The Side Mounted Scope on the 6.5 mm Carcano

[Bob Prudhomme]

So, I left off with telling you that the 6.5 mm calibre was popular in Europe in both hunting and military rifles, and that all 6.5 mm rifles, due to the depth of their rifling grooves, required a bullet .264" in diameter, EXCEPT for the 6.5 Carcano which, due to much deeper rifling grooves, required a bullet .268" in diameter.

Just as a side note, here is something to consider when discussing the bullet that hit JFK in the head and literally came to pieces. Not only was it a full metal jacket bullet (purposely designed NOT to come apart), its copper alloy jacket, due to the deeper Carcano rifling grooves, had jacket walls .002" thicker than any other 6.5 mm bullet. This was a robust bullet; so robust, in fact, that it most times went right through an enemy combatant without doing much damage. This was such a problem that it was the inspiration for dropping the 6.5x52mm Carcano in 1938 and replacing it with the 7.35x51mm Carcano. More on this fiasco in a later post.

Anyways, back to the original topic, that being how the rifling grooves on CE 399 might not be as deep as the rifling grooves on the .268" diameter bullet from Doctor Bill. To get the whole story, we have to go to Italy circa 1943.

Things were not going so well for the Fascists in 1943. Mussolini had been deposed and sent into captivity by Loyalists, where he was liberated by Hitler's paratroopers in a daring raid. He was reinstated as leader of a much reduced territory involving only northern Italy. In the south of Italy, German troops still clung stubbornly to every inch of ground. Italian troops in southern Italy, idled by the armistice with the Allies signed on Sept. 8, 1943, wanted desperately to rid themselves of the Nazi occupiers and either formed partisan guerilla groups or joined a group known as the Italian Co-Belligerent Army, a reorganized force loyal to King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. These troops, still armed with their 6.5mm Carcanos, fought alongside Allied troops and, at one point, it is estimated that one-eighth of all combat troops fighting the Nazis in Italy belonged to this force. Many of these troops fought with great valor, and distinguished themselves in such horrific battles as Monte Cassino.

While the Warren Commission has a lovely cloak and dagger story about four million rounds of 6.5x52mm Carcano cartridges being manufactured by the Western Cartridge Co. (USA) in a clandestine delivery to the USMC in 1954, with the ultimate recipient being broadly hinted at as being the CIA (to arm some faction in a Third World fracas somewhere), there are problems with this story. First, the only international fracases taking place in 1954 were in French Indo-China, Algeria and Guatemala, and there were no great caches of 6.5 Carcanos in any of those countries.

There is ample evidence that all 6.5x52 mm Carcano ammo made by the WCC was intended to arm Italian troops fighting Nazis. Mark Lane, in "Rush to Judgement", quoted a letter to Steve Galanor from Winchester-Western (parent co. of the WCC) that stated all production of this cartridge was for US Defense Dept. contracts and completed in 1944, with no further 6.5mm Carcano production. Sylvia Meagher, in her 1967 book "Accessories After the Fact", quotes the following FBI report:

"On March 23, 1964, Mr. R.W. Botts, District Manager, Winchester-Western Division, Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, Braniff Building, advised [that] the Western Cartridge Company, a division of Olin Industries, East Alton, Illinois, manufactured a quantity of 6.5 M/M Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition for the Italian Government during World War II. At the end of the war the Italian Carcano rifle, and no telling how much of this type ammunition, was sold to United States gun brokers and dealers and subsequently was distributed by direct sales to wholesalers, retailers, and individual purchasers."

Clearly, the 1954 manufacture date from the WC was a lie, and Oswald would have been shooting twenty year old ammunition.

It is likely the ammunition made for the Italians, which never seemed to have made it to Italy, was manufactured as insurance against a prolonged struggle in Italy. However, Italy was not the only place in Europe where a great number of 6.5 Carcano rifles existed.

