Historical Clarity On The Construction Of WCC 6.5mm Carcano Ammunition

[Gary Murr]

Hello Greg:

I thank you for your inquiry. Let me think on your proposition for a bit before I decide if I want to open, anew, this particular can of worms. I will say that it is still my position as stated by myself in correspondence with James Gordon in 2020. [that sentence you bolded] Those who may think me daft for spending so much time researching the history of WCC 6.5mm carcano ammunition should be happy to know that I actually spent more time researching the wounding of John Connally - a gluten for punishment, as it were. To be honest with you, I have not looked at this material in a long time, at least not seriously, for probably at least six or seven years. However that does not mean I will completely close the door on a future thread with yourself and others ... as my time permits. Please understand that I am not dodging your proposition, I just have to alot time enough - trust me, this is a complex subject matter - to re-activate, as Hercule Poirot would say - those "little grey cells" of retention on this aspect of the Connally wounding - let alone find where I put literally thousands of pages of research.

In closing let me add that I always enjoy your threads here on the Ed Forum.

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

Ben ... I did see your answer and will respond in kind. I did start this afternoon but got interrupted by "real life." Additionally, not all the answers to the questions you pose present simple replies. Part of the issue is that when I decided to explore the possibilities of a second volume I put a lot of the documentation utilized in volume 1 - re WCC 6.5mm ammunition - aside. I will answer your queries but it may not be until tomorrow.

Verily, "real life" nags at us all. No worries, no hurry. I have waited for 60 years to learn what happened on 11/22, and some more days...just add on. 

We are all in gratitude for this superb research of yours.....

[Jean Ceulemans]

On 10/26/2023 at 2:37 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Questions:

1. How do we know that 2 million rounds of Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo was not re-imported?  

2. Obviously, Mannlicher Carcano rifles were being sold in the US. Were there other manufacturers of 6.5 ammo? I understand Italians were manufacturing 6.5 mm rounds for use in Mannlicher Carcanos. 

3. If all four million Western Cartridge 6.5 mm rounds were sent offshore, how did the FBI secure bona fide Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo, post-JFKA? Why did a least a few domestic suppliers have some bona fide Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo? 

4. Do you have an inkling where LHO got the Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo? 

5. Where did you get your Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo, provided in the Chapter 6 photo?

6. Is it just an optical illusion that the words on the headstamp in your color photo Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo example appear to indented into the headstamp, while the Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo in the b/w photo appear to protrude? 

 

On Q6 :that's because it's a negative captured from the reverse side to get a quick readable result (like a mirror reverse), I assume they did this as it gets a faster result i.s.o. developping the negative.  Downside is that it is still a negative : indents are shown as protruding. In developping you go from negative to positive and it would look ok.  Mirroring is not the same as going from negative to positive ofcourse, but it will make the text easy to read.

I have noticed this a few times in de pictures they used in the WC Hearings and Exh. documentation, they simply captured the reverse of a negative.   

Or worse, even in HSCA Volume VI: IV, see below... that picture can be a lot of things, but it is not a negative as the description states... , e.g. in a true B/W negative the shades are reversed, dark = light and vice versa, this is clearly not the case.  In a photographic study like this it's an unforgivable mistake IMO.  There's a lot more to be said about photo's, negatives, etc, but this is not the place 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Gary Murr]

Hello Bob

I thank you for taking the time to read the materials I presented as well as the questions you have posed as a result of your reading. I will deal with these same questions one at a time, chronologically as you presented them, your questions in quotation marks.

“1. How do we know that 2 million rounds of Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo was not re-imported?”

I made this statement, and continue to stand by this statement, because in my 12 years of researching this specific subject matter I have come across no record indicating that the ammunition in question ever left the continental United States. If, as the only surviving documented records I can find [to date] give no indication that the ammunition never left the country – in this case, the United States – how can it be re-imported back into the country? When I originally sat down and planned out how I wanted to approach this subject, I broke the outline down into various questions for which I wished to find answers. Three such questions came to me early; when exactly was the ammunition manufactured; how and for whom was the ammunition made; and three, where did it go once the manufacturing process was finished? Finding answers to this third question – where the ammunition went upon completion – led me the conclusion that the ammunition never left the country.

