129 replies to this topic

[Antilles]

TheMacGuffin, on 16 October 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

Was this is picture of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in the doorway of the School Book Depository at the exact time of the assassination?  There has been an argument over whether this was Oswald or another man named Billy Lovelady.

You know, Mac, I think he might even be carrying the same gun that he was in the Life photo....

[TheMacGuffin]

Antilles, on 17 October 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

You know, Mac, I think he might even be carrying the same gun that he was in the Life photo....

People have claimed that attempts were made to retouch and "edit" these pictures so that the man looked less like Oswald, and of course these aren't the only ones that were altered.

[Gatofeo]

wolfknight, on 17 July 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

If you watch the old video files and watch JFK's head. His head snaps backwards not forwards. Supposely the shooter shot him in the back of the head which would cause a forward snap in the head. Instead the head snapping backwards. The gun that Oswald supposely used was not a acrate weapon.
Jack Rudy was paid over to kill Oswald to keep him from talking. Rudy was involded heavily in the mod.

Talk to anyone who's been in combat. Bodies react differently to bullets. You cannot apply "this will happen with certainty" when it comes to the effect of bullets upon people. Heck, talk to a longtime deer and/or elk hunter. He'll tell you how differently animals reacted to the same bullet fired from the same rifle.

The 6.5X52mm Italian Carcarno can be an accurate rifle, if fed the proper ammunition. The trouble is, too many people have believed this pap without examining the facts.

In Handloader magazine No. 169 (May-June 1994), gun writer Charles A. Benke puts this "inaccurate Carcano" myth to rest.
He purchased a "new, World War II-era Carcano rifle at a gun show. All evidence is that it had never been fired after leaving the factory in 1941.

Measuring the bore, he found it had a .2685 inch groove diameter -- that's to the bottom of the grooves in the rifling.
For over a century, most 6.5mm rifles have had groove diameters of .264 to .265 inch, and bullets were made the same diameter.
The Italians, aware of their rifle's slightly larger bore, made their military ammunition with commensurately larger diameter bullets.
When Benke used bullets of .264 to .265 diameter, as made by Sierra, Hornady, Speer and Nosler, he got lousy accuracy at 140 yards.
This article has an accompanying photo that is very telling.

Newly made Norma 6.5X52 Carcano ammo, made in Sweden, put five 139 gr. bullets into an 11-inch circle at 140 yards. A dismally inaccurate factory load. I've seen documentaries about the Kennedy assassination, where the shooter loaded up Norma ammo at the rifle range and proclaimed the Carcarno terribly inaccurate.
The 156 gr. Norma load was more accurate, putting five shots into a 6" circle at 140 yards.
I'm uncertain of the diameter of Norma bullets; apparently he didn't pull one from the case and measure it.

Benke obtained some 157 gr. softpoint bullets of .268 inch diameter from MoLoc Bullets of Turlock, Calif. These fit his rifle's larger bore better and he obtained excellent accuracy with his Carcano.
At 140 yards, using a 2-power scope, Benke was able to put five bullets into 1 or 2 inch circles. This was with his own reloads, assembled with modern powders and primers.

Oswald used cartridges manufactured by the Western Cartridge Co. of the USA. They were loaded with a full metal jacket military-type bullet weighing 160 to 161 grains. He fired three shos in a maximum of 7.9 seconds.
An FBI marksman later used Oswald's carbine and Western Cartridge Co. ammunition, firing four groups of three shots each at 100 yards. President Kennedy was shot at less than 100 yards. I've been to the Schoolbook Depository in Dallas and looked down on the view to where the limousine passed. I'd estimate it at 70 to 80 yards.
Anyway, that FBI marksman was able to put three Western Cartridge bullets into groups of 3 to 5 inches -- at 100 yards. At 80 yards, the groups would be even smaller.

I don't know if the marksman used cartridges from the same box that Oswald used, or merely had a box of similar Western Cartridges supplied to him. There can be variations in powder loads and bullet diameter between different manufacturing lots of ammunition, so to say that Oswald's rifle could only shoot within 3 to 5 inches is an incorrect assumption. The Western Cartridge Co. ammo Oswald had on that fateful day may have been very, very accurate in his rifle.

Nearly 20 years ago, gun writer Charles Benke put to rest the assertion that the Carcano is an inaccurate rifle. Fed the proper-sized bullets, it can be exceedingly accurate:
The trouble is, nearly all 6.5mm bullets are standardized at .264 inch diameter. For a bullet to be accurate, it must completely fill the bore as it travels down the barrel.
A .264" bullet in a .2685" bore is not conducive to accuracy.

I've been reloading ammunition for more than 40 years, for rifle, pistol and shotgun. I currently reload for about 25 different rifle and pistol calibers (not the 6.5X52 Carcano, though), and cast my own bullets of molten lead on occasion. I know what I'm talking about, because I've seen the poor accuracy brought by undersized bullets in bores, in both rifle and pistol.

