A few years ago I was hunting on the Noatak river in Alaska. A group of guys from Grizzly Arms in AZ were at the main camp and the owner brought along one of his .50 rifles. These are the ones where the recoil pad is on the back of the bolt and the rifle is a bull pup design.

With tripod the rifle weighed around 25-27 pounds if I remember.

They set it up on top of the cook shack and waited for a Caribou to cross the river. Finally, after about 3 hours, a small herd passed. The shooter shot a decent but not great bull at a lasered 1285 yards. He hit just after it emerged from the river and the shock knocked the water off the bull and it disappeared in a mist of wet.

I don't think it even twitched but at almost a mile who could tell.

Pretty impressive shooting as the .50 doesn't have a whole lot better trajectory than a 30-06. It just carries energy a bit better.

The funny thing was there were about 10 guys in camp and no one wanted to go hunting, everyone wanted to stay and watch.