How a Popular Misconception Gave Away a Lie by the FBI

[Drew Phipps]

"There are other Carcano variants, but these tend to be extremely rare or conversions of other types. For example, there are the Guardie del Re (King's Guard) and Moschettieri del Duce (Mussolini's Guard) variants, both of which are rare, and are distinguished by the coloring (gilded ornamentation and black stock, respectively), and non-standard stock/bayonet treatments."

As C2766 is clearly a standard M91/38, and there is no gilding on it, this proves, beyond a doubt, it is the garden variety of short rifle.

As I read the quote you provided, the word "respectively" means guilding for the king's Guard and black stocks for Mussolini's guard, but I will check out that site for further clarification.

[Drew Phipps]

That particular site wasn't more clarifying, but I did find a site that said that the importer "Ry...something" did sometime stain stocks with a black color and people just remove the color, so I guess that's a false alarm. I do recall seeing the name of that importer in the chain of ownership prior to Klein's.

Last question re the gun here. It is said that all period Italian firearms, in addition to the year in Arabic, also had a roman numeral corresponding to the year of the march on rome, i.e. the beginning of fascist rule in 1922.(?) So shouldn't Oswald's rifle barrel have a XVIII or something similar? There's no mention of it in Frazier's testimony and the pics you have displayed in your various threads don't show Roman numerals...

[Bob Prudhomme]

That particular site wasn't more clarifying, but I did find a site that said that the importer "Ry...something" did sometime stain stocks with a black color and people just remove the color, so I guess that's a false alarm. I do recall seeing the name of that importer in the chain of ownership prior to Klein's.

Last question re the gun here. It is said that all period Italian firearms, in addition to the year in Arabic, also had a roman numeral corresponding to the year of the march on rome, i.e. the beginning of fascist rule in 1922.(?) So shouldn't Oswald's rifle barrel have a XVIII or something similar? There's no mention of it in Frazier's testimony and the pics you have displayed in your various threads don't show Roman numerals...

Interestingly, I've never looked that closely at the date stamp on C2766. There should be the Fascist date in Roman numerals there as well, and it could be XVII or XVIII, depending if the rifle was made before or after the anniversary date of the March on Rome in autumn of 1922. This fascist date was continued until Mussolini was deposed in October, 1943.

The strange thing, to me at least, is that I understood the wording of the contract to import all of these rifles from Italy insisted that all stampings, including serial numbers and dates, were to be removed from these rifles before they left Italy; with only "CAL 6.5" and "MADE ITALY" to be stamped on the barrels.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Here are two examples of 7.35mm short rifles, both made in 1939, but having different Fascist dates on them; signifying one was made prior to October 22, 1939 and one after this date in 1939.





Note also the difference in the talent of the workmen who turned the barrel's outer chamber down from the flat facets, seen in the photo below, to the round outer chamber design. The job in the top photo is very well done, while the bottom photo shows a job that looks like it was done with a coarse file, and still did not remove the flat facets entirely.

[Drew Phipps]

I went out and got me a digital imaging software package that does measurements, to check my pixel counting math. Turns out the bullet is not exactly horizontal in the photo or even parallel to the measuring tape, and also at a different angle in each photo, so the software got more results more consistent with a single object. (Unfortunately, this software package didn't let me zoom in far enough for me to be completely confident that I started and stopped measuring on the correct pixel.) So, gifs 3317, 3318, 3319, and 3320 average out to the following dimensions:

(These measurements assume no foreshortening of either the bullet or the measuring tape)

Length 3.0 cm (1.18 inches)
Diameter 6.57 mm (.258 inches)
width (land) 1.44 mm (.045 inches)
width (groove) 3.31 mm (.122 inches) (only 2 measurements possible here)
angle (land) 5.8 degrees

From that we can say that the twist displayed on this object (as measured) is 1 / 8.37 inches. [Foreshortening possibility: If this was a 6.5 mm (.264) object, it would have a spin of 1 / 8.5 inches (close to correct), but in order to make this image the correct caliber it would have to be foreshortened from an original length of 30.6 mm (too long). If this was a .268 caliber object it would have a length of 31.1 mm (too long)]

If you have been following Bob's research, this means that this object is not quite wide enough to be either a 6.5 x 52 mm Italian slug (.268), or the 6.5 mm x 52 WCC ammo (.264) or the 6.5 x 52 M-S slug (.264). If fired from a regular MC 91/38 this object would have had lesser muzzle velocity (as the explosive gases escape around the outside), as well as lesser accuracy in that the bullet wouldn't have fit tightly in the rifling.

You can also see that the lands are too small to match Bob's specs for the M-C 91/38, and the grooves are a bit too big. Interestingly, the lands and grooves measurements don't add up to the "bullet's" apparent circumference. 6.57*3.14= 20.63. For an M-C 91/38 there's supposed to 4 equal sets of land/groove markings. (3.31+1.44)*4 = 19.00. As you can plainly see from the object (which might be a bullet) in those photos, the lands and grooves are markedly different, in both size and number, on different sides of the object. If this is a bullet, and not a piece of sculpture, it wasn't fired (once) from a single regular MC 91/38, but some custom-made barrel with a unique set of lands and grooves. (I also notice that none of the "test fired bullets" were preserved by the FBI as evidence for us to now compare with the photos in NARA.) Or its 2 different bullets fired from 2 different guns.

Of course, a custom-made (and unique) barrel makes it very easy for a "ballistics expert" to call it a "comparison match", but it also means that "C2776" wasn't any old mail order rifle. Either the "bullet" is a fake, or "Oswald's rifle" is a fake.