Because of work I had conducted on the CIA backed 1952 overthrow of the Arbenz government of Guatemala I was suspicious of a specific arsenal that had been used by various elements of the American military and others, including intelligence agencies, as a collection point for materials for clandestine operations – Raritan Arsenal, Raritan, New Jersey. This information, coupled with other materials I had gathered over a time span of several years of research, led me to wonder if Raritan Arsenal was the initial “end point” storage location of the completed WCC run of 6.5mm Carcano ammunition. But it was not until I was lucky enough to acquire documentation from the estate of long-time WCC employee, Walter Bellemore, head of Western’s Government Sales Office, that my suspicions were confirmed. The answer lay within the “Shipping Instructions” found on the original Continuation Sheet, Supply Contract for the 6.5mm order. [see below] In truth, it was the Junior Ordnance Quartermaster at Raritan Arsenal who not only issued the shipping instruction orders for the delivery of the completed runs of the WCC 6.5mm Carcano ammunition to Raritan, he also approved the final construct of the wooden ammunition cases used to pack the completed cartridge order and assigned the rather curious coding – “Z2AJX” – on the surface of these wooden crates [I know, because I own one of these crates].

I have a lengthy section – some 170+ pages – in my unpublished manuscript devoted to just how this ammunition got to Raritan and a partial history of Raritan Arsenal itself. I know the dates the ammunition left WCC, East Alton, Illinois, and the precise train routes that were taken to get the ammunition to Raritan and the dates on which this ammunition arrived at that arsenal. Built in 1917, as part of the American supply chain effort during WWI, Raritan was decommissioned in 1963, though talks of just such maneuvering had first been presented as far back as 1955. And not unexpectedly, Raritan Arsenal kept ordnance records. Unfortunately not all Raritan records survive to this day with many being destroyed over the past 60 odd years. However some records still exist, scattered between at least three NARA installations, the main NARA records in Washington, as well as NARA, Philadelphia, and NARA, Kansas City. I have, in person, scoured the Washington location for Raritan Records and copied some that were of interest. I have also exchanged emails and information with those responsible for the Raritan records at Kansas City. However, the largest surviving collection is that held in NARA Philadelphia. At this location they are part of Record Group 338 – 1917-1993 [bulk 1940-1970], Records of U. S. Army Operational, Tactical and Support Organizations – World War II and After -  sub group designation RG 338.11.1 – Records of Activities, Textual Records; Record [in Philadelphia] of the Delaware Storage Activity, Raritan Arsenal, NJ, consisting of general correspondence 1951-1955;  general orders 1951-1952, 1954-1955; organizational planning records 1952-1955; and management improvement records, 1952-1953. I hired two local Philadelphia research assistants very familiar with NARA Philadelphia who between them spent two weeks looking over these records for anything that may have pertained to the WCC 6.5mm ammunition production run. In addition to searching the various NARA sources, two specific Department of the Army Technical Bulletins – TB 9-AMM 4, “Small Arms Ammunition: Lots and Grades” and TB 9-1905-1, “Assignment of Ammunition Lot Numbers, or Suffixes Thereto, for Regrouped, Renovated, or Modified Lots of Ammunition Ordnance” - were of great help in cross-referencing the storage of this ammunition. I acquired copies of both of this bulletins, as well as others of interest, for the years 1952 through 1955. The purpose of these bulletins was to provide information on the issue, grades, and potential use of small arms ammunition as stored not only in government arsenals, such as Raritan, but also those being held/stored by commercial concerns who manufactured ammunition for the military, such as the WCC. The end result of this research was revealing. I could find no reference to the WCC manufactured 6.5mm Carcano ammunition anywhere in these records or importantly the reference bulletins – not a single entry. Study of these same records, and specifically the various reference bulletins, indicate that the WCC were allowed to re-use the four lot numbers of 6000, 6001, 6002, and 6003 that had originally been assigned to the 6.5mm Carcano ammunition on .30 caliber ball ammunition, including tracer ammunition, manufactured by Western.

