Silencers, Sniper Rifles and the CIA

[Scott Kaiser]

https://murdercube.com/files/Snipers%20&...encers.pdf



http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index...71950.html

[Drew Phipps]

Thank you for the pictures Bob. It doesn't look necessary to crimp a cartridge to use a sabot. Ok, now what about the idea that brass cartridges can "rust"?

Also, does anyone recall what caliber the "DalTex Specimen" was? The follow up question to that is, whether you could use a sabot round to imitate a 6.5 mm Carcano from a gun of that caliber, and if so, would a sabot for that conversion require a crimped casing (presumably because a readily available sabot from x caliber to 6.5 mm would still be too small?

All those things would be necessary in order to make sense of the DalTex specimen. Then you'd have to answer the question why would a shooter making a plan ahead of time select a type of gun whose ammo had to be jerry-rigged past a "normal" sabot arrangement to frame Oswald?

[Jim DiEugenio]

https://murdercube.com/files/Snipers%20&...encers.pdf



http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index...71950.html

This was really interesting.

Werbell was a brilliant technician.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Thank you for the pictures Bob. It doesn't look necessary to crimp a cartridge to use a sabot. Ok, now what about the idea that brass cartridges can "rust"?

Also, does anyone recall what caliber the "DalTex Specimen" was? The follow up question to that is, whether you could use a sabot round to imitate a 6.5 mm Carcano from a gun of that caliber, and if so, would a sabot for that conversion require a crimped casing (presumably because a readily available sabot from x caliber to 6.5 mm would still be too small?

All those things would be necessary in order to make sense of the DalTex specimen. Then you'd have to answer the question why would a shooter making a plan ahead of time select a type of gun whose ammo had to be jerry-rigged past a "normal" sabot arrangement to frame Oswald?

The biggest obstacle to firing a 6.5mm Carcano bullet, encased in a sabot, from a larger calibre rifle can be demonstrated by looking at this photo:



The bullet in the Carcano cartridge is freakishly long, much longer than most other bullets. Now take a look at the next photo:



Notice that the base of the bullet does not project out past the base of the sabot, meaning that not only would you have the freakishly long Carcano bullet, you would also have the thickness of the base of the sabot to contend with; making for an extremely long assembly of bullet and sabot.

As it is not a good idea to seat a long bullet so far into a cartridge that the base of the bullet protrudes far below the base of the cartridge neck, what larger rifle would one use to fire a saboted 6.5mm Carcano bullet from?

Crimping the neck of a handloaded cartridge is something most handloaders do not do, as most handloaders are not using cartridges in the rough conditions encountered in combat, or loading cartridges for automatic or semi-automatic weapons. I know of no handloader here that crimps cartridges for bolt action rifles.

Brass cartridges will oxidize and turn a dark brown colour but, with their high copper content, it is only surface oxidation, and I have never seen one "rust".

[Drew Phipps]

So it seems unlikely, then, that any weapon other than a MC was used to fire the recovered bullet fragments that match actual MC ammo. (Assuming that the recovered fragments haven't been (post-assassination) significantly tampered with) That is a valuable bit of hard fact.

[Bob Prudhomme]

So it seems unlikely, then, that any weapon other than a MC was used to fire the recovered bullet fragments that match actual MC ammo. (Assuming that the recovered fragments haven't been (post-assassination) significantly tampered with) That is a valuable bit of hard fact.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up, Drew. Unless the fragments found in the car were planted, which is a distinct possibility, they would have been fired by a Carcano of some description. As the limo was never protected in Dallas and investigated as a crime scene, anything is possible.

Just because the weapon was a 6.5mm Carcano does not mean it had to be an inaccurate weapon, nor does it guarantee the bullets it was firing were full metal jacket bullets.

There are many very accurate Carcano long rifles, such as the M91/41 long rifle, pictured below.



This particular model, with the double set triggers, was custom made for target shooting competitions, and used internationally by Italian shooting teams until the 1960's.

The interesting thing about the bullet that struck JFK's head, according to the WC, is that the jacket of the bullet seems to have broken into three separate pieces; a rather remarkable feat for a 6.5mm FMJ bullet. Look at this photo below of a 6.5mm Carcano frangible range bullet:



Notice the extremely deep cannelure in the bullet jacket, just above the highest part of the shell casing, and not seen in standard Carcano FMJ bullets. Also note the seam toward the nose of the bullet, where the nose section of this frangible bullet jacket is joined onto the rest of the bullet jacket. This effectively makes a three piece bullet jacket. Sound familiar?

The deep cannelure in the bullet jacket is quite significant, as this is precisely what the US Army utilized in the early part of the Viet Nam War to increase the killing power of the 5.56mm calibre bullets fired from the M-16. While the M-16 was an extremely light rifle to carry, and soldiers could carry vast quantities of the diminutive cartridges, it was soon discovered the tiny, high velocity FMJ 5.56mm bullets tended to go straight through enemy combatants, without killing them, and it was often necessary to shoot an opponent several times to stop him. Without any announcement, the 5.56mm bullets developed "weak" cannelures, quite by "accident", and their stopping power increased dramatically.

