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The Rifle Tests

Gil Jesus

By Gil Jesus
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Gil Jesus Mentor

Gil Jesus

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By Gil Jesus ( 2022 )

"The various tests showed that the Mannlicher-Carcano was an accurate rifle and that the use of a four-power scope was a substantial aid to rapid, accurate firing." ( Report, pg. 195 )

Both of the above points are lies. The Mannlicher-Carcano was NOT an accurate weapon and the scope did NOT enhance its speed or accuracy. For any test designed to recreate performance to be valid, all of the conditions that existed in the original performance must exist in the test.
Otherwise, you're measuring apples against oranges.

Three tests were done for speed and accuracy, two by the FBI and one by the Army. All three tests showed that the rifle was unable to perform at the level of speed and accuracy attributed to it by the Warren Commission.

The FBI tests
"It is a very accurate weapon. The targets we fired showed that". ( FBI firearms expert Robert Frazier's testimony in 3 H 411 )

The targets, however, proved that that was a lie. The first FBI test was done on November 27, 1963. It tested the rifle at distances 15 and 25 yards because, according to testimony from one of its firearms experts, Robert Frazier, the facility to test rifle at long range was not available.
The tests were conducted for speed and accuracy. ( 3 H 402 )

Three FBI experts fired the rifle at 15 yards. Charles Killion fired three rounds in 9 seconds and Cortlandt Cunningham did it in 7 seconds. Frazier completed the sequence in 6 seconds.

Killion's 3 hits were 2 1/2 inches high and 1 inch to the right. Cunningham's 3 shots were 4 inches high and 1 inch to the right. Frazier's 3 shots were the same as Cunningham's, 4 inches high and 1 inch to the right. ( 3 H 403 - 404 )
 


Frazier was the only participant in the test at 25 yards. In this test, Frazier fired two sets of three shots.
In his first set, he fired three rounds in 4.8 seconds, but his shots were 4 inches high and 1 to 2 inches to the right, same as it was at 15 yards. ( 3 H 404 )

In his second set, he fired three rounds in 4.6 seconds, but 1 shot was an inch high and the other two were 4-5 inches high. ( ibid. )
 


The short distance tests showed that, even with the scope, the rifle missed the aiming point by almost a half of a foot.

It wasn't until almost 4 months later, on March 16, 1964, that the FBI was able to test the rifle at long range. This test was conducted with a target at 100 yards and the only shooter once again was Robert Frazier.

I refer to this test as the second FBI test because it wasn't done at the same time and date as the short distance test.

In this test, Frazier fired four sets of 3 shots.

In his first set, he fired the three shots in 5.9 seconds, but was 5 inches too high.
In the second set, he fired the shots in 6.2 seconds, but was 4 inches high and 3-4 inches to the right.
In his third set, he fired the shots in 5.6 seconds, but he was 2 1/2 inches high and 2 inches to the right.
In his final set, he fired the three rounds in 6.5 seconds, but was 5 inches high and 5 inches to the right. ( 3 H 405 )
 


The long distance test conducted by the FBI proved that the further the target, the more a shooter missed what he was aiming at. What was a 2 1/2 to 4 inch miss at 15 yards, was a 4-5 inch miss at 100 yards.

In total, 3 FBI agents fired 27 rounds from the CE 139 rifle and not one round hit where they were aiming at.

The results of these tests proved that the rifle was NOT accurate and that Frazier lied under oath when he testified that it was.

Undaunted by the results of the FBI's tests, the Commission did what it usually did when the FBI's evidence did not give it the results it desired: it turned to a second opinion.
In this case, it turned to the US Army.

The Army tests

Because the FBI's tests had proven that the CE 139 rifle was inaccurate weapon, the Commission needed results proving otherwise. For that it turned to the US Army's weapons testing facility at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The man who supervised the testing was Ronald Simmons, Chief of the Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Ballistics Research Laboratory of the Department of the Army.