In truth, the notion that some 2 million rounds of this ammunition had been re-imported back into the United States is the creation of Burt Munhall of H. P. White Labs, friend of members of the FBI lab. Though the FBI never revealed Munhall’s source for this information, I believe I know where it came from. Again, I have a great deal of information on this Munhall “tip” in my manuscript.

“2. Obviously, Mannlicher Carcano rifles were being sold in the US. Were there other manufacturers of 6.5 ammo? I understand Italians were manufacturing 6.5 mm rounds for use in Mannlicher Carcanos. “

While I am not an expert on other manufacturing concerns who may or may not have produced 6.5mm ammunition of various calibers during this time frame, I am confident that no other manufacturer of small arms ammunition, and in particular North American small arms manufacturers, made specifically 6.5 x 52 mm Mannlicher Carcano ammunition. There is absolutely no question that various Italian arms manufacturers made 6.5 x 52 mm ammunition specifically for Carcano weapons, including LMG’s – light machine guns – both prior to and during both WWI and WWII. However, the Allied victories in Italy over the closing months of WWII severely damaged the ability of multiple Italian small arms manufacturers’ to produce this specific ammunition.

“3. If all four million Western Cartridge 6.5 mm rounds were sent offshore, how did the FBI secure bona fide Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo, post-JFKA? Why did a least a few domestic suppliers have some bona fide Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo? “

If you like, I can provide a link to a section in my manuscript that clearly outlines how the FBI secured “bona fide” WCC 6.5mm Carcano ammunition; just let me know. The answer to the second part of this, your question 3, is simple, yet very important. The only reason that any 6.5mm WCC Carcano ammunition became available for purchase in North America, and the United States specifically, is because of one and one entity only - William Sucher and The International Firearms Company, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. No one, including the omnipresent Sam Cummings and Interarms/Interarmco, had any of this ammunition for sale or distribution … and I do mean no one… other than Sucher and International Firearms. And this topic is the subject matter of volume 2 of my work.

“4. Do you have an inkling where LHO got the Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo?” 

Unfortunately, no… and as I indicated in my writing, we will probably never really know, if, and trust me it is a huge if, LHO ever owned any WCC 6.5 mm ammunition. As far as I am able to ascertain, I cannot recall any location where someone could purchase individual rounds of this ammunition. It always came in boxes of 20 and was sold as such. There were, of course, two potential source suppliers in the Dallas – Irving, Texas area – John Thomas Masen, owner of Masen’s Gun Shop, and John H. Brinegar, owner of The Gun Shop. Both business entities were on Harry Hines Boulevard and as you may already know, each owner was familiar with the other and had exchanged WCC 6.5mm Carcano ammunition, some of which was modified with the replacing of the original bullet component of the ammo with “soft-point” hunting bullets. Of course neither individual ever admitted to knowing or dealing with the alleged assassin, LHO. After all, wouldn’t that have been bad for business?

“5. Where did you get your Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo, provided in the Chapter 6 photo?”

I acquired two complete boxes of 6.5mm WCC ammunition, lot numbers 6000 and 6001, both containing all 20 cartridges, from a fellow researcher, whose name I will not reveal.

“6. Is it just an optical illusion that the words on the headstamp in your color photo Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo example appear to indented into the headstamp, while the Western Cartridge 6.5 mm ammo in the b/w photo appear to protrude?” 

