The FBI's fib about the Mannlicher Carcano

[Bob Prudhomme]

Are you saying that it was not possible to site in the rifle properly without visibly altering it? So much so that anyone could see it was different from the other MC Klein's rifle sixth a scope?

If that is so, then are you also saying the FBI made up their results? Or did they do them with another rifle?

These are all good questions, and the only thing I can say is we can only work with the numbers given to us by the FBI. In this case, it is a matter of taking those numbers, adding their 2 + 2 and getting 5.

It is important to remember that the tests at 15 and 25 yards were done together at the same place, and the 100 yard test was done later at a different place. It is also important to remember it was the Army, and not the FBI, who inserted shims under the scope mount, and that this took place after the FBI's 100 yard test.

In other words, we are asked, by SA Robert A. Frazier, to take it on faith the FBI was able to adjust this scope in order to bring it from shooting almost 36 inches high at 100 yards to shooting only 2.5 to 5 inches high at 100 yards.

If you recall from Dial Ryder's WC testimony, Mr. Ryder believed the $6.00 invoice would have been for drilling and tapping three holes, at $1.50 apiece, and boresighting the rifle scope at $1.50. He was also asked if Klein's would have boresighted C2766 prior to mailing it, and he replied it would hae been a waste of time, as the scope could get jostled in transit and throw off the settings. As I will show, this is a very odd thing for Mr. Ryder to have said.

Boresighting is basically an alignment process, meant to bring the barrel and scope into general alignment. It gets its name from the older style of performing this task, in which a gunsmith would clamp a rifle in a vise, remove the bolt and, looking through the inside of the barrel, gently adjust the vise until the inside of the barrel was looking at the bullseye of a target about 30 feet away from the barrel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgB9J9Bt_Rs

Boresighting is performed after the scope is mounted to a rifle, and serves two purposes. First, as Mr. Potterfield points out in the video, it gets the rifle "on paper", meaning that your bullets should be hitting within the boundaries of the edges of a small target, and only small adjustments will be required to "zero" the rifle onto the bullseye. This is a popular service provided to customers by any gun shop.

However, the second reason for boresighting is just as important, is also a service to the customer and is something I sincerely hope Klein's did every time they mounted a scope. Think of it as quality control. First, the cheap Ordnance Optics scope could itself be defective. Second, the mounting of the scope could have been done improperly. If the tech at Klein's boresighted the rifle, it would tell him immediately if the scope was defective PLUS it would tell him if the mounting job he did was aligned closely enough to even make it possible to sight this scope in.

Did Klein's boresight each rifle scope after mounting it, to ensure proper mounting? I don't know. No one ever seems to have asked this question.

I believe the FBI conducted the tests at 15 and 25 yards and that the results they obtained were genuine and would corroborate each other for the bullet impact heights at the two different distances. It would not be inconceivable to have bullets, from this misaligned scope and rifle, climb an inch or so in 10 yards. I also believe Frazier and his team were not quite the experts they were made out to be, and did not realize how tremendously high this rifle would be shooting at 100 yards, given the results at 15 and 25 yards. When they shot C2766 later at 100 yards, of course, the problem would have made itself known. They would have tried to adjust the elevation knob on the scope and would have soon discovered there was not enough adjustment to allow this.

What to do? Admit the rifle that shot JFK shot almost 36 inches high at 100 yards, and was likely that way at the time of the assassination? No, it was better to compromise, and tell us a little fib about a rifle that only shot 2.5 to 5 inches high at 100 yards, after being brought down from shooting 14 inches high at 100 yards. The Warren Commission believed it, and that was all that mattered.

P.S.

Once the FBI knew how high C2766 was shooting, the targets they produced at 100 yards could have been made by simply aiming lower on the target.