Walker Bullet Errata

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Another interesting detail about the Walker bullet is that when it was sent to the FBI lab, Hoover ordered that it be returned to the DPD after the examination. 

The lab concluded that the rifling characteristics on the bullet could not be matched to Oswald’s rifle. One of the reasons cited for the non-match was that the bullet was deformed, but the lab also stated that: “… the individual microscopic marks left on bullets by the barrel of the K1 rifle could have changed subsequent to the time Q188 was fired”

The lab decided to override Hoover and “temporarily retain” the bullet in the lab in case any other bullets were discovered that were fired from Oswald’s rifle around the time of the Walker shooting.  Ivan Conrad even specifically told the FBI liaison with the WC to look for sources of bullets from the earlier part of the year and to interview Marina Oswald about where Oswald took target practice so that the lab could “further attempt to resolve the question of identity”.

Well, this implies that the marks on the Walker bullet were clear enough to match to a specific rifle barrel, and that they didn’t match Oswald’s rifle or any of the test bullets, CE399, etc. that were in possession of the FBI Lab. 

In other words, it’s not a slam dunk, but there’s evidence suggesting that CE573 was fired from a different MC.

The FBI lab report was spun by the FBI and WC into saying that CE573 had “similar characteristics” and that it could have been fired from Oswald’s rifle, but the lab report itself states that the only similarity was that the bullet was fired from a rifle with four lands and grooves and a right twist. 

The reality is that the rifling characteristics change over time, and that bullets can not always be linked to the rifles they were fired from if months or years have passed since they were fired. CE399, if I recall, could not be matched to the supposed assassination rifle by the HSCA, so they had to rely on old photos of comparison bullets fired in 1963. 

It is of interest, nonetheless, that there was little evidence Oswald fired his rifle between the attempt on Walker and the assassination less than a year later. I would be curious as to how many shots would normally be fired before the rifling characteristics no longer matched. But I bet it would be more than the number of times the FBI and WC suspected LHO's rifle had been fired. 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Pat Speer--

As far as you know, did anyone ever---ever!---refer to CE399, also found in 1963, as a "steel jacketed" bullet?

What does that tell you? 

 

You are obviously correct in pointing out that the initial description of the bullet as steel jacketed, in conjunction with Walker's later refusal to ID the bullet, suggests the bullet was switched. But the initial description of the bullet as steel jacketed on its own, IMO, is not nearly as powerful, seeing as the DPD made numerous mistakes, and seeing as many people used the terms "steel jacketed" and "full metal jacketed" interchangeably.

I do think we should try to find the FBI's initial photos of the bullet. The late John Hunt found a number of surprises in the FBI's bulky files--that had never been published or digitized. Perhaps there's a photo in there. Of course, if we are to assume the DPD never sent them the original bullet, and only sent them the replacement bullet (which hadn't even been fired by the supposed assassination rifle), an early FBI photo might be of no help at all.  

BUT...I think you started this by mentioning that Day supposedly signed the original bullet. IF the FBI's earliest photos prove the bullet sent to D.C. was not signed, well, then, that might be the final nail in the coffin for the "Walker bullet" placed into evidence. 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Pat Speer  I have become somewhat of an amateur expert on toolmarks and have attended numerous forensic conferences. Recent studies have shown that rifiling characteristics do not change significantly over time. Cliff Spiegleman testified at the 2017 mock trial about this issue.  As you may know, the 2009 NAS Report called into quesiton many of the forensic tests used in criminal cases including toolmark analysis.

This raises interesting questions about the HSCA tests on the MC. The firearms panel compared bullets fired from the rifle in 1978 against those in 1963 and they were deemed not to match. The firearms panel concluded this was because of the firings done in 1964 and poor condition of the rifle.

I asked Spiegelman and other forensic experts about this conclusion and they said it was not true. For example, studies on machine guns found no change in toolmarks  after over 10,000 firings. Another expert told me that rust would be expelled with the first shot and should not change the toolmarks in subsequent tests.