I believe Jean Ceulemans adequately and accurately answered this question for you in this thread. Actually I became aware of this “reverse” image reproduction in certain photographs in the Warren Commissions published volumes while studying John Connally X-rays.

[Gary Murr]

OOPS ....  Sorry Ben, for inadvertently calling you "Bob." Lets just put it down to old-timers disease.

Sorry...

Gary

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

I'm still digging in the information on CE 543/44/45 hoping to find answers to some of the questions I have : 

- for some reason in the 50/50 comparing test pictures with tsbd´s, there is always only one of the sides that is showing the WCC marks (I can only assume that part is of a TSBD one), but it feels uncomfortable they don't show a tested one with that headstamp (or a part),nicely fitting the marks of it´s partner, could be a coincidence, don't know.   I still have a lot to go through, so it's possible they are out there.  And some of the 50/50 pictures are... well... euhh...  odd...

- next, in the one below there seems to be a scratched mark visible, still trying to find such marks on others, as some dont show any initials in that spot, o/c they could have been marked all over the object

- next, when they did the testing (according some as early as 11/24 ?) they only had 2 of the 3 empty hulls, what was the route taken by the one Fritz still had ? Did they perfom tests on that on later date ?  Why didn´t the FBI protest to the fact that only 2 ot of 3 were delivered to them ?,

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Jean Ceulemans]

Batches 6001 and 6002 seem to exist with and without an additional letter added to the batch number.

6001 D and 6002 D or P or PE 

I have no idea what could be th meaning of that, perhaps a code used in CQ

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

OOPS ....  Sorry Ben, for inadvertently calling you "Bob." Lets just put it down to old-timers disease.

Sorry...

Gary

 

Thanks for your answers, and all your excellent research. 

1. So, it appears the William Sucher and The International Firearms Company, Montreal, Quebec, Canada was able to obtain some portion of the 4 million rounds of Western Cartridge 6.5 ammo that was manufactured in or about 1952. They re-sold the Western Cartridge 6.5 ammo to other distributors or retailers. 

2. If portions of the 4 million rounds were exported (I thought it was to Greece), there are no records of it. Obviously, if the rounds were never exported, then they were never re-imported, although it is hard to prove a negative.  

3. There were retail shops selling the Western Cartridge 6.5 ammo, such as the mentioned John Thomas Masen, owner of Masen’s Gun Shop, and John H. Brinegar, owner of The Gun Shop, in the Dallas area. I assume there may have been gun and ammo shops in New Orleans selling the bullets as well. 

4. But the Western Cartridge 6.5 ammo was relatively rare, evidently not involved in any type of crime that would have triggered the interest of the FBI pre-1963. Ergo, the FBI had no such ammo in its extensive "library" of ammo, and even bullet experts at the FBI were initially stumped by the ammo post-JFKA.  

Do I have a roughly right understanding of the situation? 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

10 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

On Q6 :that's because it's a negative captured from the reverse side to get a quick readable result (like a mirror reverse), I assume they did this as it gets a faster result i.s.o. developping the negative.  Downside is that it is still a negative : indents are shown as protruding. In developping you go from negative to positive and it would look ok.  Mirroring is not the same as going from negative to positive ofcourse, but it will make the text easy to read.

I have noticed this a few times in de pictures they used in the WC Hearings and Exh. documentation, they simply captured the reverse of a negative.   

Or worse, even in HSCA Volume VI: IV, see below... that picture can be a lot of things, but it is not a negative as the description states... , e.g. in a true B/W negative the shades are reversed, dark = light and vice versa, this is clearly not the case.  In a photographic study like this it's an unforgivable mistake IMO.  There's a lot more to be said about photo's, negatives, etc, but this is not the place 

 

Great answer. I was pretty sure headstamps are always indented...but I had to ask. 

[Gary Murr]

17 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Batches 6001 and 6002 seem to exist with and without an additional letter added to the batch number.

