Tumbling bullets v/s Sir Isaac Newton

[Alan Denholm]

I have been reading about JFK's back / throat wound and the subsequent tumbling bullet which are the bed rock of the LN'ers and the SBT. I was watching the PSB Nova documentary on YouTube (now removed), living in the UK I was really only interested in the performance of the Carcano rifle, since I have no experience with fire arms. It produced some interesting info on the rifle performance(OK a well maintained gun, firing modern ammo, version of the Carcano). They did however perform some high speed filming of the bullet passing through a block of gel like substance, which mimics the body. This they claimed would effect the bullets performance in a similar way to exiting JFK's body and would demonstrate that the bullet could tumble and thus provide confirmation for the SBT .


The high speed photography examples they published did show the bullet starting to tumble as soon as it left the Gel block , job done they claimed, however what they conveniently ignored was that the bullet behaved exactly in the manner Sir Isaac outlined in his famous laws of motion, it continued in a straight line to the target. It never veered right or left up or down it tumbled perfectly to it's aimed target. They of course totally ignored that bit of it , it started to tumble job done. Which in the absence of any aerofoil effect from the supersonic Carcano bullet that is what you would expect , a straight line tumble.


So where does that leave us, well ,if we accept there were no bullets found in JFK from the back or throat wound, which is what you would expect from a FMJ bullet and even the Nova documentary findings. There are two alternatives, if you accept the no bullet remaining scenario , one alternative is a bullet which hit JFK in the back then some how managed to exit via the throat wound or there was a front shot from the south knoll which entered his throat and exited from his back.
If the back wound was what happened how could a downwards trajectory FMJ bullet from either the 6th floor or the Dal-Tex building, that should in theory go straight through JFK and then into Connally's lower back, end up going upwards and out of JFK's throat unless it clipped a rib and was then deflected upwards towards the throat, where it would then exit.
We now have a bullet with an upwards trajectory heading upwards out of the throat and then out of the car towards maybe the south end of the overpass thanks to the Nova people demonstrating that the bullet would indeed tumble, but tumble in a straight line off to who knows where. If a bullet exited JFKs throat and can only tumble in a straight line , there is no way it can hit Connally in the back.



There is also the problem of the bullet remnants CE567, 569, 840, where did they come from, the JFK head shot or the Connally shot. Logic would point in the direction of the Connally shot as the amount of bone hit would tend to produce a more damaged bullet, with possibly more fragments. So are the bits the Connally bullet remnants or the JFK head shot bit remnants , and where does that leave CE399, what did that hit, it was not responsible for the JFK head shot(s) , nor the Connally shots, another patsy?. There is just not enough shrapnel around or they never looked hard enough in the car or the victims for it.



My second thought was about the probing of the back wound by a "little finger" and this showing a shallow wound, well it would be would it not, if a little finger managed to pass between two ribs you would think it would be difficult to compress/move the muscle out of the way to get much penetration into the wound anyway because of the presence of the ribs and muscles, that's why they normally use thin steel probes not gloved fingers to probe wounds.



A final thought why was there not more blood until the head wound, no blood on Connally's shirt or Stetson, no blood on JFK's shirt front from Z260 to Z312 where his hands are clearly down and his shirt is visible , even allowing for those generous folk in Dallas who first assassinate you and then launder your shirts and jacket , with a good neighborliness and good old fashion manners, that's hard to match, but why so little blood visible.

[Albert Doyle]

There's question whether or not bullets were removed in a covert pre-autopsy.

[Drew Phipps]

A collection of very good questions, most of which have no answer. There are multiple threads on these issues in this forum.

I believe that I can answer one of your questions, the origins of CE399. I believe that bullet came from a ballistics lab (or informal equivalent). There are multiple problems with its chain of custody. The first four people to allegedly handle this bullet would not identify CE 399 as the bullet they handled. The bullet is in very good condition, like a test bullet fired into a tank of water. The bullet never exhibited any blood, hair, or clothing fibers. CE 399 also does not exhibit the class characteristics which must be etched of the bullet from its passage through a standard MC 91/38, indicating that the rifle from which it came either a) was a different type of rifle or b) had a unique custom made barrel, or c) that CE 399 is simply a sculpture that looks like a bullet.


All bullets tumble somewhat. It is an inevitable part of causing the projectile to spin. Depending on who you ask, and why, people will tell you that the WCC 91/38 full metal slug is so stable that it acts like a "flying drill;" (allowing it to get through JFK and Connally) or that its propensity to tumble explains the unusual wounds and the unusual course corrections inside the tissue (allowing it to follow the path drawn for it by the Warren Commission).

[Herbert Blenner]

I have been reading about JFK's back / throat wound and the subsequent tumbling bullet which are the bed rock of the LN'ers and the SBT. I was watching the PSB Nova documentary on YouTube (now removed), living in the UK I was really only interested in the performance of the Carcano rifle, since I have no experience with fire arms. It produced some interesting info on the rifle performance(OK a well maintained gun, firing modern ammo, version of the Carcano). They did however perform some high speed filming of the bullet passing through a block of gel like substance, which mimics the body. This they claimed would effect the bullets performance in a similar way to exiting JFK's body and would demonstrate that the bullet could tumble and thus provide confirmation for the SBT .