For the sake of being brief, I'll refer to these as the "army tests".

The Army's testing of the CE 139 rifle was done on March 27, 1964, eleven days after the FBI tests showed that the rifle could not have committed the crime.
The first test they did was a dispersion test. This is a test to measure the distance between or the "spread" of bullets fired at a target.
To minimize the dispersion or "spread" of the bullets, the testers used a "machine rest". ( 3 H 443 )
 

 

It was under these conditions, firing the rifle in a machine rest, that Simmons called the CE 139 rifle, "quite accurate" ( ibid. ), something the Commission quoted in its Report ( pg. 194 ), but failed to reveal under what circumstances the comment was made.

It's hard to image any rifle not being accurate when set up in a rig like that.

In fact, when comparing the accuracy of the rifle in a machine rest with its accuracy in the hands of a master rifleman, the rifle was anything but accurate.
The dispersion of the bullets on the targets of 240 and 270 ft show a wide spread. ( grey circle , below )
 

 

Not only was the dispersion wide on the second and third targets , almost half of those shots missed the target.
But having the rifle in a machine rest wasn't the only advantage the Army shooters had that a shooter from the sixth floor did not have.

Advantage # 1: Skill level

 

For its test, the Commission used three riflemen rated as Master ( the highest rating ) by the National Rifle Association. These were not men who grab a rifle and take pictures in their backyard, making believe they're something they're not. These guys were the real deal.

Two were civilians employed by the US Army as gunners and the third was on active duty. ( 3 H 445 )
And their skill level was far superior to Oswald's. In addition to being rated as Master riflemen, all three had experience in national shooting match competitions sponsored by the NRA. ( 3 H 450 )

In comparison, they were major league and Oswald was bush league.

On May 6, 1959 Oswald participated in a his final qualification test. In that test, he qualified "marksman" with a low reading of 191. The bare minimum to qualify was 190. ( red boxes below )
 


Lt. Col. A.G. Folsom Jr. Head of the Records Bureau of the Marine Corps., reported to the Commission that, "a low marksman qualification indicates a rather poor shot".
Lt. Col. Folsom's understanding of Oswald's rating was verified by Sgt. Nelson Delgado, Oswald's Sergeant, who described how poor a shot Oswald really was.
 


Skill advantage: riflemen.


Advantage # 2: Firing at stationary targets

Another advantage the Commission's shooters had was that they were firing at stationary targets placed at 175, 240 and 270 ft. rather than at a moving target.
Simmons told the Commission that in his opinion, the moving of the target would have no effect on the accuracy of fire because Kennedy was moving away from the rifle and was "exposed to the rifleman at all times". ( ibid.)

But this is not true. Anyone who has fired a rifle before knows that shooting at a moving target requires establishing a "lead". You must keep the gun moving with the target, in the same direction but in front of it, maintaining your "lead" as the target moves and then pull the trigger while you're continuing to move the gun.
This is called follow-through and it's necessary to hitting a moving target. If you stop the gun and lose that lead, you will miss.
This is a special skill that you can't learn from shooting at stationary targets in competitive events.

A target moving away from you would normally require a "lead" above it, not below it. A rifle firing as much as 5 inches high and 5 inches to the right would have required the shooter using it to aim his crosshairs just above Kennedy's left shoulder in order to hit his head.
We will never know what skills these riflemen had at shooting at moving targets. How much time it would have taken to fire three shots and how accurate those three shots would have been will remain one of those mysteries of the case.

The fact remains that shooting at a stationary target gives a shooter an advantage in speed by not having to reacquire the target and the "lead" between shots.

Speed advantage: riflemen


Advantage # 3: Time of first shot

The Commission concluded that because of the leaves on the tree outside the TSBD, the gunman's view from the sixth floor was obstructed until Zapruder frame 210. ( Report, pg. 105 ) Kennedy's reaction is apparent at Z225, some 15 frames or 0.8 seconds after he emerges from behind the tree.