6001 D and 6002 D or P or PE 

Actually Jean, this is not exactly true. I can assure you that the WCC never affixed an additional letter or number to the various 6.5mm carcano ammunition lot numbers. I assume that because you posted this image you are aware that it is a photograph utilized by Dr. John Lattimer in his various articles attempting to defend the ability of this ammunition to accomplish the SBT. Whether or not Lattimer actually took this photograph, I do not know. There is a second image that shows the boxes piled one upon the other, vertically, rather than staggered as shown in the image you posted. I have slightly better resolution copies of these two photographs and it is apparent that what is written on box lot # 6001 is the lower half of the capital letter "B" followed by the number 7, while the writing on box lot # 6002 is definitly the capital letter "P" followed by the number 5. 

Like everything else associated with this ammunition, the small white box utilized to hold 20 rounds is unique and unique to this ammunition specifically. The boxes were a one-time order placed by Western with a small manufacturing concern called The Shultz Folding Box Company, situated just a few miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. There is a date stamped on the inside of one of the end flaps on all of the boxes indicating that the boxes were manufactured in 1953. Correspondence with an individual who once worked at Shultz, along with records I have from Western, indicate that Western never again used the Shultz Box Company for any ammunition packaging. 

Again something of which you may be aware - when you look at the boxes it is apparent that the lot numbers were not affixed to the boxes as they were manufactured. Rather they were hand-stamped, one at a time, prior to the loading of the actual cartridges. You can just imagine how laborious this procedure was and clear proof of this action is readily visible when looking at the boxes. I have three empty such boxes in addition to my two "full" boxes and in all five instances none of the lot number stampings are perfectly horizontal - just like the numbers in the images you posted. This is obviously as a result of the "human element" involved in this stamping process. Somewhere in my files I actually have a photograph of Western workers, at a table, hand-stamping lot numbers on empty cartridge boxes. I know they are empty because the boxes are laying flat in piles, one upon the other. I also somewhere have a picture of one of the Shultz manufactured 6.5mm carcano ammunition boxes that has no lot number stamped on it. I will try to find both and post them. 

This process of hand-stamping these boxes must have been extremely tedious. In this case of this specific ammunition, each finalized wooden crate used to ship the cartridges to Raritan Arsenal containe 1000 round of completed ammunition. That means each shipping crate contained 50 hand-stamped boxes of ammunition. This then means that 200,000 of these boxes had to be hand-stamped for this order of 4,000,000 rounds of ammunition - a job I would not want.

FWIW

[Jean Ceulemans]

3 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

Actually Jean, this is not exactly true. I can assure you that the WCC never affixed an additional letter or number to the various 6.5mm carcano ammunition lot numbers. I assume that because you posted this image you are aware that it is a photograph utilized by Dr. John Lattimer in his various articles attempting to defend the ability of this ammunition to accomplish the SBT. Whether or not Lattimer actually took this photograph, I do not know. There is a second image that shows the boxes piled one upon the other, vertically, rather than staggered as shown in the image you posted. I have slightly better resolution copies of these two photographs and it is apparent that what is written on box lot # 6001 is the lower half of the capital letter "B" followed by the number 7, while the writing on box lot # 6002 is definitly the capital letter "P" followed by the number 5. 

Like everything else associated with this ammunition, the small white box utilized to hold 20 rounds is unique and unique to this ammunition specifically. The boxes were a one-time order placed by Western with a small manufacturing concern called The Shultz Folding Box Company, situated just a few miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. There is a date stamped on the inside of one of the end flaps on all of the boxes indicating that the boxes were manufactured in 1953. Correspondence with an individual who once worked at Shultz, along with records I have from Western, indicate that Western never again used the Shultz Box Company for any ammunition packaging. 