BTW- i recently read your chapter critiquing Dr. Kurtz' statements in his books. He is still alive so I was wondering if you had the opportunity to discuss your analysis with him so that he could respond/explain the inconsistencies you found. I ask because there has been an extended discussion about your chapter on the Paul Hoch list the past day or so.

 

Larry  

Edited April 28, 2023 by Lawrence Schnapf

[Mark Ulrik]

25 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

BUT...I think you started this by mentioning that Day supposedly signed the original bullet. IF the FBI's earliest photos prove the bullet sent to D.C. was not signed, well, then, that might be the final nail in the coffin for the "Walker bullet" placed into evidence.

It's not my impression that he was examining the actual bullet when he told the WC that it had "Day" scratched in it, so perhaps his memory played a trick and only a single letter was used on that occasion. It would also be interesting to see photographs of original evidence containers such as envelopes. There is a published John Hunt photo of the pill box used for Q1 (CE399), so there may be one for Q188 as well, although I suppose those pill boxes were supplied by the FBI lab.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Tom Gram  I think what the lab report said was that the bullet was too multilated to match to an individual rifle but the rifling was sufficient to identify "class characteristics" (these marks include the caliber, number of lands and grooves, and direction of rifling twist).   Reference works list the class characteristics for each manufacturer, which would enable an examiner to determine what type of firearm was used to fire the recovered bullet. This is different from identifying a particular bullet to a particular rifle. 

[Benjamin Cole]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

You are obviously correct in pointing out that the initial description of the bullet as steel jacketed, in conjunction with Walker's later refusal to ID the bullet, suggests the bullet was switched. But the initial description of the bullet as steel jacketed on its own, IMO, is not nearly as powerful, seeing as the DPD made numerous mistakes, and seeing as many people used the terms "steel jacketed" and "full metal jacketed" interchangeably.

I do think we should try to find the FBI's initial photos of the bullet. The late John Hunt found a number of surprises in the FBI's bulky files--that had never been published or digitized. Perhaps there's a photo in there. Of course, if we are to assume the DPD never sent them the original bullet, and only sent them the replacement bullet (which hadn't even been fired by the supposed assassination rifle), an early FBI photo might be of no help at all.  

BUT...I think you started this by mentioning that Day supposedly signed the original bullet. IF the FBI's earliest photos prove the bullet sent to D.C. was not signed, well, then, that might be the final nail in the coffin for the "Walker bullet" placed into evidence. 

Pat Speer--

I am trying to get the 24 NARA hi-rez photos of CE573 downloaded. 

Gary Murr has seen the photos, and he says there is no word "DAY" on the obviously copper-jacketed slug, CE573.

Lt. Day, to the FBI, and then the WC, said out loud he had marked the true Walker bullet with his name and a cross. 

Of course, even hi-rez photos might miss a mark---that may have happened on CE399. 

I suspect the true Walker bullet was simply replaced by CE573. Likely, not by the DPD.

Chief Curry, as late as Nov. 29, was publicly positing that JFK had been shot by a "steel jacketed" bullet, and was seeking confirmation from the FBI that that was the case. See my related post. 

I have to say, police officials and detectives do not use the terms "steel jacketed bullets" and "copper-jacketed bullets" interchangeably, especially in describing evidence in murder attempts of high profile individuals or presidential assassinations. 

Even gun board bros make distinctions. 

The idea that two DPD detectives would officially call the CE573 slug "steel jacketed"...and that Chief Curry would say on Nov. 29 he is seeking FBI confirmation that JFK was shot by "steel-jacketed bullets"...just because the Chief and the detectives used sloppy nomenclature...well, stretches credulity. 

Much more likely, a steel-jacketed 30.06 was recovered from the Walker home on April 10, 1963. 

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

16 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Pat Speer--

I am trying to get the 24 NARA hi-rez photos of CE573 downloaded. 

Gary Murr has seen the photos, and he says there is no word "DAY" on the obviously copper-jacketed slug, CE573.