This means that a gunman firing from the sixth floor had only .8 seconds to aim, lead the target and fire the first shot.
But the riflemen in the Commission's test were allowed to take as much time as they pleased aiming at the first target. ( 3 H 445 )
This advantage would be for accuracy. The shooter takes his time aiming for the first shot, when it's fired he can see where it hits and make an adjustment in his aim for the subsequent shots.
And the first shot will always be the most accurate.

Accuracy advantage: riflemen

Advantage # 4: Number of attempts

Three riflemen were given two attempts each with the CE 139 rifle. In total, 6 attempts were made and 18 shots were fired. In addition, the shooters were allowed 2-3 minutes each to work the stiff bolt back and forth before firing. There is no evidence that Oswald fired the rifle before November 22, 1963 and on that date, he allegedly only got one attempt of 3 shots.

Familiarity advantage: riflemen

Advantage # 5: Height
While a shooter firing from the sixth floor would have been firing from a height of 60 feet, the Commission's shooters fired from a height of only 30 feet.
 


Lowering the height from which the rifleman fires lowers the distance the bullet has to travel to the target. Using this calculator, where a is the height of the 6th floor in feet ( 60 ) and b is the distance of the head shot ( 240 ) we get a distance of 247.39 feet the shot has to travel.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hypotenuse&oq=&aqs=chrome.0.69i59i450l8.1463681633j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

But at a height of 30 feet, that distance comes down to 241.87. Not a big difference, but a difference nonetheless. And any shortage in distance is an advantage in time.

Timing advantage: riflemen


The test results

In spite of all the advantages the shooters had in this test, riflemen Staley and Hendrix were unable to complete the three-shot sequence in less than 6.45 seconds. Staley's best was 6.45, Hendrix's was 7 seconds flat. ( 3 H 446 )
Since their times were not anywhere near the 5.6 seconds the Warren Commission concluded was the firing sequence, I'll avoid critiquing their accuracy. Suffice it to say that they could not duplicate Oswald's alleged performance.
However, the third rifleman, Miller, was able to fire three shots within the Commission's 5.6 timeframe, albeit his accuracy was way off.
In his first attempt, Miller was able to fire three rounds in 4.6 seconds and his second attempt, 5.15. But he missed the second shot on both attempts. This is what his scorecard looked like:
 

 

Miller was the best for speed, but he missed the "target" twice and nearly missed it on his last shot.
As a result, Miller's performance, while as fast as or faster than that of the Commission's lone gunman, it could not match his alleged accuracy.
And for accuracy, we need to look no further than the scope.


The defective scope

When the FBI fired the rifle in November of 1963, it found that the shots were all high and to the right from the aiming point. But because the shots were so closely grouped together, it never occurred to the FBI experts to try to sight the rifle in.
When they did the long distance test at Quantico, they DID try to sight the rifle in and found that adjusting the windage ( horizontal adjustment ) turret on the side of the scope moved the elevation ( vertical ) adjustment as well. ( 3 H 405 )
 


This made the scope impossible to sight in and the FBI was left with sighting in the rifle "approximately". They test fired the rifle and found that "the shots were not landing in the same place, but were gradually moving away from the point of impact". ( 3 H 405 )
Frazier was unable to tell the Commission exactly when this defect occurred but the fact that the rifle was firing high and to the right when the Bureau fired it for the first time indicates it was damaged prior to the November 27th testing.

Frazier testified that this defect could be compensated for by merely aiming the crosshairs low and to the left ( 3 H 407 ), meaning that a shooter wishing to shoot Kennedy in the head would have to aim just over his left shoulder.

When Ronald Simmons testified before the Warren Commission, he made no mention that the windage adjustment was interferring with the elevation adjustment. He admitted that his people could not sight the rifle in and introduced two shims, one for the elevation and one for the azimuth ( windage ). ( 3 H 443 )
As it turned out, the shims were not an advantage, especially after 58.3 yards ( 175 ft ). The shims appeared to make the shots miss low and to the left.
The second and third targets ( 240 and 270 ft, respectively ) showed a wide dispersion and 5 of the 12 shots missed the target completely.
 



