life, Billy Dixon never claimed the shot was anything other than a lucky one; his memoirs do not devote even a full paragraph to 'the shot'."

He would be forever known as a liar if he had said anything else. Imagine trying to hit a target at (however did they get 1538?) over 1500 yards with open sights. The target would look like about one tenth of the size of the front sight and he would have to calculate for over a 200 foot bullet rise/drop and have to estimate the average wind speed to better than one mph accuracy assuming he knew the bullet drift factor which would have really been total guesswork out to that range. Then to hit a vital place .... Oh, never mind.