Lt. Day, to the FBI, and then the WC, said out loud he had marked the true Walker bullet with his name and a cross. 

Of course, even hi-rez photos might miss a mark---that may have happened on CE399. 

I suspect the true Walker bullet was simply replaced by CE573. Likely, not by the DPD.

Chief Curry, as late as Nov. 29, was publicly positing that JFK had been shot by a "steel jacketed" bullet, and was seeking confirmation from the FBI that that was the case. See my related post. 

I have to say, police officials and detectives do not use the terms "steel jacketed bullets" and "copper-jacketed bullets" interchangeably, especially in describing evidence in murder attempts of high profile individuals or presidential assassinations. 

Even gun board bros make distinctions. 

The idea that two DPD detectives would officially call the CE573 slug "steel jacketed"...and that Chief Curry would say on Nov. 29 he is seeking FBI confirmation that JFK was shot by "steel-jacketed bullets"...just because the Chief and the detectives used sloppy nomenclature...well, stretches credulity. 

Much more likely, a steel-jacketed 30.06 was recovered from the Walker home on April 10, 1963. 

 

 

 

I think you could be onto something. In my own research on Oswald's shirt, I found that the fibers found on the rifle were from a shirt Oswald swore he wasn't wearing at the time of the shooting. I was able to get the Archives to send me some color photos of the shirt I thought he'd been wearing, and it matched his description for the shirt he'd been wearing. But it didn't have a hole in the elbow, when Bledsoe said she saw a hole in the elbow in the shirt he was wearing after the shooting. And, huh, the shirt Oswald said he put on after he got to his rooming house has a hole in the elbow in the FBI photos. Well, I was perfectly content to accept he'd been wearing this shirt--and had lied about the other shirt--but decided to put it to a final test. I searched out every photo of Oswald wearing the shirt now bearing a hole in the elbow and found that none of the photos taken of him at the police station on 11-22 reveal such a hole. I then read up on clothing tears in some forensic books and publications and from this it became quite clear to me that the hole in the shirt the WC claimed Oswald was wearing on the 22nd--the one whose fibers were mysteriously wrapped around the butt plate of the rifle--were man-made after Oswald's arrest (almost certainly to effect an ID from Bledsoe). 

So, yes, I do think the FBI cooked some of the evidence against Oswald, and wouldn't be surprised if they'd pulled a switcheroo on the Walker bullet as well. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Benjamin Cole]

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

I think you could be onto something. In my own research on Oswald's shirt, I found that the fibers found on the rifle were from a shirt Oswald swore he wasn't wearing at the time of the shooting. I was able to get the Archives to send me some color photos of the shirt I thought he'd been wearing, and it matched his description for the shirt he'd been wearing. But it didn't have a hole in the elbow, when Bledsoe said she saw a hole in the elbow in the shirt he was wearing after the shooting. And, huh, the shirt Oswald said he put on after he got to his rooming house has a hole in the elbow in the FBI photos. Well, I was perfectly content to accept he'd been wearing this shirt--and had lied about the other shirt--but decided to put it to a final test. I searched out every photo of Oswald wearing the shirt now bearing a hole in the elbow and found that none of the photos taken of him at the police station on 11-22 reveal such a hole. I then read up and clothing tears in some forensic books and publications and from this it became quite clear to me that the hole in the shirt the WC claimed Oswald was wearing on the 22nd--the one whose fibers were mysteriously wrapped around the butt plate of the rifle--were man-made after Oswald's arrest (almost certainly to effect an ID from Bledsoe). 

So, yes, I do think the FBI cooked some of the evidence against Oswald. 

Pat Speer-

I have read through your formidable body of work on the JFKA, and you have raised bona  fide serious questions about FBI work. 

It is hardly a secret that as early as Nov. 24, the plan was in effect to prosecute LHO, rather than truly investigate the JFKA. The Katzenbach memo, and so much more. 