The high speed photography examples they published did show the bullet starting to tumble as soon as it left the Gel block , job done they claimed, however what they conveniently ignored was that the bullet behaved exactly in the manner Sir Isaac outlined in his famous laws of motion, it continued in a straight line to the target. It never veered right or left up or down it tumbled perfectly to it's aimed target. They of course totally ignored that bit of it , it started to tumble job done. Which in the absence of any aerofoil effect from the supersonic Carcano bullet that is what you would expect , a straight line tumble.


So where does that leave us, well ,if we accept there were no bullets found in JFK from the back or throat wound, which is what you would expect from a FMJ bullet and even the Nova documentary findings. There are two alternatives, if you accept the no bullet remaining scenario , one alternative is a bullet which hit JFK in the back then some how managed to exit via the throat wound or there was a front shot from the south knoll which entered his throat and exited from his back.
If the back wound was what happened how could a downwards trajectory FMJ bullet from either the 6th floor or the Dal-Tex building, that should in theory go straight through JFK and then into Connally's lower back, end up going upwards and out of JFK's throat unless it clipped a rib and was then deflected upwards towards the throat, where it would then exit.
We now have a bullet with an upwards trajectory heading upwards out of the throat and then out of the car towards maybe the south end of the overpass thanks to the Nova people demonstrating that the bullet would indeed tumble, but tumble in a straight line off to who knows where. If a bullet exited JFKs throat and can only tumble in a straight line , there is no way it can hit Connally in the back.



There is also the problem of the bullet remnants CE567, 569, 840, where did they come from, the JFK head shot or the Connally shot. Logic would point in the direction of the Connally shot as the amount of bone hit would tend to produce a more damaged bullet, with possibly more fragments. So are the bits the Connally bullet remnants or the JFK head shot bit remnants , and where does that leave CE399, what did that hit, it was not responsible for the JFK head shot(s) , nor the Connally shots, another patsy?. There is just not enough shrapnel around or they never looked hard enough in the car or the victims for it.



My second thought was about the probing of the back wound by a "little finger" and this showing a shallow wound, well it would be would it not, if a little finger managed to pass between two ribs you would think it would be difficult to compress/move the muscle out of the way to get much penetration into the wound anyway because of the presence of the ribs and muscles, that's why they normally use thin steel probes not gloved fingers to probe wounds.



A final thought why was there not more blood until the head wound, no blood on Connally's shirt or Stetson, no blood on JFK's shirt front from Z260 to Z312 where his hands are clearly down and his shirt is visible , even allowing for those generous folk in Dallas who first assassinate you and then launder your shirts and jacket , with a good neighborliness and good old fashion manners, that's hard to match, but why so little blood visible.

The elliptical shape of Governor Connally's back wound shows that the striking bullet was not tumbled.

The direction of a wound track depends upon the trajectory of the bullet and the orientation of the victim when shot. So a bullet with a "downward" trajectory may make an upward going wound track through a person who was not completely upright when shot.

Humes did not stick his 1/2-inch pinky into a bullet hole with a 1/6-inch dimension.

[Drew Phipps]

There is one other factor in the tumbling of bullets to consider. The reason a bullet's tumble increases as it flies is partly produced by friction, slowing down the spin of the bullet. But since angular momentum is conserved, the bullet begins to (or increases) a tumble around an axis other than its longitudinal axis. It is also partly produced by forces pushing the nose of the bullet sideways unevenly. Those forces can start in tissue. Those forces don't START in air unless the bullet is already tumbling. So the bullet in the PBS documentary had already begun to tumble prior to exiting the ballistic gel.

It just isn't physically possible for a non-tumbling bullet to exit a body and, in mid air, encounter a force that starts it to tumbling.

[Herbert Blenner]

There is one other factor in the tumbling of bullets to consider. The reason a bullet's tumble increases as it flies is partly produced by friction, slowing down the spin of the bullet. But since angular momentum is conserved, the bullet begins to (or increases) a tumble around an axis other than its longitudinal axis. It is also partly produced by forces pushing the nose of the bullet sideways unevenly. Those forces can start in tissue. Those forces don't START in air unless the bullet is already tumbling. So the bullet in the PBS documentary had already begun to tumble prior to exiting the ballistic gel.

It just isn't physically possible for a non-tumbling bullet to exit a body and, in mid air, encounter a force that starts it to tumbling.

Suppose a movie camera filmed a tumbling bullet while traveling at the same velocity as the missile. How would you describe the filmed motion of the tumbling alone?

[Drew Phipps]

In mid-air, you would observe the bullet spin around its longitudinal axis (its direction of travel) very quickly and likely also see a slight wobble (precession) as the bullet gradually lost some of its angular momentum. If the bullet was "tumbling" it would rotate around an axis perpendicular to the bullet's direction of travel.

[Herbert Blenner]

In mid-air, you would observe the bullet spin around its longitudinal axis (its direction of travel) very quickly and likely also see a slight wobble (precession) as the bullet gradually lost some of its angular momentum. If the bullet was "tumbling" it would rotate around an axis perpendicular to the bullet's direction of travel.

Thanks for your answer. I see that we are speaking the same language.