Conclusion


One of those flunkies the Commission called on was Marine Master Sergeant James Zahm, who told the Commission that Oswald's training and the equipment he used made him capable of committing the crime. ( 11 H 309 )
But Zahm was neither an expert on Oswald, the scope or the rifle. He had never spent time on a firing range with Oswald. He had never test fired the rifle or tried to sight in the scope.

His opinions were based on the use of a scope that was NOT defective and he was never shown the targets that were shot at.

How anybody could consider that this rifle, with this scope was an accurate weapon is beyond me. The targets presented as evidence indicates that the Commission's experts were XXXXX or had no idea.

The FBI targets in particular show where the shooters were aiming at and where the bullets hit. Frazier's own testimony was that even at 15 yards, the rifle fired 2 1/2 to 4 inches high from where they aimed it. ( 3 H 404 ) At 25 yards, it was 4-5 inches high. At 100 yards, it was 2 1/2 to 5 inches high.

An accurate weapon, sighted in correctly, hits where you aim it.

The Army installed shims to try to sight the rifle in. They used unmarked targets displaying shoulder and head only and gave no direction to their shooters where to aim. ( 3 H 445 )
How does one measure accuracy and omit having a common aiming point ? How does one measure how far off the bullet was without a reference point ?
Were they aiming for the head ? Center mass ? Were they all aiming at the same spot or someplace else ?
The Commission never asked. And it never heard from the Army shooters who participated in the test.

The Commission used riflemen with superior skills firing at stationary targets.
They were able to take as long as they wanted for the first shot, even though a shooter from the sixth floor would have only .8 seconds to fire the first shot.
They got more attempts and more shots ( the FBI's Frazier got 7 attempts and 21 shots ) than was attributed to Oswald. And they fired from a tower that was lower than the sixth floor, shortening the distance the bullet had to travel to the target.

In spite of all of these advantages, advantages that Oswald did not have, six gunmen took 15 attempts and fired 45 shots from the CE 139 rifle and failed in every attempt to hit what they aimed at.

And there is no evidence that Oswald was any more proficient in the operation of this weapon than they were.

In fact, there's no evidence that Oswald fired as many or more shots through this weapon than Robert Frazier did.
And Frazier never hit what he aimed at.

Which brings us to the defective scope. The evidence indicates that the scope was defective on November 27, when the FBI first tested the rifle and it fired high and to the right.
No evidence exists to show that the scope was damaged after the assassination or while in the possession of the Dallas Police.
Absent that evidence, we must assume that the condition of the scope when received by the FBI was the same condition it was in at the time of the assassination.

The scope was defective as it would not allow you to sight the rifle in. The FBI couldn't sight it in and the Army couldn't sight it in.

Six expert riflemen took 15 attempts and fired 45 shots from the CE 139 rifle and failed in every attempt to hit what they aimed at.
But Oswald hit two out of three.

This rifle, with this scope, was not accurate enough to kill President Kennedy. The rifle tests proved that.

Edited by Gil Jesus
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Michael Griffith Mentor

Michael Griffith

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Great post. And let's not forget what WC attorney Wesley Liebeler said about Oswald's rifle skills and the rifle in his 9/6/64 internal memo to Rankin wherein Liebeler expressed concerns about the draft of a portion of the Warren Report:

1. The purpose of this section is to determine Oswald's ability to fire a rifle. The third word at the top of page 50 of the galleys, which is apparently meant to describe Oswald, is "marksman." A marksman is one skilled at shooting at mark; one who shoots well. Not only do we beg the question a little, but the sentence is inexact in that the shot, which it describes, would be the same for marksman as it would for one who was not a marksman. How about: the assassin's shots from the easternmost window of the south side of the Texas School Book Depository were at a slow-moving target proceeding on a downgrade virtually straight away from the assassin, at a range of 177 to 266 feet."