Of course, it is possible to railroad a guilty man. The LAPD may have planted a glove at the OJ residence the night of the murders. That does not truly exonerate OJ, although it might legally spring OJ. 

Unfortunately, in the 1960s the official "enhancing of the evidence" may have been done by police agencies.  

in 1963, Hoover had made it pretty clear what results were wanted. 

On top of it all, no competent police official would ever say CE573 or CE399 were "steel jacketed." That dog just don't hunt. 

Please see my related post on Chief Curry. Fascinating.

By Nov. 29, DPD Chief Curry was asking the FBI if JFK has been assassinated with "steel jacketed bullets." 

You can't make this stuff up. 

 

[Mark Ulrik]

48 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I am trying to get the 24 NARA hi-rez photos of CE573 downloaded. 

Gary Murr has seen the photos, and he says there is no word "DAY" on the obviously copper-jacketed slug, CE573.

Because I sent them to him, and yeah, of course we wouldn't expect to see Day's name in those 2014 photographs when it wasn't found in 1979 when the bullet was examined under a microscope in the FBI lab. I had to refresh my memory, but these are the markings that were found:

[DPD evid. box, lid] "4-10-63 4011 Turtle. CK  Burg by F. A.  BGB RF JH Q188"

[DPD evid. box, ins. btm.] "Day 7640"

[DPD evid. box, outs. btm.] "7640 Day", "Q188" and "Rm"

[Bullet] "Q188", "N", "B", "J", "D", "A", "O" (or "D"), "JH" and "RF"

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10040#relPageId=10

Steve Roe has also written about this.

[Benjamin Cole]

17 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

Because I sent them to him, and yeah, of course we wouldn't expect to see Day's name in those 2014 photographs when it wasn't found in 1979 when the bullet was examined under a microscope in the FBI lab. I had to refresh my memory, but these are the markings that were found:

[DPD evid. box, lid] "4-10-63 4011 Turtle. CK  Burg by F. A.  BGB RF JH Q188"

[DPD evid. box, ins. btm.] "Day 7640"

[DPD evid. box, outs. btm.] "7640 Day", "Q188" and "Rm"

[Bullet] "Q188", "N", "B", "J", "D", "A", "O" (or "D"), "JH" and "RF"

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10040#relPageId=10

Steve Roe has also written about this.

MU---

So...do you think there is reasonable doubt that CE573 is in fact the "steel jacketed" 30.06 slug the DPD detectives thought they recovered from the Walker home on April 10, 1963? 

[Greg Doudna]

20 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I think you could be onto something. In my own research on Oswald's shirt, I found that the fibers found on the rifle were from a shirt Oswald swore he wasn't wearing at the time of the shooting. I was able to get the Archives to send me some color photos of the shirt I thought he'd been wearing, and it matched his description for the shirt he'd been wearing. But it didn't have a hole in the elbow, when Bledsoe said she saw a hole in the elbow in the shirt he was wearing after the shooting. And, huh, the shirt Oswald said he put on after he got to his rooming house has a hole in the elbow in the FBI photos. Well, I was perfectly content to accept he'd been wearing this shirt--and had lied about the other shirt--but decided to put it to a final test. I searched out every photo of Oswald wearing the shirt now bearing a hole in the elbow and found that none of the photos taken of him at the police station on 11-22 reveal such a hole. I then read up on clothing tears in some forensic books and publications and from this it became quite clear to me that the hole in the shirt the WC claimed Oswald was wearing on the 22nd--the one whose fibers were mysteriously wrapped around the butt plate of the rifle--were man-made after Oswald's arrest (almost certainly to effect an ID from Bledsoe). 

So, yes, I do think the FBI cooked some of the evidence against Oswald, and wouldn't be surprised if they'd pulled a switcheroo on the Walker bullet as well. 

