05-09-2014, 04:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2014, 05:35 PM by Bob Prudhomme.)
Drew Phipps Wrote:From the size of the mailechort and lead lump in the bullet drawings , I would estimate their mass as being around 10% of the total mass of the bullet.
The little lumps (allegedly) found in the limo weighed a lot less than 1% of the total mass of the cited 91/38 bullet.
Also (apologies if I'm jumping out in front of your narrative here) don't you suppose that the wounds and bullet track through Connally's chest (and presumably also the wrist) more consistent with the standard "elephant drill-like" solid slug?
As a lethal frangible bullet relies on a hollow point noise to make it open up, those little lumps in the nose would be the part of the bullet where the hollow point would be made. As the jacket nose would likely separate from them, there would be nothing stopping them from fragmenting into many pieces.
One of the popular misconceptions about Connally's wounds is that a bullet went through his chest cavity. The bullet actually went around Connally's ribcage, through soft tissue, following the curve of a rib. It struck a glancing blow on a rib, hard enough to shatter the rib and send shards of bone into Connally's right pleural cavity and cause an open pneumothorax there.
The wrist is another matter, much more interesting, and I'm not giving any hints on it.
P.S. As the base of the frangible bullets was filled with sand, as seen in the photos, I would estimate the solid projectiles in the nose of these bullets to make up much more than 10% of the total mass of these bullets. This has always puzzled me, as these bullets were designed to completely break up and not have any part big enough left over that might ricochet and cause injury.
Mr. HILL. The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head.
Warren Commission testimony of Secret Service Agent Clinton J. Hill, 1964
Warren Commission testimony of Secret Service Agent Clinton J. Hill, 1964