[Anthony DeFiore]

Bob, a quick question. Does the length of diameter fit a Mauser? You know where I'm going. Thx, Tony

Special Agent Robert A. Frazier of the FBI was considered a firearms expert. He gathered most of the ballistics evidence in the JFK assassination and presented his findings in evidence to the Warren Commission. However, a careful examination of his work and evidenvce reveals a plethora of errors.

One such error is revealed in the excerpt from his testimony below, and this error will explain why the bullet shown in the evidence photo and known as CE 399 could never have been fired from Oswald's rifle, or any other 6.5mm Carcano.

"Mr. EISENBERG - Well, no; not at this time.
Can you explain the American equivalent to the 6.5 mm. caliber?
Mr. FRAZIER - That is the same as .25 caliber. Such weapons in the United States as the .25-20 Winchester, .25-35, the .250 Savage, and the .257 Roberts, are all of the same barrel diameter, or approximately the same barrel diameter. So a decimal figure of .257 inch is the equivalent of 6.5 mm."

This is a popular misconception in the shooting world regarding .25 calibre and 6.5mm calibre rifles. Mr. Frazier is 100% wrong in his belief.

The bore diameter of a .25 calibre rifle is .250"; the bore diameter of a 6.5mm calibre rifle is .256".

The groove diameter (also bullet diameter) of a .25 calibre rifle is .257"; the groove and bullet diameter of a 6.5mm calibre rifle is .264" (.268" in a Carcano).



The confusion between the two calibres stems from the bore diameter of the 6.5mm and the groove diameter of the .25 calibre both being .257".

This misconception plagued Frazier throughout his investigation and shows up again in the Walker bullet.

"Mr. EISENBERG - Can you describe the general rifling characteristics which you referred to?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes. They consist of impressions from four lands and grooves. The bullet is mutilated on a portion of its surface. However, it can be determined that there were four land impressions and four groove impressions originally on this bullet.
The width of the land impression is 7/100ths of an inch, that is 0.07 inch--whereas the width of the groove impression is 0.13 inch, or 13/100ths of an inch.
The bullet is flattened so that it was not possible to measure its diameter. However, by adding the land width to the groove width, and multiplying by the number of lands and grooves, you can determine the circumference of the bullet and mathematically determine its diameter, which in this case corresponds to 6.5 mm. ammunition, or approximately .267 inch."

As I pointed out in another thread, adding the measurements from the Walker bullet of a land impression (.070" or 1.778 mm) and a groove impression (.130" or 3.302 mm) and multiplying by 4 to determine circumference, and then dividing by pi (3.1416) to obtain diameter, does not produce .267".

(.070 + .130) x 4 = .800 divided by 3.1416 = .255"

Amazingly, this is almost exactly the diameter of a .25 calibre bullet.

The REAL specs for the lands and grooves of a 6.5mm Carcano rifle are lands = .085" (2.159 mm) and grooves = .125" (3.175 mm). With these specs, let's try Frazier's formula again.

(.085 + .125) x 4 = .840 divided by 3.1416 = .267" (the correct diameter for a Carcano bullet)

With this in mind, let us look at CE 399 again:



We now know the width of the Carcano land to be .085" or 2.159 mm. Even a rough measurement of the above land impression shows it to be well under 2 mm and actually close to the measurement Frazier obtained from the Walker bullet of .070" or 1.778 mm.

There is no doubt now that the CE 399 in the photo above was not fired from a 6.5mm Carcano rifle, nor any other 6.5mm calibre rifle.

The theory I have, and it is rapidly becoming the ONLY possibility, is that Frazier and his assistants honestly believed the bullets from a .25 calibre rifle and a 6.5mm calibre rifle were the same diameter of bullet and would, therefore, be interchangeable as evidence. If the bullet presented as the Walker bullet (Edwin Walker swore it was a substitute) and CE 399 were both plants, it seems highly probable that the FBI used a more common .25 calibre rifle to produce their substitutes.

There are a number of other things wrong with CE 399, and I will produce them in the next few posts.

[Drew Phipps]

A Mauser is a rifle with lots of different calibers. Probably at least a few in the JFK range. IIRC there was a 7.35 mm "mauser" ammo, but that is too wide to be confused with other 6.5 mm, but its possible that it could have been inserted into a 7.35 caliber cartridge and fired from a M 91 carcano long rifle or the 7.35 mm version of the carcano carbine.

[Drew Phipps]

I wonder if the single most important priority in the bullet fakery was tying the JFK bullet to the Walker bullet. If the FBI deemed that so important, it might have been willing to compromise the validity of the JFK investigation, especially since Oswald was dead by then.

[Bob Prudhomme]

The three main Mauser calibres for military rifles were the 7x57mm Mauser (obsolete by WWI), the 7.65x53mm Mauser and the most common, the 8(7.92)x57mm Mauser, which was the German service cartridge in both World Wars. With bullet diameters of 7.24 mm, 7.94 mm and 8.08 mm, I don't think any of these calibres can be tied in to CE 399. It must also be remembered that the rifle was distinctly identified as a 7.65x53mm Argentine Mauser, with a bullet diameter of 7.94 mm.

I do not believe Mauser ever produced a 7.35mm calibre rifle, although there was the 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser, whose ammunition was loaded with the common .264" diameter bullets. It would be rather difficult to shoot a 6.5x52mm cartridge in a 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser, however, even if the Carcano cartridge was loaded with a .264" bullet. The Swedish Mauser cartridge was longer than the Carcano and wider at the base (12.20 mm compared to the Carcano at 11.42 mm).

[Bob Prudhomme]

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