Again something of which you may be aware - when you look at the boxes it is apparent that the lot numbers were not affixed to the boxes as they were manufactured. Rather they were hand-stamped, one at a time, prior to the loading of the actual cartridges. You can just imagine how laborious this procedure was and clear proof of this action is readily visible when looking at the boxes. I have three empty such boxes in addition to my two "full" boxes and in all five instances none of the lot number stampings are perfectly horizontal - just like the numbers in the images you posted. This is obviously as a result of the "human element" involved in this stamping process. Somewhere in my files I actually have a photograph of Western workers, at a table, hand-stamping lot numbers on empty cartridge boxes. I know they are empty because the boxes are laying flat in piles, one upon the other. I also somewhere have a picture of one of the Shultz manufactured 6.5mm carcano ammunition boxes that has no lot number stamped on it. I will try to find both and post them. 

This process of hand-stamping these boxes must have been extremely tedious. In this case of this specific ammunition, each finalized wooden crate used to ship the cartridges to Raritan Arsenal containe 1000 round of completed ammunition. That means each shipping crate contained 50 hand-stamped boxes of ammunition. This then means that 200,000 of these boxes had to be hand-stamped for this order of 4,000,000 rounds of ammunition - a job I would not want.

FWIW

Thank you for the clarification. 

I have asked my friend in Italy if he could contact some collectors over there that have WCC hulls, and check where they got them.

I already talked to him about it before, but he could only say the ones he has seen were in very good conditon (unlike hulls found on battlegrounds),

so it's possible they imported some hulls as a collectable.  

But the story of WCC's bullets going to Italy and back, has been going around for some time over there, not sure what to think of it.  Ofcourse stories have a tendency to change... so without real proof it didn't happen.   I do know when NATO kicked in there was a lot of surplus stock everywhere that didn't meet NATO standards, the WCC story might not be correct but could have originated in that period.        

[Jean Ceulemans]

So for now (and besides the early test runs), I have only found this reworked 150 grain- soft nose

supplied by Klein's to be "other than standard"

At least that's what was claimed by this guy, I do not know when Klein's offered those ?

Correct period Klein's advertisements should show this offer, but haven't found it yet, most are as per below (the well known ad with some adj. during 1963)

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

10 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

Actually Jean, this is not exactly true. I can assure you that the WCC never affixed an additional letter or number to the various 6.5mm carcano ammunition lot numbers. I assume that because you posted this image you are aware that it is a photograph utilized by Dr. John Lattimer in his various articles attempting to defend the ability of this ammunition to accomplish the SBT. Whether or not Lattimer actually took this photograph, I do not know. There is a second image that shows the boxes piled one upon the other, vertically, rather than staggered as shown in the image you posted. I have slightly better resolution copies of these two photographs and it is apparent that what is written on box lot # 6001 is the lower half of the capital letter "B" followed by the number 7, while the writing on box lot # 6002 is definitly the capital letter "P" followed by the number 5. 

Like everything else associated with this ammunition, the small white box utilized to hold 20 rounds is unique and unique to this ammunition specifically. The boxes were a one-time order placed by Western with a small manufacturing concern called The Shultz Folding Box Company, situated just a few miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. There is a date stamped on the inside of one of the end flaps on all of the boxes indicating that the boxes were manufactured in 1953. Correspondence with an individual who once worked at Shultz, along with records I have from Western, indicate that Western never again used the Shultz Box Company for any ammunition packaging. 

Again something of which you may be aware - when you look at the boxes it is apparent that the lot numbers were not affixed to the boxes as they were manufactured. Rather they were hand-stamped, one at a time, prior to the loading of the actual cartridges. You can just imagine how laborious this procedure was and clear proof of this action is readily visible when looking at the boxes. I have three empty such boxes in addition to my two "full" boxes and in all five instances none of the lot number stampings are perfectly horizontal - just like the numbers in the images you posted. This is obviously as a result of the "human element" involved in this stamping process. Somewhere in my files I actually have a photograph of Western workers, at a table, hand-stamping lot numbers on empty cartridge boxes. I know they are empty because the boxes are laying flat in piles, one upon the other. I also somewhere have a picture of one of the Shultz manufactured 6.5mm carcano ammunition boxes that has no lot number stamped on it. I will try to find both and post them. 