With steel-jacketed as a generic term and the tendency to follow a written record once its started, and police fallability, I don't see any major reason to assume substitution of the Walker bullet. Dallas police just have a track record of similar inexactnesses elsewhere. For examples: Item: Gus Rose and another officer cosigned a written report saying the window through which the bullet was fired into Walker's home had no blind, but film footage of reporters the next day shows the window did have a blind. Item: C162, the Tippit killer's jacket, is written up as "gray" on a DPD crime lab document and that is how it is labeled by the WC and to this very day including in Myers book, when C162 never was gray, it is a light-tan off-white. Myers' own published color photo underlying the Warren Commission's photo of C162 in his own book shows it is light tan, below which Myers has it captioned "gray". Most of the Tippit crime scene witnesses called the Tippit killer's jacket light tan. I have a paper on this coming up shortly. C162 never was gray, although occasionally mistakenly described as white or light gray but those never were quite right. But somebody wrote on a police document that C162 was "gray", and everyone followed...

Item: Dallas police officers and deputy sheriffs mistakenly identified the Carcano shown in film footage on the 6th floor as a Mauser. Item: a deputy sheriff said many metal boxes all filled with names of Cuban sympathizers were found at Ruth Paine's house when those metal boxes were inventoried from the beginning and filled with other things.

In each of these cases whole industries of decades of CT writings were built up around assuming no original police officer would make such an egregious mistake because, well, they are the police! And assuming various forms of gigantic coverups, tip-of-the-iceberg theories, imaginative theories, etc. based on an attachment to the original officer error being taken literally. 

I think this Walker bullet substitution idea fits well into the pattern above, of overthinking what is best understood as an original generic term like referring to a "xerox" copy done by a different make of machine. 

But speaking of your work on the "threads of evidence", on the shirts worn by Oswald and the argument for planted threads from a shirt Oswald was not even wearing that morning planted on the rifle ... that chapter is brilliant (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4b-threads-of-evidence). And I will add to it: I can explain where Mary Bledsoe got the hole in the elbow of Oswald's shirt (which preceded her being shown the brown shirt with the torn hole in it as you explain). She did not get it from either of Oswald's shirts, the maroon one that Oswald actually wore the morning of Nov 22 (as you rightly show) or the brown shirt of the afternoon arrest. 

Mary Bledsoe was describing seeing Oswald's gray jacket, the same gray jacket Buell Wesley Frazier described Oswald wearing that morning which Frazier said was sort of "woolen" and was not C162. Oswald was wearing it tucked in as if it was shirt-like when he got on that bus, and it was dirty and torn at the right elbow and there were no buttons (it was a zippered jacket without buttons)--everything Mary Bledsoe described! That is what she really saw. And I have found the hole in the right elbow in Oswald's gray "flannel, sort of woolen" jacket (as Frazier described Oswald's gray jacket), a picture of it!

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Mark Ulrik]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

MU---

So...do you think there is reasonable doubt that CE573 is in fact the "steel jacketed" 30.06 slug the DPD detectives thought they recovered from the Walker home on April 10, 1963? 

I don't think there is reasonable doubt that CE573 is the slug that was recovered from the Walker home on April 10, 1963.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Mark Ulrik

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Mark Ulrik said:

Because I sent them to him, and yeah, of course we wouldn't expect to see Day's name in those 2014 photographs when it wasn't found in 1979 when the bullet was examined under a microscope in the FBI lab. I had to refresh my memory, but these are the markings that were found:

[DPD evid. box, lid] "4-10-63 4011 Turtle. CK  Burg by F. A.  BGB RF JH Q188"

[DPD evid. box, ins. btm.] "Day 7640"

[DPD evid. box, outs. btm.] "7640 Day", "Q188" and "Rm"

[Bullet] "Q188", "N", "B", "J", "D", "A", "O" (or "D"), "JH" and "RF"

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10040#relPageId=10

Steve Roe has also written about this.

Is it possible that Day was misremembering writing “Day” on the bullet in his WC testimony? Sure. Is it possible that Day was misremembering marking the bullet with “Day” and “a cross” while he literally had the bullet in his possession and was handing it over to Bardwell Odum? Not so sure. 

