Daryl,

thanks for this great report!
We simply do have this experience here in Europe any more. Hunting with BP and especially muzzleloaders is in many places illegal, and of zero interest to hunters.

Let me try to summarize this - please correct me if I got it wrong.

You try to have high initial velocity, but mainly to avoid sighting problems due to bullet drop.
1800 fps is 550 m/s, that's the muzzle velocity of a BPE cartridge rifle!
But a fast light round ball loses velocity quickly, so a shot beyond 100 yards will practically have the same effect as a short range shot at low muzzle velocity (thanks to Tinker for pointing this out). Still, a .535 ball can kill a moose at 170 yards.
But you also say that there are some risks with the "smallbores": animals may run off with no sign of being hit, no blood trail, maybe lack of penetration if a bone it hit. This reminds me of the text from 1905 that I put into another thread. I will copy this here, too.
Large caliber balls work differently, the shatter or shock the animal, and have reliable penetration due to high weight. - Thanks to Omnivorous Bob here, impressive!
One cannot compare FPE numbers of a round ball with modern jacketed bullets.

Fuhrmann