The President's back wound.

[David Guyatt]

I can't imagine sabot rounds can be as accurate as normal ammunition which is designed to fit tight to the barrel size and spin down the barrel groves to generate greater accuracy - as opposed, for example, smooth bore barrels like shotguns.

However, I note from the linked wiki piece that a sabot increases muzzle velocity not decreases it, so countering - to a small degree anyway - terminal velocity. But a sabot would leave traces of its use, I'm sure.

I am not a weapons person, so I was simply remembering a suggestion I had read in several books in the literature. Accuracy was not the issue here, from how I understood the argument (perhaps I should go track this down). It was the idea of taking a 6.5 mm copper-jacketed bullet fired from the supposed murder weapon and firing it from a larger bore (7.6?) rifle, so that it would look like the victim was hit by the weapon from which the bullet was originally fired. Of course, if they had the MC and fired this bullet from it, the question becomes, why not just use that weapon in the attack? Perhaps because it was so defective or could have actually backfired (as I have read MCs sometimes did, at least the older ones).

I was unaware that muzzle velocity increases (I was under the impression the opposite was the case) -- thanks for pointing that out (I suppose that makes sense, now that I think of it, since the bullet is less in touch with the host rifle's bore, giving it less spin on the one hand but dissipating less of the imparted kinetic energy in friction/heat on the other). I was thinking that the lack of spin might make the bullet pitch more as it struck, hence the steeper angle. But I would not be surprised if that deduction is incorrect, as I am no forensics expert.

I do remember distinctly reading in several books about the sabot found in the 70s on the roof of the Records Building which was stuck under air conditioning tubing and weathered completely only on one side.

Thanks for the clarification Al. I'm neither a weapons expert (although I have owned firearms) nor a JFK researcher, but I was just curious why a sabot round would be used. You have provided a perfectly reasonable explanation why that might be the case.

One last though thought: would a round wrapped in a sabot actually pick up traces off the barrel, as presumably it is not in direct contact? I have no idea.