In this study by Martin L. Fackler, a colonel in the Medical Corps of the US Army and director of the Wound Ballistics Laboratory at the Letterman Army Institute of Research, Presidio of San Francisco, CA, a careful look was taken at the wound cavities made by several rifles, including the M-16 firing the 5.56mm cartridge.

http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Fackler...rifles.pdf

It was discovered the 5.56mm bullet, with the weak cannelure, would travel roughly 12 cm. (4.75 inches) through soft tissue, at which point it would yaw. During the yaw, the bullet would bend 90° at the cannelure and break into two pieces. The nose section would contnue to tumble through flesh, inflicting damage, while the tail section of the bullet would fragment into many pieces, widening the area of damage in the wound cavity.

[Drew Phipps]

Interesting. I would also point out that the M-16, whose bullet wounding patterns are present in that paper, is actually the less lethal version of the AR-15, which was present in Dealy Plaza in the hands of SS Agent Hickey, quite near to the time the head shot was fired. I say "less lethal" because the Army, when ordered to adopt the AR-15 by JFK and McNamara, responded by changing the rifling of the barrel (which reduced the tumble of the bullet after contact) and by using an inferior powder, and adding an unnecessary manual bolt. The resulting kludge was named the M-16.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Interesting. I would also point out that the M-16, whose bullet wounding patterns are present in that paper, is actually the less lethal version of the AR-15, which was present in Dealy Plaza in the hands of SS Agent Hickey, quite near to the time the head shot was fired. I say "less lethal" because the Army, when ordered to adopt the AR-15 by JFK and McNamara, responded by changing the rifling of the barrel (which reduced the tumble of the bullet after contact) and by using an inferior powder, and adding an unnecessary manual bolt. The resulting kludge was named the M-16.

Hi Drew

Well, in a way, the change in gunpowder the Army adopted did make the M-16 less lethal, but not quite in the way you might think. The ball powder adopted by the Army had far worse fouling properties than early tests showed. As the M-16 is a piston operated rifle, and that piston is operated by propellant gases, and those gases reach the piston through a tiny "port" midway down the barrel of the M-16, fouling had the potential to close this port off, which it actually did; costing many American lives before the problem was rectified. However, when the ports were not fouled, the ball powder propelled the M-16 at the necessary +3100 fps velocity, and the bullets were just as lethal, if not more so, than anything fired from an AR-15.

http://www.thegunzone.com/556prop.html

While the M-16 went through several changes in the rate of twist of its barrel riflings, none of them had any effect on the lethality and instability of the M-16 bullet in-wound. The original Armalite rate of twist of 1:14 was found sufficient under normal atmospheric conditions but, when tested at extremes of -40° F. and +140° F., it was found insufficient to stabilize the bullet in-flight, and faster riflings were introduced. When the M193 bullet was replaced by the longer and heavier M855/SS109 bullet, it was again necessary to make even tighter and faster riflings, as longer and heavier bullets require faster rotational spin to stabilize them in-flight and prevent them from tumbling before they hit their target.

Getting to the target, and getting there stable and point first, is essential to the lethality of any bullet. A tumbling bullet might not even make it to its target and, should it hit side on, will not have near the penetration of a bullet hitting point first and stabilized.

When the M855/SS109 bullet was first introduced, it was believed its faster rotational spin would allow this bullet to penetrate much further in a wound than the M193 before it became unstable. This turned out to be untrue, as Fackler demonstrated and, in fact, it appears the M855/SS109 actually loses stability slightly earlier than the M193 bullet. One has to wonder if the reason might not be partially due to the steel "penetrator" that makes up the forward part of the core of this bullet. As there is a distinct difference in density between steel and lead, making the forward section of the bullet from steel would create an imbalance in mass between the front and rear of this bullet, and make the rear end of the bullet want to pass the front end in a wound.

This mass imbalance was the basis for the extreme lethality of the .303 British Mk. VII cartridge, adopted in the early 1900's and used by the British until the 1950's.



As seen above, the Mk. VII bullet core was lead toward the base, and aluminum in the nose section. This, combined with the spitzer point, made the Mk. VII tumble in wounds, making this bullet far more lethal than a spitzer bullet with a solid lead core.

More reading on the M-16 barrel riflings. Some of the comments following the article are quite interesting, too.

http://weaponsman.com/?p=7291

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Drew

It should also be remembered that the M-16 came with a 20 inch barrel, and that over the years, much shorter barrels have been introduced in more modern variations. Shorter barrels rob muzzle velocity, and the in-wound characteristics of the bullet fired from the M-16, as Fackler shows, are extremely dependent on a velocity in excess of 2400 fps, at the target, to make this bullet break in two at the cannelure.