This process of hand-stamping these boxes must have been extremely tedious. In this case of this specific ammunition, each finalized wooden crate used to ship the cartridges to Raritan Arsenal containe 1000 round of completed ammunition. That means each shipping crate contained 50 hand-stamped boxes of ammunition. This then means that 200,000 of these boxes had to be hand-stamped for this order of 4,000,000 rounds of ammunition - a job I would not want.

FWIW

"The boxes were a one-time order placed by Western with a small manufacturing concern called The Shultz Folding Box Company, situated just a few miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. There is a date stamped on the inside of one of the end flaps on all of the boxes indicating that the boxes were manufactured in 1953."--GM

Man, this is great research. And it shows the Western Cartridge 6.5 bullets could not have been boxed or shipped before 1953. 

I have to repeat a question: As I understand it from your excellent reearch, there were 200,000 boxes of Western Cartridge 6.5 bullets, totaling 4 million rounds. These were packed into 400 wooden crates, which were then shipped to the Raritan Arsenal, from St. Louis. 

From there, evidently some bona fide Western Cartridge 6.5 rounds were shipped to William Sucher and The International Firearms Company, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

But does the trail "go cold" there? 

We are you so sure, in a Deep State covert op, the Western Cartridge 6.5 rounds were not shipped overseas? 

I understand "proving a negative" is very difficult. 

But does the lack of shipping documents, or other documentation, regarding the 4 million Western Cartridge 6.5 rounds prove they were not shipped overseas?  

Could William Sucher and The International Firearms Company, Montreal, Quebec, Canada acted as a "cut out" and shipped the rounds to Greece? or Guatemala? 

PS I worked in furniture manufacturing for a while. I once had to ink hand-stamp envelopes. Thousands of them. Nice detail in your research. 

[Gary Murr]

19 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

So for now (and besides the early test runs), I have only found this reworked 150 grain- soft nose

Actually Jean, the hand-printed writings present on the image of the WCC box you posted has nothing to do with "soft nose" production of 6.5mm  Carcano ammunition by Western  but rather appears to me to be a notation placed on the box by someone with a "felt" tipped black marker. What it may indicate is that someone has at some point in time purchased a box, lot number 6000, of the WCC ammunition, pulled the original bullet as affixed to the cartridge by Western and replaced it with "soft point" bullet[s]. This process was of course something that was done by Masen/Brinegar in Dallas, something clearly visible in high resolution images of the 6.5mm WCC ammunition that the FBI  lab took of ammunition supplied to them by Masen/Brinegar. 

As far as "correct period Klein's advertisements..." one of the things I did during my research on this subject matter was to acquire over 500 issues of various "gun" magazines spanning a time frame from 1953 up to 1963. I did this so that I could study as many "period advertisements" as possible that could potentially aid me in discovering just which concerns, and in particular mail order concerns such as Kleins, had acquired the WCC 6.5mm ammunition for resale. I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but I believe I have in excess of 2000 such ad clippings. I do know that in November, 1962, Kleins acquired 30 wooden shipping boxes - or 30,000 rounds - of 6.5mm WCC ammunition and in December, 1963, purchased an additional 9 wooden shipping boxes, or 9000 rounds, of this same ammunition. As far as Kleins actually advertising this ammunition for sale via mail order, I will have to look that up, because I cannot remember off the top of my head. I am certain that Kleins did not sell "150 grain soft point cartridges" manufactured by the WCC because Western simply did not produce any such ammunition. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

You are absolutely correct, I do remember both Masen and Brinegar stated they pulled these and replaced them by soft-nosed ones (report on that somewhere in CE 2694).  Klein's was just something someone posted in a forum without proof of that,