Odum’s 302 report on his contact with Day states: 

“Lieutenant Carl Day of the Dallas Police Department furnished a rifle slug… 

…The slug was identified by a cross and the word DAY which Lieutenant Day stated he had placed on the slug.” 

Odum’s phrasing makes it sound like Odum saw the marks himself and Day was just confirming that he made them - which would make sense since Day gave Odum the bullet. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

With steel-jacketed as a generic term and the tendency to follow a written record once its started, and police fallability, I don't see any major reason to assume substitution of the Walker bullet. Dallas police just have a track record of similar inexactnesses elsewhere. For examples: Item: Gus Rose and another officer cosigned a written report saying the window through which the bullet was fired into Walker's home had no blind, but film footage of reporters the next day shows the window did have a blind. Item: C162, the Tippit killer's jacket, is written up as "gray" on a DPD crime lab document and that is how it is labeled by the WC and to this very day including in Myers book, when C162 never was gray, it is a light-tan off-white. Myers' own published color photo underlying the Warren Commission's photo of C162 in his own book shows it is light tan, below which Myers has it captioned "gray". Most of the Tippit crime scene witnesses called the Tippit killer's jacket light tan. I have a paper on this coming up shortly. C162 never was gray, although occasionally mistakenly described as white or light gray but those never were quite right. But somebody wrote on a police document that C162 was "gray", and everyone followed...

Item: Dallas police officers and deputy sheriffs mistakenly identified the Carcano shown in film footage on the 6th floor as a Mauser. Item: a deputy sheriff said many metal boxes all filled with names of Cuban sympathizers were found at Ruth Paine's house when those metal boxes were inventoried from the beginning and filled with other things.

In each of these cases whole industries of decades of CT writings were built up around assuming no original police officer would make such an egregious mistake because, well, they are the police! And assuming various forms of gigantic coverups, tip-of-the-iceberg theories, imaginative theories, etc. based on an attachment to the original officer error being taken literally. 

I think this Walker bullet substitution idea fits well into the pattern above, of overthinking what is best understood as an original generic term like referring to a "xerox" copy done by a different make of machine. 

But speaking of your work on the "threads of evidence", on the shirts worn by Oswald and the argument for planted threads from a shirt Oswald was not even wearing that morning planted on the rifle ... that chapter is brilliant (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4b-threads-of-evidence). And I will add to it: I can explain where Mary Bledsoe got the hole in the elbow of Oswald's shirt (which preceded her being shown the brown shirt with the torn hole in it as you explain). She did not get it from either of Oswald's shirts, the maroon one that Oswald actually wore the morning of Nov 22 (as you rightly show) or the brown shirt of the afternoon arrest. 

Mary Bledsoe was describing seeing Oswald's gray jacket, the same gray jacket Buell Wesley Frazier described Oswald wearing that morning which Frazier said was sort of "woolen" and was not C162. Oswald was wearing it tucked in as if it was shirt-like when he got on that bus, and it was dirty and torn at the right elbow and there were no buttons (it was a zippered jacket without buttons)--everything Mary Bledsoe described! That is what she really saw. And I have found the hole in the right elbow in Oswald's gray "flannel, sort of woolen" jacket (as Frazier described Oswald's gray jacket), a picture of it!

 

Well, we are worlds apart on the likelihood CE573 is the "steel-jacketed" slug that two DPD detectives ID'ed in a same-day report they authored and signed on April 10. 

The term "steel jacketed" is not a generic term for all jacketed bullets. Why do posit that? Anything in the literature cause you to believe that? 

The term "full metal jacket" is somewhat generic, but even that almost always refers to copper-jacketed bullets. 

And what had Chief Curry opining on Nov. 29 that JFK had been shot with a "steel-jacketed" slug was again a police official just mushing up the nomenclature.

Curry was trying to confirm with the FBI that "steel jacketed" bullets were used in the JFKA. Curry used that specific term: "steel jacketed." 

