Other mistake: In the very last scene of the movie, and just before Blondie shoots the rope that is holding Tuco on the grave's cross. You can see a car moving in the background, screen right of Tuco's head.
Other mistake: When Blondie and Tuco are talking about telling each other the location of the money, a car drives by in the background. In the shot where both Blondie and Tuco are visible, watch the top right in the trees in between the pillars supporting the bridge.
Other mistake: Blondie suffers from severe sun burn wounds in the face, after the capture and dragging through the desert. The wounds look perfectly realistic, but disappear or change several times. The burns are completely gone shortly after leaving the monastery. Such burns would leave scars and traces for at least weeks.
Other mistake: Director Sergio Leone uses one of his trademark filming techniques throughout this film, where anything outside the camera frame doesn't exist. Several times the characters react to situations and other characters when they come into frame that they logically would've seen much sooner. For example, at one point Blondie and Tuco are walking and stumble across an army camp. Even though in reality they would have been walking toward it for a long time and would have been aware of it, they react with surprise the moment it appears on screen.
Other mistake: When Blondie is cleaning his pistol he only loaded 3 bullets, but as Tuco's bandits enter the door Blondie shoots off 4 rounds.
Other mistake: About 20 minutes into the film, Tuco is arrested by the sheriff who rolls out a Wanted poster which has Tuco's picture. However, as can be seen (but only visible for a second or two), the name on the Wanted poster says Guy Calloway, who was a character in Leone's previous film For A Few Dollars More, who had a bounty on him (and a poster) and was killed by Col. Mortimer early in that film. Leone was notorious for trying to reuse props to save money (the Al Mulock story being the most infamous example), and possibly just reused the old poster with Wallach's picture on it, figuring nobody would notice.
Answer: There's a show called "Hollywood Weapons: Fact or Fiction" which dealt with this exact question (s01e03). Blondie is roughly 200 yds away. In the show the host didn't hit the rope, but only missed by an inch on his first attempt. I definitely think an expert Sharps Rifle shooter could make the shot. The issue however, is the bullet would most likely not actually slice the rope apart as seen in the film (they fired the Sharps at point blank and the rope remained partially intact still). They also tested shooting a hat off someone and (as expected) the bullet just goes right through the hat without lifting the hat at all.
Bishop73
That was another thing that puzzled me. On several occasions in this film, Tuco is suspended from a rope, and Blondie cuts the rope by firing a bullet at it, (I think Clint Eastwood repeated the trick in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"). But if you fired a bullet at a rope holding a (rather large) person like Tuco (or a similarly heavy weight), even at close range, would it really sever the rope? I will have to look out for "Hollywood Weapons Fact Or Fiction." I hope they only used a dummy or a model to re-create the shooting feats. I don't think I would have liked to have been hanging on a rope while somebody fired bullets at me to see if this would sever the rope, or to stand there while they fired bullets into my hat to see if they could lift it off my head.
Rob Halliday