When the armistice of Sept. 8, 1943 was signed, removing Italian fighting forces from WWII, Italian troops had been co-occupying the country of Greece with German forces. The Germans, fearing an armed resistance armed with 6.5 Carcanos in Italy, once these troops were repatriated to Italy, which is in fact what happened, disarmed the Italian troops in Greece and sent them back to Italy without their Carcanos. Hence, there were great caches of 6.5 Carcano rifles in Greece, which soon found their way into the hands of Communist and Loyalist Greek partisans.

There are sources on the Internet that tell us the WCC 6.5mm ammo was made in the USA, in 1949, to arm the anti-Communist factions in the Greek Civil War. This is simply more disinformation designed as a distracting compromise to the 1954 story, for those not comfortable with that date. It makes no sense, as the civil war ENDED in 1949, and it would have been a little late to be supplying ammo. Also, these sources list the Greek Civil War as taking place from 1946-1949. This is misleading, for as soon as the ink was dry on the Italian armistice in 1943 and the Carcanos were stockpiled in garrisons in Greece, Greek partisans were not only setting designs on these weapons, they were also beginning to war with each other as well as the Germans, and these partisan groups would become warring factions once the liberation of Greece was complete. As one faction was Communist, it only makes sense that the US would take an early interest in this struggle (1943-1944) and make plans to arm their favorite.

Now, this has been a long story, and I still have not told you why CE 399 might have shallower rifling grooves on it than the .268" bullet of Doctor Bill's. Well, the story gets a bit longer, and it has mainly to do with the Greek military issue rifle, the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

If placed side by side, a 6.5x52 mm Carcano cartridge and a 6.5x54 mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer cartridge are virtually indistinguishable. The 52 mm and 54 mm measurements are of the brass case, not the entire bullet. If measured, it will be found that the 6.5 MS brass catridge is 2 mm longer, and the shoulder of the brass cartridge would be 1 mm (.040") higher on the 6.5 MS cartridge case than the shoulder of the 6.5 Carcano cartridge case.





6.5x54 mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer cartridge on left


Translated, this means you can load a 6.5 Carcano cartridge into a 6.5 Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle and shoot it, IF the 6.5 Carcano cartridge is loaded with a .264" diameter bullet and NOT the .268" diameter bullet normally fired from a 6.5 Carcano. The brass will stretch when fired as it takes up the 1 mm (.040")slack in the shoulder to fit the MS chamber, but this is of little consequence.

Some 6.5 Carcanos had their chambers reamed out by Greek armourers to accept the 6.5x54 MS cartridge. By doing this, they forever robbed these rifles of accuracy, as a .264" bullet (the standard and only possible bullet to load into a 6.5 MS cartridge)fired from a 6.5 Carcano is nowhere near as accurate as a .268" bullet. However, during combat, a man is considered a 2 x 5 foot target, and a bullet placed anywhere on that target will take that man out of the fight. Sniper accuracy is not essential in combat, where combatants are often shooting at each other at ranges under 75 yards.

Here is the question. If you were in the US Defense Dept., and you were looking at arming Italians equipped with 6.5 Carcanos, Greek partisans armed with 6.5 Carcanos (some stock and some re-chambered for 6.5 MS) and Greek partisans armed with 6.5 Mannlicher-Schoenauers, would you not want one generic cartridge (the 6.5 Carcano) that could be fired in all of these weapons? ESPECIALLY if it was pre-1944 and you were trying to keep it secret from your Soviet allies that you were only arming the anti-Communist partisan factions in Greece?

The only compromise you would have to make is that the WCC cartridges would have to be loaded with bullets .264" in diameter and not those .268" in diameter. Although accuracy would be sacrificed, this would actually make things simpler, as the .264" bullets were the ones everyone but the Italians used, and dies for making these bullets would be far easier to come by.

Look again at the photos. If CE 399 was .264" in diameter, would it not make sense that the grooves made in it would be shallower than those made by a 6.5 Carcano rifle in a .268" diameter bullet? If Oswald was shooting bullets .264" in diameter from a 6.5 Carcano short rifle, could he have hit JFK, considering all of the other deficiencies we have discussed?