2. The last sentence in the first paragraph on galley page 50 should indicate that the slope of Elm Street is downward.

3. The section on the nature of the shots deals basically with the range and the effect of a telescopic sight. Several experts conclude that the shots were easy. There is, however, no consideration given here to the time allowed for the shots. I do not see how someone can conclude that a shot is easy or hard unless he knows something about how long the firer has to shoot, that is, how much time allotted for the shots.

4. On the nature of the shots--Frazier testified that one would have no difficulty in hitting a target with a telescopic sight, since all you have to do is put the crosshairs on the target. On page 51 of the galleys, however, he testified that shots fired by FBI agents with the assassination weapon were "a few inches high and to the right of the target * * * because of a defect in the scope." Apparently no one knows when that defect appeared, or if it was in the scope at the time of the assassination. If it was, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary one may assume that it was, putting the crosshairs on the target would clearly have resulted in a miss, or it very likely would, in any event. I have raised this question before. There is a great deal of testimony in the record that a telescopic sight is a sensitive proposition. You can't leave a rifle and scope laying around in a garage underfoot for almost 3 months, just having brought it back from New Orleans in the back of a station wagon, and expect to hit anything with it, unless you take the trouble to fire it and sight the scope in. This would have been a problem that should have been dealt with in any event, and now that it turns out that there actually was a defect in the scope, it is perfectly clear that the question must be considered. The present draft leaves the Commission open to severe criticism. Furthermore, to the extent that it leaves testimony suggesting that the shots might not have been so easy out of the discussion, thereby giving only a part of the story, it is simply dishonest.

5. Why do we have a statement concerning the fact that Oswald's Marine records show that he was familiar with the Browning automatic rifle, .45-caliber pistol and 12-gage riot gun? That is completely irrelevant to the question of his ability to fire a rifle, unless there is evidence that the same skills are involved. It is, furthermore, prejudicial to some extent.

6. Under the heading "Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines" we have a statement concerning his hunting activities in Russia. It says that he joined a hunting club, obtained a license and went hunting about six times. It does not say what kind of a weapon he used. While I am not completely familiar with the record on this point, I do know for a fact that there is some indication that he used a shotgun. Under what theory do we include activities concerning a shotgun under a heading relating to rifle practice, and then presume not to advise the reader of the fact?

7. The statements concerning Oswald's practice with the assassination weapon are misleading. They tend to give the impression that he did more practicing than the record suggests that he did. My recollection is that there is only one specific time when he might have practiced. We should be more precise in this area, because the Commission is going to have its work in this area examined very closely.

8. On the top of galley page 51 we have that statement about Oswald sighting the telescopic sight at night on the porch in New Orleans. I think the support for that proposition is thin indeed. Marina Oswald first testified that she did not know what he was doing out there and then she was clearly led into the only answer that gives any support to this proposition.

9. I think the level of reaching that is going on in this whole discussion of rifle capability is merely shown by the fact that under the heading of rifle practice outside the Marine Corps appears the damning statement that "Oswald showed an interest in rifles by discussing that subject with others (in fact only one person as I remember it) and reading gun magazines."

10. I do not think the record will support the statement that Oswald did not leave his Beckley Avenue roominghouse on one of the weekends that he was supposedly seen at the Sports Drome Rifle Range.

11. There is a misstatement in the third paragraph under rapid fire tests when it says "Four of the firers missed the second shot." The preceding paragraph states that there were only three firers.

12. There are no footnotes whatsoever in the fifth paragraph under rapid fire tests and some rather important statements are made which require some support from someplace.

