Can falling-block redstone contraptions only be used in the same chunk as the contraption?

I'm playing Minecraft Bedrock on PS5, where I've been experimenting with falling-block contraptions.

The Experiment

I stacked 12 sand blocks next to me, and another stack of 12 just over in the neighboring chunk. I set up a sticky piston with a block on it next to each stack. I connected those to a button with some redstone dust.

I press the button, the piston pushes the block, which pushes the bottom sand block in each stack out of the way. Then, the piston retracts, pulling back the block. The stack of sand falls down one block to fill in the missing block.

The result

The sand right next to me (in my current chunk) was completely pushed from a vertical stack into a horizontal line. The sand in the neighborhing chunk went from 12 blocks in a vertical stack to 6 in a horizontal stack because 6 of the blocks broke as they fell.

I repeated this, standing next to the other stack. Again, the one I was next to worked fine. 12 blocks went from a vertical stack to a horizontal line. The stack in the neighborhing chunk broke nearly half the blocks as it went from vertical to horizontal. Watching it closely, it is random which block breaks. Sometimes the bottom one breaks. Sometimes a middle one breaks. Sometimes the top one breaks.

My conclusion

The redstone timing on neighboring chunks is so bad that the sand blocks fall out of order. So, a block sitting on a block that hasn't begin to fall yet will begin falling. A sand block falling into a non-falling block will break. So, to avoid this, you can only use falling-block redstone contraptions if you are in the same chunk as the contraption.

Is that correct?