Silencers, Sniper Rifles and the CIA

[Bob Prudhomme]

So it seems unlikely, then, that any weapon other than a MC was used to fire the recovered bullet fragments that match actual MC ammo. (Assuming that the recovered fragments haven't been (post-assassination) significantly tampered with) That is a valuable bit of hard fact.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up, Drew. Unless the fragments found in the car were planted, which is a distinct possibility, they would have been fired by a Carcano of some description. As the limo was never protected in Dallas and investigated as a crime scene, anything is possible.

Just because the weapon was a 6.5mm Carcano does not mean it had to be an inaccurate weapon, nor does it guarantee the bullets it was firing were full metal jacket bullets.

There are many very accurate Carcano long rifles, such as the M91/41 long rifle, pictured below.



This particular model, with the double set triggers, was custom made for target shooting competitions, and used internationally by Italian shooting teams until the 1960's.

The interesting thing about the bullet that struck JFK's head, according to the WC, is that the jacket of the bullet seems to have broken into three separate pieces; a rather remarkable feat for a 6.5mm FMJ bullet. Look at this photo below of a 6.5mm Carcano frangible range bullet:



Notice the extremely deep cannelure in the bullet jacket, just above the highest part of the shell casing, and not seen in standard Carcano FMJ bullets. Also note the seam toward the nose of the bullet, where the nose section of this frangible bullet jacket is joined onto the rest of the bullet jacket. This effectively makes a three piece bullet jacket. Sound familiar?

The deep cannelure in the bullet jacket is quite significant, as this is precisely what the US Army utilized in the early part of the Viet Nam War to increase the killing power of the 5.56mm calibre bullets fired from the M-16. While the M-16 was an extremely light rifle to carry, and soldiers could carry vast quantities of the diminutive cartridges, it was soon discovered the tiny, high velocity FMJ 5.56mm bullets tended to go straight through enemy combatants, without killing them, and it was often necessary to shoot an opponent several times to stop him. Without any announcement, the 5.56mm bullets developed "weak" cannelures, quite by "accident", and their stopping power increased dramatically.

In this study by Martin L. Fackler, a colonel in the Medical Corps of the US Army and director of the Wound Ballistics Laboratory at the Letterman Army Institute of Research, Presidio of San Francisco, CA, a careful look was taken at the wound cavities made by several rifles, including the M-16 firing the 5.56mm cartridge.

http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Fackler...rifles.pdf

It was discovered the 5.56mm bullet, with the weak cannelure, would travel roughly 12 cm. (4.75 inches) through soft tissue, at which point it would yaw. During the yaw, the bullet would bend 90° at the cannelure and break into two pieces. The nose section would contnue to tumble through flesh, inflicting damage, while the tail section of the bullet would fragment into many pieces, widening the area of damage in the wound cavity.