The FBI's fib about the Mannlicher Carcano

[Jim DiEugenio]

Which was not done right?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Which was not done right?

As can be seen in the close up photo of the scope, there were only two screws holding the scope mount to the rifle's receiver. The gunsmith had to drill and tap the two holes for these screws into the side of the receiver.

If the rifle was shooting 2.5 to 5 inches high at 15 yards, either the forward hole was drilled too low, or the rearward hole was drilled too high.

Mounting this scope mount was a tricky job, with no room for error. Vertical mistakes could not be corrected without drilling new holes.

[Bob Prudhomme]

This exaggerated diagram shows it best. Imagine the result if you tilted the front end of the "scope" downward on its mounting and then aimed at the target through the "scope". It would have the effect of tilting the "barrel" upward and your bullets will impact the target much higher than the spot you are aiming at.

Normally, you would adjust the scope's "elevation" screw to bring the point of aim and point of impact together but, if the scope is wildly off (ie. 2.5 to 5 inches high at 15 yards) and the scope is a toy to begin with, there is not enough adjustment on the elevation screw to bring it to where you want and the scope must be re-mounted.

[Jim DiEugenio]

And the only evidence for that is the testimony of Dial Ryder right?

[Bob Prudhomme]

And the only evidence for that is the testimony of Dial Ryder right?

Evidence for what? I'm not quite sure I follow you here.

[Jim DiEugenio]

The only evidence for Oswald requesting a drilling and tapping of a rifle.

[Bob Prudhomme]

The only evidence for Oswald requesting a drilling and tapping of a rifle.

Well, the rifle would have been drilled and tapped at Klein's, prior to mounting the scope. As Ryder pointed out, the bill at his shop would have been for the drilling and tapping of three holes at $1.50 each (oh take me back to 1963) for a total of $4.50 plus another $1.50 for boresighting. With only two holes in the receiver, this would seem to eliminate Ryder as the man who mounted the scope on C2766.

Now, as I said before, only the front hole needed to be re-drilled higher, in order to raise the scope mount up, but this was obviously never done, as I believe there are only two holes in the side of C2766's receiver, and C2766 was still shooting freakishly high at 15 yards when the FBI tested it. If the job at Ryder's shop was intended to correct this, it never got done. I can understand the request for three holes to be drilled though, as the scope mount might only have to be raised a tiny amount at the front, and the new hole might overlap and interfere with the old hole. Therefore, moving the scope mount ahead (or back) a tiny bit would allow the gunsmith to drill new holes front and back. As the scope mount came with three holes, it only makes sense to utilize all three holes and get a firmer mount. Ergo, the drilling and tapping of three holes, plus boresighting for the new mounting.

The testimony of Dial Ryder is very interesting. I haven't read it for a while and as I re-read it this morning, I realized I never did decide if Ryder admitted to working on this rifle or not. There is definitely something odd happening with this witness.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Jim

I was just re-reading the posts I made on this thread, and I realized I didn't do a very good job of getting my point across. As usual, I made things too complicated, and expected you to be able to glean the vital information from my long winded posts.

Much of the ballistic evidence in this case is quite complicated and, with the majority of the population not being able to decipher this evidence, the FBI was able to present several mistruths that only a handful of people have been able to work out over the last 53 years. Ms. Cranor was on the right track, but not able to fully appreciate the implications of the irregularities she had uncovered. I would also like to meet the ballistics "expert" who told her a rifle shooting 2.5 to 4 inches high at 15 yards would only shoot 14 inches high at 100 yards. This was clearly a piece of disinformation and a favorite trick of the coverup crew. "Yes, you're right, Ms. Cranor, it would have been shooting high at 100 yards, but only 14 inches high, and that was easily adjusted for." Then she would be complimented on her smart detective work and she would leave there thinking 14 inches high was Gospel.

If anyone wishes, I will show them precisely how I deduced a rifle firing a round nosed bullet, weighing 162 grains, at a muzzle velocity of 2165 to 2200 feet per second and impacting a target 2.5 to 4 inches high at 15 yards, would have impacted a target at 100 yards almost 36 inches high.

Here is the FBI's problem in a nutshell. They lied, and they have no way of escaping that lie.

If it is an inescapable fact that the above described bullet struck the target 2.5 to 4 inches high at 15 yards and would have impacted the 100 yard target almost 36 inches high, it was necessary for the FBI to adjust the scope for elevation, in order to have bullets impacting the 100 yard target 2.5 to 5 inches high in their final set of tests. As this scope, designed for an air pellet rifle, simply had nowhere near that much range in its elevation (vertical) adjustment, a simple elevation adjustment would not do the job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su9CNet7270

To allow the scope to be properly adjusted, it was necessary to bring the front end of the scope itself up. It sounds so simple, undo the front screw on the scope mount, tilt the front end of the scope upward by pivoting on the back mounting screw, place a shim under the front of the scope mount, re-tighten the front screw and voila! problem solved!

EXCEPT for one tiny detail. As I pointed out earlier, the two screws holding the scope mount to the side of the receiver are inserted HORIZONTALLY, and if you remove the front screw and tilt the front end of the scope mount up, even by a few thousands of an inch, the hole in the scope mount will no longer line up with the hole in the receiver, and it will be impossible to re-insert the front screw.

I know exactly what the problem was, and I also know the only solution would have been to drill new holes in the receiver. Do you see now how the FBI painted themselves into a corner, and why the "expert" told Ms. Cranor the rifle would have only shot 14 inches high at 100 yards?

[Jim DiEugenio]

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?

[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.