Oswalds Bullets FMJ or lead

[AlanD]

One of the arguments , had he come to trial , Oswald's defender might have used in his defense was to point out that no one could be found who remembered selling any type of ammunition to Oswald. Most of the little amount of Carcano ammo at that time available in the Dallas area was WW2 Western ammo converted to lead bullets, since FMJ is illegal for hunting why would anyone casually want to buy FMJ. In fact the only reason we think the Carcano had firing FMJ bullets was because of the FMJ found on the stretcher at Parklands. So to my mind without the absolute certainty of the use of a FMJ bullet the fantasy of the "magic" bullet becomes even less likely. I would guess that a lead bullet would stop in Kennedy, certainly get no where near Connally with enough force to cause the damage observed in him.I still think Oswald had nothing to do with the shooting, but just look at the different slant the Parkland FMJ bullets puts on things.

[JDThomas]

Hi Alan,there is a lot of info in this forum and other places about the problems of the alleged ammunition used and don't forget the clip too! The clip is very important to the MC rifle, only being ejected when the last round in the clip is chambered - no clip was ever found and no record of the purchase of one either. If Oswald ever actually bought the mail order rifle is another question, but with the same order form from Kleins, the option was to buy the clip at the same time as the rifle.Why would they buyer not purchase the clip at the same time, when it is needed and might be difficult to come by elsewhere? Could you have bought one at the local news stand or grocer store? What are the chances of even the local gun store stocking it?Also, forum member RobertP has been participating in an excellent discussion elsewhere about the wounding of John Connolly and the skullduggery employed by the Warren Commission to hide their own research findings about the bullet velocities showing that the available velocity could not have caused all of the wounds

[AlanD]

Sorry forgot about the FMJ bullet left in the rifle(CE141) , forget my thoughts folk.

[RobertP]

Hello AlanDThese are good points you bring up and, although the rifle on the 6th floor was found with one live FMJ bullet in its chamber, this by no means guarantees JFK and Connally were shot with FMJ bullets.It is true that most of the surplus 6.5mm Carcano ammo, including both Western Cartridge Co. ammo and Italian SMI ammo, were sold to the public still loaded with FMJ bullets. As you correctly pointed out that these would be illegal for hunting, it is assumed they would be used for target shooting. However, should the owner of a Carcano wish to use this ammo for hunting, there are a couple of methods that could be employed.If a rifle owner hand loads his own ammo, it is a simple matter of "pulling" the FMJ bullets from the brass casing, and seating a soft tipped hunting bullet in its place. In fact, in 1963, John Masen, owner of The Gun Shop in Dallas, told the FBI he regularly performed this task for customers that wished to use WCC 6.5 ammo for deer hunting.The second method involves carefully filing the copper jacket from the tip of the bullet, exposing the lead core beneath and, essentially, converting a FMJ bullet into a soft tipped bullet. This was first done by the British Indian Army, late in the 19th Century, when it was found their new .303 calibre FMJ bullets were rather ineffective at stopping indigenous hordes. At the Dum Dum Arsenal, located in Dum Dum, India (just northeast of Calcutta), a Captain Neville "Bertie" Clay began the first experiments to improve the stopping power of .303 FMJ bullets. He found that, by removing 1 mm. of the nose of the copper jacket, he was able to expose the lead core and vastly improve the stopping power of these bullets; thus creating the world's first "dum dum" bullets. Just how effective they were can be judged by their being banned at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899.But why not go even further on this theme? Go to the index, and you will find a thread I started entitled "Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets", in which I discuss the possibility of a bullet with far greater stopping power than a soft or hollow point bullet.

[Dealey Joe]

this picture shows cops carrying a Carcano out of the TSBD. Notice the clip hanging out of the magazine, this could only happen if the clip was bent or damaged somehow. If in fact the last shell was in the chamber the Clip would have fallen out, If there was a shell still in the clip then the clip would still be inside the Magazine and not visible, This picture puzzles me a bit?This riffle sling does not look the same as the rifle Day was holding up for photographers?Idea's