No one ever ID'ed CE399 as "steel jacketed." Not once. Never. Suddenly the generic terms and the sloppy language disappears. 

You realize that Lt. Day told the FBI and then also the WC he put his name "DAY" and a cross on the true Walker slug---but that word "Day" is not on CE573?

And that CE573 is the very textbook photo of a copper-jacketed slug? There is no mistaking it. 

You have said you are not a firearms expert, or an ammo guy. Well, neither was I, when I first started writing about the Walker episode a few years back. But the more i research ammo...the more things did not line up. Tom Gram has done excellent research on the very dubious provenance of CE573. 

In the last few years I have learned people knowledgable about firearms and bullets draw distinctions between steel and copper, and that copper-jackets are by far the most common type in the US.

Steel has generally been eschewed in US markets, and certainly was in 1963. 

Indeed the US military produced steel-jacketed 30.06 bullets during WWII---but only under duress, due to wartime shortages. 

BTW, that is what DPD Detective Ira Van Cleave said he found in the Walker home--a steel-jacketed 30.06. The kind the US military sold as surplus after 1955.

So there was such a bullet on the market in the early 1960s. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Greg Doudna]

14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, we are worlds apart on the likelihood CE573 is the "steel-jacketed" slug that two DPD detectives ID'ed in a same-day report they authored and signed on April 10. 

The term "steel jacketed" is not a generic term for all jacketed bullets. Why do posit that? Anything in the literature cause you to believe that? 

The term "full metal jacket" is somewhat generic, but even that almost always refers to copper-jacketed bullets. 

And what had Chief Curry opining on Nov. 29 that JFK had been shot with a "steel-jacketed" slug was again a police official just mushing up the nomenclature.

Curry was trying to confirm with the FBI that "steel jacketed" bullets were used in the JFKA. Curry used that specific term: "steel jacketed." 

No one ever ID'ed CE399 as "steel jacketed." Not once. Never. Suddenly the generic terms and the sloppy language disappears. 

You realize that Lt. Day told the FBI and then also the WC he put his name "DAY" and a cross on the true Walker slug---but that word "Day" is not on CE573?

And that CE573 is the very textbook photo of a copper-jacketed slug? There is no mistaking it. 

You have said you are not a firearms expert, or an ammo guy. Well, neither was I, when I first started writing about the Walker episode a few years back. But the more i research ammo...the more things did not line up. Tom Gram has done excellent research on the very dubious provenance of CE573. 

In the last few years I have learned people knowledgable about firearms and bullets draw distinctions between steel and copper, and that copper-jackets are by far the most common type in the US.

Steel has generally been eschewed in US markets, and certainly was in 1963. 

Indeed the US military produced steel-jacketed 30.06 bullets during WWII---but only under duress, due to wartime shortages. 

BTW, that is what DPD Detective Ira Van Cleave said he found in the Walker home--a steel-jacketed 30.06. The kind the US military sold as surplus after 1955.

So there was such a bullet on the market in the early 1960s. 

You make a case and it is good to cross-examine these things. The issue seems to come down to whether the original officers could be mistaken in labeling, whether that is unrealistic. I agree that it is either a mistake or a substitution, not a generic term in which a police officer would knowingly call a copper-jacketed bullet steel-jacketed (I corrected wording in my above on that), in keeping with your point about C399 never being called steel-jacketed.

There is this discussion where there is some argument for the mistake idea being plausible: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/3jyJCWhHZJI . 

I just see these other cases of mistaken early police/first-responder descriptions having long afterlifes even after corrections are made. But I agree each case is case by case. From my point of view, I think Oswald took the shot (part of a staged shot as part of Walker's circle), and I don't see any real reason to doubt Marina's basic story of Oswald taking the rifle etc. retelling what he told her. The only positive argument for there being a substitution seems to come down to police would not make that mistake originally, and motive. Neither of those strike me as particularly persuasive or convincing, but I admit this is subjective. On Day saying he wrote "DAY" instead of "D", seems a simple error to make in memory?