I could believe it could be 150 or 200 yards, though I suspect it was as surprising as Billy Dixon's shot with a rifle at Adobe Walls.
One version has it that Billy Dixon and his peers had been plinking at rocks on that same bluff in the previous days so he had the range worked out. If true I dunno how they would know at that range where they would be hitting in the rocks. To his credit Mr Dixon alway claimed it was a “scratch” (ie. lucky) shot.
I would think arrow weight would be a bigger factor as would bow design. I've shot modern compounds with carbon arrow and think they're doing good to go 150 yards. A recurve with a heavy arrow is likely to go farther in my experience. The Comanches weren't shooting light, carbon arrows. I also suspect they were shooting pretty heavy draw weight bows. I think English longbowmen shot that type of range with heavy arrows and extremely heavy draw weights by modern standards and they were shooting to penetrate armor and chainmail. They also, like Comanches, trained with archery equipment from an early age.
You probably know that longbows had such heavy draw weights that those who made their living at it had deformed asymmetric skeletons and vertebrae. Lethal hits scored in excess of 300 yards. It have read that the longbow drove the development of plate armor over the previous chain mail.
I've also read the Comanches could shoot several arrows before the first arrow shot hit the ground. Think semi-auto rifle firepower. I believe I read that in "Empire of the Summer Moon."
A great primary source on Comanche archery is Ranger Captain John “RIP” Ford’s collected memoirs “RIP Ford’s Texas”, he would know as he fought mounted Comanches on several occasions.
He had it that a Comanche at full gallop could put an arrow into your running horse (and presumably yourself) at 100 yards. He also stated that if the range was more than 60 yards and you saw the arrow launched an agile man could dodge it, 60 yards or less you were hit.
He states that Comanches fired from a bow held horizontally, not sighting down the arrow but aiming by what we would call instinct. Extra arrows were held between the fingers and fired in rapid succession. 1840 a Comanche in San Antonio put five arrows into the air before the first one hit the ground and they landed in a cluster 100 yards out.
Ford goes on to state that if you went up against a Comanche with a revolver it was even odds who won, why might explain why most of his fighting with Comanches was done with rifles.
