FBI Evidence Proves Oswald's Ammunition was not Capable of Sufficient Accuracy to Kill JFK

[Bob Prudhomme]

I got the bullet caliber and land/groove business down pat, I think. I'm talking about the shell casing that is discarded after the bullet is shot. (for this discussion, CE 543, CE 544, and CE 545 iirc) Are those WCC casings the same specs as the Italian military specs for the spent part of the cartridge? I'm sure they have to be close, but are they exactly the same?

Without having a WCC 6.5mm cartridge in my hands to measure with a micrometer, it is difficult to say. As there was only one batch made over 60 years ago, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of one of these cartridges, especially for someone such as myself living in northern Canada. Our ammunition import laws are a bit sticky.

Anyways, I can provide you with the specs in this diagram for 6.5x52mm casings.




One difference I am positive would exist is the Italian casings would be made for Berdan primers, as is typical with European cartridges, while the WCC would be made for the Boxer primer, as is typical with North American cartridges.




Another possible difference is that the Italian SMI casings had a shoulder inside the cartridge neck that the base of the bullet butted up against. This shoulder prevented the bullet from accidentally being pushed further into the casing. This is an unusual feature I have never seen on North American ammunition. In our countries, the crimping of the casing neck at the cannelure is meant to prevent this, and I doubt if the WCC casings would have had a shoulder inside the neck.

As you live in Texas, you may have a much easier time locating WCC 6.5mm ammo than I would.

Interestingly, if the empty casings (CE 543, 544 and 545) were not the same specs as the Italian ammo when they were chambered into a Carcano rifle, they would be the same specs after the cartridge was fired; except for possibly the rim of the casing base. As brass is malleable, irregular sized casings get "fire formed" to the shape of the rifle's chamber, due to the pressure of the gases inside the casing. This is what I meant by shooting a 6.5x52mm Carcano cartridge (loaded with a .264" bullet, of course) in a 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle. The Carcano brass casing "grows" by 1 mm until the Carcano shoulder contacts the M-S chamber shoulder and the casing fills the chamber of the M-S rifle and becomes, essentially, a M-S casing. If these three casings had been fired in a 6.5mm MS, it would be easy to tell, simply by measuring the distance on them from the base to the shoulder.

This phenomenon is utilized by handloaders in a process called "neck sizing". Normally, most handloaders will re-size the entire spent brass casing to bring it back to original specs, prior to reloading it with fresh powder and a new bullet. However, there is a school of thought that believes once a cartridge is fired in a particular bolt action rifle, that casing is now perfectly matched to that rifle's chamber. These devotees re-size only the neck of the cartridge, to allow it to hold a new bullet, and leave the rest of the casing untouched. These cartridges, of course, are slightly more difficult to chamber than fully re-sized cartridges. The jury is still out on whether or not neck sizing promotes greater accuracy than full length re-sizing.

Of course, in either type of re-sizing, it is necessary to check the length of the casing against the specs for that casing, as a casing will grow in length each time it is fired. A special tool called a case trimmer takes care of this.