Bullet shapes, hulls, and rifles

[Denny Zartman]

In Josiah Thompson's 2021 book "Last Second In Dallas" pg. 24, Thompson reports that Parkland hospital Security Director O.P. Wright described the bullet later identified as CE 399 as a bullet with a pointed tip.

Is there anything about the weapon that can be deduced from that bullet shape? Would that type of ammunition have fit in the 6.5 Carcano? Would it have fit in a 7.65 Mauser? What kinds of hulls would have been ejected from that type of pointed tip ammunition? Would hulls from a pointed bullet or from whatever ammunition would fit a 7.65 Mauser be recognizably different in appearance from the hulls found near the sixth-floor window?

[Pat Speer]

Going off memory...

1. There was no pointed tip ammunition available for the M/C rifle. The different manufacturers all made rounded tip. 

2 The hulls found on the sixth floor were for a 6.5 mm rifle. 7.65 mm ammunition could not have been fired from these hulls.

3. 7.65 ammunition is often (always?) pointed tip. 

 

The rounded tip design of the M/C bullet was designed to give it stability. It was designed as a response to dum-dum bullets which basically exploded a head or tore up a body. The thought at the time (a thought expressed by, surprisingly, German scientists, and resisted by British and American scientists) was that a more stable bullet with a copper casing would both be more humane and inflict more casualties (as it could go through one soldier and hit another, and thus remove two soldiers from the battlefield without mutilating either of them) than the lead bullets used up until that time.

It should be noted, moreover, that the stable design of the M/C bullet made it ideal for certain kinds of shooting--like big game shooting of animals with thick skin a la elephants and rhinos. The stable design allowed the bullet to pierce the thick skin without tumbling or exploding. This allowed the bullet to reach the internal organs.

This is one of the many reasons I came to doubt the bullet broke up as it passed through JFK's head, a la the official story. A much more likely story--and one I came to accept--is that the bullet hit the skull at the supposed exit at a shallow angle. (In hitting a skull at a shallow angle the thickness of the skull is multiplied and the resistance to the bullet is multiplied, which can lead to the bullet's breaking up at the surface, and pieces flying forward at a high velocity. IMO, this explains the impacts on the windshield and the impact down by Tague.)

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Pat Speer

[John Butler]

44 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

There was no pointed tip ammunition available for the M/C rifle. The different manufacturers all made rounded tip. 

Pat is generally correct, but a lesser amount of pointed tip bullets were made.  The question is were they made long ago?

[John Butler]

59 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

It should be noted, moreover, that the stable design of the M/C bullet made it ideal for certain kinds of shooting--like big game shooting of animals with thick skin a la elephants and rhinos. The stable design allowed the bullet to pierce the thick skin without tumbling or exploding. This allowed the bullet to reach the internal organs.

It has always been my belief that the long 6.5 mm Carcano round was designed to tumble and strike the target in order to leave a larger than .25 caliber wound.  Look at Kennedy's back and you will see "key hole" shape wounds left by tumbling Carcano rounds.  The Carcano was a medium power rifle with the round traveling at about 2000 feet per second.  Higher powered rounds such as the M! 30.06 or Mauser 8Mm traveled at speeds over 2600 fps and closer to 3000 fps.  The M14 7.62 Nato round traveled at that speed of 2600 fps. 

There is the question of collateral damage.  High powered rounds such as the ones mentioned above are capable of penetrating metal, or glass, or human bodies and traveling on to do damage to others.

With the exception of the head shot, I would think most rounds fired in Dealey Plaza, there could be as many as 10 according to some people, were probably short rounds, rounds with lesser propellant for a lesser velocity so they could be sound suppressed, or would not exit a body once penetrated.  If they weren't then Dealey Plaza would have been like a battlefield with more causalities.  The idea of causalities other than the intended one wound have to have been considered.  

Edited April 30, 2022 by John Butler

[Lawrence Schnapf]

John Butler- what is the basis for your belief that the MC bullet was designed to tumble? The FMJ bullet was designed as part of the international agreements to avoid the kind of wounds that would by soft-nosed bullets.  It is universally understood that the shape of JFK's rear entry wound was due to the trajectory.  

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

John Butler- what is the basis for your belief that the MC bullet was designed to tumble? The FMJ bullet was designed as part of the international agreements to avoid the kind of wounds that would by soft-nosed bullets.  It is universally understood that the shape of JFK's rear entry wound was due to the trajectory.  

Lawerence,

I had read that several times in several different places.  Whether a FMJ or soft nosed bullet was used had nothing to do with tumbling.  The shape of the long Carcano round lead to the tumbling effect at about 2000 fps.  It was not accurate enough in early use and so the increase in tumbling was added to fix that problem.  The M16 5.56 round at about 3000 fps is a tumbling round due to its high speed.  Tumbling was a way to increase the killing power of a small caliber round and was also a way to get around the FMJ agreements.

From the net:

Steinel’s loading of the 6.5 x 52mm Carcano is unlike other modern loadings of the cartridge. Their offering respects the original concept of the round and provides impeccable accuracy as it was in its original design in 1891. The rifle most associated with the round is probably the Carcano Model 1891/38, infamous for being the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The rifles at the time were being sold for as little as $29.95 (about $155 when adjusted for inflation).

First introduced in 1891, the 6.5x52mm Carcano was used in the nearly 3 million Carcano rifles that were built. The caliber remained in military service until the 1970s at which point it was phased out by many militaries for more modern offerings. Carcano rifles are famous for having a heavy-hitting round for the caliber, however, the first iteration of the 6.5x52mm suffered from poor terminal performance, so later iterations of the round introduced aluminum into the bullet nose to increase tumbling upon impact.

"The rifle most associated with the round is probably the Carcano Model 1891/38, infamous for being the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." 

I don't agree with this statement, or your statement on trajectory.  Hydrostatic shock from a high-powered round creates a tremendous pressure per square inch in liquid and semi-liquid material and that pressure must have an outlet.   

Edited May 1, 2022 by John Butler