13. A minor point as to the next paragraph--bullets are better said to strike rather than land.

14. As I read through the section on rifle capability it appears that 15 different sets of three shots were fired by supposedly expert riflemen of the FBI and other places. According to my calculations those 15 sets of shots took a total of 93.8 seconds to be fired. The average of all 15 is a little over 6.2 seconds. Assuming that time is calculated commencing with the firing of the first shot, that means the average time it took to fire the two remaining shots was about 6.2 seconds. That comes to about 3.1 seconds for each shot, not counting the time consumed by the actual firing, which would not be very much. I recall that chapter 3 said that the minimum time that had to elapse between shots was 2.25 seconds, which is pretty close to the one set of fast shots fired by Frazier of the FBI.

The conclusion indicates that Oswald had the capability to fire three shots with two hits in from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. Of the 15 sets of 3 shots described above. only 3 were fired within 4.8 seconds. A total of five sets, including the three just mentioned were fired within a total of 5.6 seconds. The conclusion at its most extreme states that Oswald could fire faster than the Commission experts fired in 12 of their 15 tries and that in any event he could fire faster than the experts did in 10 of their 15 tries. If we are going to set forth material such as this, I think we should set forth some information on how much training and how much shooting the experts had and did as a whole. The readers could then have something on which to base their judgments concerning the relative abilities of the apparently slow firing experts used by the Commission and the ability of Lee Harvey Oswald.

15. The problems raised by the above analyses should be met at some point in the text of the report. The figure of 2.25 as a minimum firing time for each shot used throughout chapter 3. The present discussion of rifle capability shows that expert riflemen could not fire the assassination weapon that fast. Only one of the experts managed to do so, and his shots, like those of the other FBI experts, were high and to the right of the target. The fact is that most of the experts were much more proficient with a rifle than Oswald could ever be expected to be, and the record indicates that fact, according to my recollection of the response of one of the experts to a question by Mr. McCloy asking for a comparison of an NRA master marksman to a Marine Corps sharpshooter.

16. The present section on rifle capability fails to set forth material in the record tending to indicate that Oswald was not a good shot and that he was not interested in his rifle while in the Marine Corps. It does not set forth material indicating that a telescopic sight must be tested and sighted in after a period of nonuse before it can be expected to be accurate. That problem is emphasized by the fact that the FBI actually found that there was a defect in the scene which caused the rifle to fire high and to the right. In spite of the above the present section takes only part of the material in the record to show that Oswald was a good shot and that he was interested in rifles. I submit that the testimony Delgado that Oswald was not interested in his rifle while in the Marines is at least as probative as Alba's testimony that Oswald came into his garage to read rifle--and hunting--magazines.

To put it bluntly that sort of selection from the record could seriously affect the integrity and credibility of the entire report.

17. It seems to me that the most honest and the most sensible thing to do the present state of the record on Oswald's rifle capability would be to write a very short section indicating that there is testimony on both sides of several issues. The Commission could then conclude that the best evidence that Oswald could fire his rifle as fast as he did and hit the target is the fact that he did so. It may have been pure luck. It probably was to a very great extent. But it happened. He would have had to have been lucky to hit as he did if he had only 4.8 seconds to fire the shots. Why don't we admit instead of reaching and using only part of the record to support the propositions presently set forth in the galleys. Those conclusions will never be accepted by critical persons anyway. (11 HSCA 230-232; 9/6/64 memo)

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Pat Speer Grand Master

Pat Speer

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I discuss this in exhaustive detail in chapters 3, 3c, and 4g on my website. I think the one thing I would add is that the first accuracy tests used the scope and found that the rifle when using the scope fired 4 inches high and one inch to the right at only 15 yards. And that it consistently fired high and to the right. Frazier of course later adjusted the scope and found that this distance could be reduced but not completely. Tellingly, moreover, he said that after adjusting the rifle, he would need to take a few shots before it settled in...that is, before it became consistent. Well, this blows out of the water the frequent and recurring argument by LNs that the scope was knocked out of alignment by Oswald after the shooting. If he had done so, per Frazier, the rifle would not have fired consistently high and to the right when first tested. 

