Marc Ellis Wrote:Mitchell Severson Wrote:Bob, do you know much about the prices for competent rifles in '63? Was the alleged murder weapon that cheap (with coupon, of course)?
Thanks for posting this info Robert. I'm reading both your threads. But it's all way over my head.
It's good there are people who know so much about the alleged assassination weapon though.
I'm curious as to when, where & how this rifle was zeroed in. One can't just buy a rifle and expect it to be accurate. There are stories of someone who was purportedly Oswald at a Dallas shooting range. But the kind of shots that were supposedly made from TSB would require a shooter with a lot of skill and practice - if they could be made at all.
One trip to the range wouldn't be enough. This shooter would have a lot of practice. Even assuming for the sake of argument it was LHO, where, when and how often was he spotted practicing with this M/C?
How many sightings of LHO (or an impersonator) have been at a range? What range?
Was the sighting specific enough to identify he was using the M/C rifle? I read about one
shooter complaining that Oswald was firing at his targets. But was the rifle identified?
This is a very good question you ask, and it deserves a thoughtful answer.
Regardless of how well a gunsmith "boresights" a rifle scope when mounting it, it is still necessary to shoot the rifle, see where the bullets hit, and make the final adjustments to the scope to sight it in to be accurate. If the scope is mounted in the normal fashion (ie. directly above the chamber), the rifle can usually be zeroed in on a target with only a few shots. But, if the scope is side mounted, as the one on Oswald's rifle was, sighting in the rifle becomes very difficult. I helped a friend sight in a Model 94 Winchester (lever action/top ejecting) with a side mounted scope and it almost drove us to distraction before we got it even close. I do not think Oswald had the necessary experience to enable him to sight that rifle in. Plus, Oswald's rifle later required shims to be installed under the scope mount to allow it to be adjusted enough to be accurate.
It has been argued that Oswald, knowing the inadequacies of the scope (and there are many) would have ignored the scope and used the open sights. This might have been possible but, I can tell you from experience, it is a very awkward thing to do, and not something I would attempt if I was trying to get off three shots in six seconds at a moving target.
If Oswald was aware of the scope's inadequacies, and intended to use the open sights, why did he not remove the scope before bringing the rifle to work? Why did he allow it to remain on the rifle for so long, if he knew it was useless? Anyone with a flat bladed screwdriver could have removed the entire scope and mount in a couple of minutes.
However, even if the scope had been properly boresighted, and Oswald had the skill to sight it in, I don't believe it was possible to sight this rifle in. The FBI's firearms expert, Robert Frazier, testified to the WC that the cheap scope on this rifle required a number of shots be fired to settle the crosshairs in, after an adjustment was made to it. This is utter nonsense, of course, and it was a good thing for the FBI that no one on the WC and most of the American public knew the first thing about rifle scopes.
Anyways, the results of the crosshairs "settling in", according to Frazier, was that the bullets hitting a target at 100 yards would be seen, with each successive shot, to be hitting higher and further to the right on the target; giving what Frazier described as a 3"x5" grouping. As I said, utter nonsense. Frazier either was not the expert the FBI claimed he was, or he deliberately misled the WC. BTW, a 3"x5" grouping at 100 yards is not what I would call accurate. A good bolt action rifle should be capable of putting three bullets inside of a 1 inch circle at 100 yards.
The real culprit was not the scope but, rather, a warped wooden forestock on the Carcano rifle pushing on one side of the barrel and bending it slightly. Most rifle barrels are designed to "float" in the wooden stock they are mounted in; only contacting the stock at the chamber where the barrel and stock are attached to each other. It should be possible to wrap a cigarette paper or dollar bill around the barrel and slide it down the barrel, between barrel and forestock, all the way to the chamber, without resistance. Sometimes, due to excessive moisture and subsequent rapid drying, the wood in the stock will warp and press against the barrel on one side (or the bottom). A rifle barrel is surprisingly flexible, and it takes very little deviation of it to throw a shot at 100 yards off by an inch. In the case of Oswald's rifle, the FBI found the rifle shot 2 inches high and 1 inch to the right of the 100 yard bullseye. The next two shots hit progressively further to the right (plus slightly higher), with the final shot being 5 inches to the right of the bullseye. This progression was due, of course, to the barrel heating and expanding with each successive shot, exaggerating the initial problem.
The cure for this problem is simple. One merely finds where the forestock and barrel are touching and, with coarse sandpaper, removes just enough wood to re-establish clearance between the two. A good wood sealant usually will help stop the problem from reoccurring. Of course, I'm sure this problem was quietly dealt with before tests were done by other shooters with this rifle, as the problem was only reported by Frazier.
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
