I wonder how long it's going to be until someone claims a kill at 3 miles. I cannot in my mind see a Sniper popping someone off at over two miles. Put an Orange colored ball on the shoulder of a long road, walk two miles away and see if you can see it. Now, you say there are Optics involved. Most Certainly. But the Bullet Drop Compensation would have made it impossible to get a target into view at that distance. It would be in feet, not inches. A .50 cal. Bullet is so heavy that it would have hit the ground long before that distance. Certainly not possible to maintain a ten second flight time. So, as the story get's around, people say, "WOW", or "Isn't that something?". I say BS
The BC of Hornady's .50 caliber bullet is 1.050, almost twice that of good bullets of .30 and smaller caliber. At the same muzzle velocity it will therefore have a FLATTER trajectory.
As for bullet drop compensation, don't you think the military is smart enough to procure scopes with more elevation adjustment than Leupold hunting scopes?
This reminds me of the Adobe Wells battle in the 1870s, when a buffalo hunter shot an Indian chief off his horse at 1500 yards or thereabouts with a black powder buffalo rifle. About 20 years ago some guys tried to duplicate this, using a large drawing of an Indian and a horse on a large sheet of cloth. IIRC, only one shot even hit the cloth.
I've done enough competitive shooting at (only) 1000 yards to realize that the Canadian's feat was more luck than skill. But if he hadn't had a lot of skill the luck would not have mattered.
