Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Bob Prudhomme]

Well, I guess it's time to return to the original theme of this thread. As I pointed out way back at the start, each of the wounds suffered by JFK and Connally cannot be explained, from my perspective, by standard types of rifle ammo; be that ammo full metal jacket, soft tipped or hollow point. In my search for a bullet capable of producing all of the strange wounds, the most likely candidate I came across was a lethal form of frangible bullet. A modern version is made by a company called Dynamic Research Technologies, and can be seen at this website:

http://www.drtammo.com/

Here again is a cutaway view of one of their bullets:



What is unique about this bullet is that it does not have a solid lead core inside the jacket. The core is made of a compressed non-lead metal powder that will disintegrate back into metal powder under extreme pressure or impact with anything a normal bullet would ricochet off of (ie. rock, steel, concrete, etc.) The other unique feature is the small hollow point seen in the nose of the bullet. As this bullet travels through fleshy matter, the hollow point fills with fleshy matter, creating an enormous hydraulic pressure within the hollow point cavity. In under 2 inches of transit through flesh, this pressure acts on the compressed metal core, disintegrating it and the jacket into a cloud of metal powder. This cloud of metal powder comes to an immediate halt at this point, transferring all of its energy to surrounding tissue and wreaking utter havoc inside the wound. Outside of a bullet loaded with a small explosive charge, these are likely the most lethal rifle bullets available and, due to the fact the bullet does not exit, likely the safest bullets in terms of collateral damage.

Frangible bullets were made for the 6.5mm Carcano, but they did not possess the hollow point at the nose, and were not intended to be lethal. Rather, they were made for shooting in indoor ranges; taking advantage of the disintegration factor that prevented ricochets. As a refresher, here is a cutaway of the Carcano M.37 frangible bullet:







It is interesting to note that, while these were not hollow point bullets, there was a tiny, shallow opening at the nose of these bullets. The construction of the M.37, inside the copper alloy two-piece jacket, was a solid maillechort (copper, nickel, zinc alloy) pellet inside the nose, followed by a midsection of powdered lead (unable to find if it was compressed or loose), followed by a base filled with sand. The maillechort pellet is very significant, and we will look closely at it when discussing Connally's thigh wound.

Here is another Carcano M.37 frangible bullet, in which a solid lead pellet is used in the tip, instead of maillechort, followed again by powdered lead and sand. Once again, there is a two piece copper alloy jacket.







My research has shown these bullets were made at least as late as 1953, and possibly well into the 1960's. The Italians were still using the Carcano M91/41 match rifles in international competitions, and used these bullets for shooting in indoor ranges. With this kind of application, this speaks volumes to me about the inherent accuracy of an M.37 cartridge.

Comparing the M.37 cutaways to the DRT Ammo bullet cutaway, it does not require a great deal of imagination to see the M.37 with a hollow point drilled into the solid nose pellet, converting it into a crude replica of the DRT Ammo product.

Next: Connally's wrist wound or why didn't the bullet go right through the radius bone?