Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Bob Prudhomme]

That pretty much sums up the sad, and sometimes undeserved, tale of the "inaccurate" Carcano rifles. As we have seen, it was often modifications made to the original long rifle design that created the problems, especially in the case of the carbines.


While the M91/38 short rifles (Oswald's alleged rifle) were assumedly made with new barrels with a 1:8.47 standard twist in these barrels, once again we have a short rifle that is still a shortened version of the original rifle. The M91 long rifle may have been accurate but, with its heavy bullet, it had a relatively mediocre muzzle velocity and was NOT a flat shooting rifle. By shooting the 6.5mm bullet through the 21 inch barrel of the M91/38, instead of the 31 inch barrel of the M91, the muzzle velocity drops by 2-300 fps, making the M91/38 short rifle even less of a flat shooting rifle than the long rifle.


Couple this factor with the undersized Western Cartridge Co. bullets supposedly fired by Oswald, and I don't think Oswald could have made those shots.


I believe we have covered the Carcano accuracy problems quite thoroughly, and should proceed with the main point of this thread. If I have missed anything, feel free to add it to the list.