Is the Carcano inaccurate? Not a bit, if fed the right ammo, according to the writer. And I believe him.
But don't believe me, find a copy of Handloader magazine no. 169 on the net. The article is not technical, and will be an eye-opener for Kennedy Assassination followers.
A standard Carcano that put five bullets into 1 and 2-inch circles at 140 yards "inaccurate?" Hardly.

Edited by Gatofeo, 22 October 2012 - 12:23 AM.

[TheMacGuffin]

One bullet did strike JFK in the back but did not go all the way through his body.  This may have been the bullet that the FBI later "found" in a relatively intact condition.  Originally even the autopsy doctors believed this was the case and claimed not to be aware of the throat wound until after they had written their official report.  Of course, all the Dallas doctors reported that this was an entrance wound.  

In any case, the autopsy doctors had not even accounted for it at all.  This left the Warren Commission with the familiar problem of too many bullets and shots being fired, especially since John Connally always said that he was not hit by any of the bullets that struct JFK.

Hence they came up with a "revised" autopsy report and a Magic Bullet.

*snip*

Edited by Saru, 22 October 2012 - 09:16 AM.
Video removed for copyright reasons

[TheMacGuffin]

Gatofeo, on 22 October 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

Talk to anyone who's been in combat. Bodies react differently to bullets. You cannot apply "this will happen with certainty" when it comes to the effect of bullets upon people. Heck, talk to a longtime deer and/or elk hunter. He'll tell you how differently animals reacted to the same bullet fired from the same rifle.


Oswald used cartridges manufactured by the Western Cartridge Co. of the USA. They were loaded with a full metal jacket military-type bullet weighing 160 to 161 grains. He fired three shos in a maximum of 7.9 seconds.
An FBI marksman later used Oswald's carbine and Western Cartridge Co. ammunition, firing four groups of three shots each at 100 yards. President Kennedy was shot at less than 100 yards. I've been to the Schoolbook Depository in Dallas and looked down on the view to where the limousine passed. I'd estimate it at 70 to 80 yards.
Anyway, that FBI marksman was able to put three Western Cartridge bullets into groups of 3 to 5 inches -- at 100 yards. At 80 yards, the groups would be even smaller.

It hardly matters since it probably was not even one of the rifles used in the assassination, and Oswald was not up there on the 6th floor firing it.

Edited by TheMacGuffin, 22 October 2012 - 05:49 AM.

[TheMacGuffin]

And why was Jack Ruby making all kinds of phone calls to various organized crime figures in the fall of 1963?

*snip*

Edited by Saru, 22 October 2012 - 09:16 AM.
Video removed for copyright reasons

[TheMacGuffin]

On the Warren Commission itself, Sen. Richard Russell emphatically disagreed with the Magic Bullet theory and almost resigned.  Sen. John Sherman Cooper and Rep. Hale Boggs did not believe it either, and all three almost refused to sign the final report, which they were in a hurry to finish before the 1964 elections.

In the actual minutes of the final meeting of the Commission, the record of Russell's strong dissent was omitted.  

*snip*

Edited by Saru, 22 October 2012 - 09:17 AM.
Video removed for copyright reasons

[TheMacGuffin]

And all the Warren Commission members were shocked when they learned that Oswald was an FBI informant, and realized that there would be no way to quell the rumors of a conspiracy if that came out.  They were also afraid of J. Edgar Hoover if they even attempted to pressure him on that point.

Oswald was also trained as an intelligence agent before he went to the Soviet Union.

Edited by TheMacGuffin, 22 October 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[TheMacGuffin]

Nixon and the "Bay of Pigs thing", the strange reference that he kept making on the tapes.  No one could understand why he would be so concerned about it because this had happened in 1961 and was already well-known as a CIA operation.  Yet all Nixon had to hear was that Howard Hunt and the Cubans were involved and he wanted to . cover it all up.

He sends his right-hand man Bob Haldeman to talk to the CIA director Richard Helms, who exploded and started screaming "We had nothing to do with the Bay of Pigs!"  Even this was absurd because everyone knew it was a CIA operation.

None of these made any sense at all in connection with Watergate, unless the "Bay of Pigs thing" referred to something else.  Many years later, not long before his death, Haldeman confirmed that whenever Nixon mentioned the "Bay of Pigs thing" he meant the JFK assassination.  Of course, Howard Hunt also admitted to being involved in that before his death, and this had long been suspected.  Evidently Nixon knew about this somehow--Hunt and the Cubans--and he was willing to pay them $1 million not to start talking.

[Antilles]

Well, you know, Oswald was so busy not going to Russia, not handing out pro Castro pamphlets, not handing out anti Castro pamphlets, not being a crack shot in the Marines...he was just too busy not doing any of these things. He was certainly far too busy not being a semi CIA operative.

Just too busy not doing these things.

Maybe it was his identical twin brother......