I’ve not read every post in the thread - although knowing this kind of thread and seeing it cross 6 pages already, I can be sure there is substantial silliness and level-headedness both present prior to what will now be my comments to the topic.
I do regularly hunt at long range, and have for many years. My first harvest past 600yrds would have been nearly 25yrs ago, and many others since.
Some realities I have witnessed:
• To be successful when hunting, a few things have to happen: the game has to reach an area where the hunter has line of sight to see the animal and sufficiently clear bullet travel to reach the animal. But lines of sight and flight are worthless if they don’t intersect an area where the animal might travel. This magical overlap of visible/shootable area where an animal will actually travel regularly is what I call the “kill zone.” No matter what weapon I carry, my stands and stalks are designed around these kill zones.
• Hunting past 600yrds is no different in most parts of the country than hunting under 600yrds with a rifle. My “kill zone” area really isn’t much different - the world really isn’t so flat and featureless as some might make it seem, and animals utilize terrain and vegetation as concealment as they travel. When a hunter designs a stand looking for an 800yrd shot, most likely half of the field in front of them will be occluded, whether by slight terrain features or by trees/brush/tall grass. Animals don’t walk out into the middle of nothingness without reason very often. If you’re hunting a quarter section beanfield or only 40 acres (400yrds vs. 800yrds), the realistic kill zone doesn’t really change much. Animals stay alive by avoiding unnecessary exposure - walking out into the middle of a mile wide field doesn’t make much sense.
• Seeing game is not the same as having a shot on game. Long range rifle hunting isn’t so different than bow hunting. I have had lots of deer walk in front of my bow, and lots walk in front of my rifle which simply did not present me with a viable shot. There are many reasons the shot may not be available - potential movement of the animal is one reason. Angle of impact is another. While both are long shots, my bow has about the same ToF at 60yrds as my deer rifles at 600. This pontification calling the flight time too long because reaction time and flight time total somewhere around half to three quarters of a second are just silly - if you call .2sec reaction time, an arrow at 30yrds is more than half a second from stimulus to impact, yet nobody calls bowhunting at 30yrds an irresponsible endeavor (Note: this is considering my Bowtech Destroyer which runs 323fps with a 427grn arrow of approximate BC of .06, a very powerful bow - lesser bows are even longer in flight!). The shot must be taken when the hunter knows it will reach the animal, but where it should, and be capable of doing the needed job.
• Lots of folks who have never done many things have opinions about many things, both in support or against. Very few of these opinions are as meaningful as actual experiences by those who HAVE done these things.