Now I have discussed this before on this and other forums. And the WC defenders have often interjected that "Well, clearly, LT. Day or someone at the DPD had test-fired the rifle before it was shipped to the FBI, and that that was why the rifle fired constantly high and to the right when first tested by the FBI." Only there is no record of this, whatsoever. Or, sometimes, they will quote Robert Frazier saying Lt. Day had removed shims from the rifle before shipping it to the FBI... Only, here, they miss that Frazier just made this up for a 30 years after book defending the integrity of the FBI crime lab...

Well, the hypocrisy is telling. The historical record indicates that the rifle was inaccurate on 11-22-63. And the only way to get around this is to invent scenarios, and then pretend they happened. When CTs do this, of course, they are vilified as "wild-eyed" theorists. Well, it is a "wild-eyed" theory Day test fired the rifle, or removed shims from the rifle without telling anyone. And that's a fact. 

Edited by Pat Speer
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Gil Jesus Mentor

Gil Jesus

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4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I discuss this in exhaustive detail in chapters 3, 3c, and 4g on my website. I think the one thing I would add is that the first accuracy tests used the scope and found that the rifle when using the scope fired 4 inches high and one inch to the right at only 15 yards. And that it consistently fired high and to the right. Frazier of course later adjusted the scope and found that this distance could be reduced but not completely. Tellingly, moreover, he said that after adjusting the rifle, he would need to take a few shots before it settled in...that is, before it became consistent. Well, this blows out of the water the frequent and recurring argument by LNs that the scope was knocked out of alignment by Oswald after the shooting. If he had done so, per Frazier, the rifle would not have fired consistently high and to the right when first tested. 

Now I have discussed this before on this and other forums. And the WC defenders have often interjected that "Well, clearly, LT. Day or someone at the DPD had test-fired the rifle before it was shipped to the FBI, and that that was why the rifle fired constantly high and to the right when first tested by the FBI." Only there is no record of this, whatsoever. Or, sometimes, they will quote Robert Frazier saying Lt. Day had removed shims from the rifle before shipping it to the FBI... Only, here, they miss that Frazier just made this up for a 30 years after book defending the integrity of the FBI crime lab...

Well, the hypocrisy is telling. The historical record indicates that the rifle was inaccurate on 11-22-63. And the only way to get around this is to invent scenarios, and then pretend they happened. When CTs do this, of course, they are vilified as "wild-eyed" theorists. Well, it is a "wild-eyed" theory Day test fired the rifle, or removed shims from the rifle without telling anyone. And that's a fact. 

I can't see how anybody, regardless of what you believe, could look at the targets in evidence and conclude that the CE 139 rifle was accurate. When the physical evidence is at odds with the testimony, then testimony is wrong. The Commission's experts lied and those lies were repeated in the Report. The targets are the proof. 

And it calls into question ANYTHING the Commission's Report concludes. If they lied about that, what else did they lie about ?

Edited by Gil Jesus
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Benjamin Cole Grand Master

Benjamin Cole

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Terrific post by Gil Jesus. 

My layman's understanding is that a "machine rest" test absolutely stabilizes a rifle, so you can then measure variations you get---the spread of a rifle shots across a target that are due to the equipment, not to the human firing a gun. 

So, if I understand this post correctly, at 270 feet the LHO-Mannlicher-Carcano, when held absolutely stable, has a spread that looks to be about 12 inches or maybe more.  Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a ruler to aid in measuring the spread seen here.

Another problem is we are not informed where the rifle was supposed to hit. Was it aimed in the center of the figure, or the figure's head? 

spread.jpg

In any event, you see at 270 feet there is a lot of play in where a bullet will stray. Even an accurate, skilled rifleman would have trouble with a head shot at 270 feet with the LHO Mannlicher-Carcano, especially at a moving target.

Thanks to Gil for this careful parsing of evidence. 

BTW, whenever the government brings a case against anybody, regardless of politics or time or place, the defendant deserves this parsing of evidence. LHO never had a defense. 

 

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