Possible Knoll Weapon?

[Chris Newton]

The Delisle is quieter than a .22 at +/- 85 db

From a gun forum:

Facts on noise levels:
1. Decibels measure sound pressure and are logarithmic. That means that only a 3db increase almost doubles sound pressure, a 6db increase quadruples sound pressure, etc.
2. Gradual hearing loss may occur after prolonged exposure to 90 decibels or above.
3. Exposure to 100 decibels for more than 15 minutes can cause hearing loss.
4. Exposure to 110 decibels for more than a minute can cause permanent hearing loss.
5. At 140 dBA noise causes immediate injury to almost any unprotected ear.
6. There is also the more extreme ‘acoustic trauma’, which is an immediate loss of hearing after a sudden, exceptionally loud noise such as an explosion.

Comparative noise levels and length of time for damage to occur
Jet engine taking off 140 dB Instant damage
Thunder/Ambulance siren 119 dB 3 minutes
Hammer drill 113 dB 15 minutes
Chain saw/Earphones/Concert 110 dB 30 minutes
Bull Dozer 105 dB 1 hour
Tractor/Power tools 96 dB 4 hour
Hairdryer/lawnmower 90 dB 8 hours

Noise levels of firearms:
.22 caliber rifle 130dB
.223, 55GR. Commercial load 18" barrel 155.5dB
.243 in 22" barrel 155.9dB
.30-30 in 20" barrel 156.0dB.
7mm Magnum in 20" barrel 157.5dB.
.308 in 24" barrel 156.2dB.
.30-06 in 24" barrel 158.5dB. In 18" barrel 163.2dB.
.375 18" barrel with muzzle brake 170 dB.
.410 Bore 28" barrel 150dB. 26" barrel 150.25dB. 18" barrel 156.30dB.
20 Gauge 28" barrel 152.50dB. 22" barrel 154.75dB.
12 Gauge 28" barrel 151.50dB. 26" barrel 156.10dB. 18" barrel 161.50dB.
.25 ACP 155.0 dB.
.32 LONG 152.4 dB.
.32 ACP 153.5 dB.
.380 157.7 dB.
9mm 159.8 dB.
.38 S&W 153.5 dB.
.38 Spl 156.3 dB.
.357 Magnum 164.3 dB.
.41 Magnum 163.2 dB.
.44 Spl 155.9 dB.
.45 ACP 157.0 dB.
.45 COLT 154.7 dB.

Properly fitted earplugs or muffs reduce noise 15 to 30 dB. The better earplugs and muffs are approximately equal in sound reductions, although earplugs are better for low frequency noise and earmuffs for high frequency noise.

Using muffs and plugs together: Take the higher of the two and add 5 dB. 30 plug with 20 muff gives an effective NRR of 35.

If you are shooting by yourself, with plugs and muffs on, you get to shoot up to a thousand rounds without damage (louder ammo/gun and the allowable drops by a factor of 5). Shoot with other people and you have to add all the rounds shot cumulatively (10 people shoot 100 rounds and everybody's done for the day; toss a handcannon or 30 cal rifle in and you're back down to 200 rounds cumulative). If you shoot on an indoor range then all the rounds fired while you are on the range go into your total. So you can see that it doesn't take very long on a range to have a thousand rounds popped off around you.

[Chris Newton]

I don't think this youtube was available when I first posted in the forum. Take a few moments and judge for yourself:

[Chris Newton]

I'm posting this youtube because there were some who discounted the Delisle based on the fact that it was a bolt action and therefore "too slow".

The Delisle has a Lee Enfield receiver and bolt.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Chris Newton

[Chris Newton]

Additionally, a reminder that our very own GPH said this of the Delisle right here:

Nice cat remover, don't you think?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5308&p=45577

[Robert Prudhomme]

I'm posting this youtube because there were some who discounted the Delisle based on the fact that it was a bolt action and therefore "too slow".

The Delisle has a Lee Enfield receiver and bolt.

Many German troops, coming up against a regiment of British (or Canadian) riflemen armed with Enfields thought they were opposing automatic weapon fire. These rifles really were that fast, although I'll bet not a single Commonwealth soldier wouldn't have been happier if he was armed with an M1 Garand. I can't quite recall how many rounds per minute each soldier was expected to fire from his Enfield, as the bare minimum, but I recall it was a rather blistering rate of fire.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the video is the comparison between the Enfield's "push feed" system and the Mauser's "controlled feed" system. Pictured below is a Mauser action loading a cartridge into the chamber of, I believe, a K98 Mauser.

Note that the claw extractor (lower part of bolt) must hold the cartridge against the bolt face as it is fed into the chamber, looking like this:

The Enfield, on the other hand, utilizes a "push feed" system, whereby the bolt face merely pushes the cartridge ahead of it, and its hinged extractor claw does not grasp the rim of the cartridge until just as the bolt has delivered the cartridge into the chamber.

Enfield hinged extractor claw shown as No. 12 above. Note bare face of bolt.

There are some who would say the difference in the two feeding systems would not have any effect on how fast the rifle can be reloaded but I would disagree with them. Having shot both Enfields and Mausers, I believe the Mauser controlled feed system offers just enough resistance to slow the loading process down.

I also believe the narrator of this video, in typical British understatement, does not assign nearly enough credit for the Enfield's rapid action to the fact the Enfield bolt does not cock until the bolt is almost closed, making for completely free travel of the bolt.

Can you imagine how quickly the deLisle's shortened bolt could be operated with the .45 ACP cartridges?

Edited October 26, 2016 by Robert Prudhomme

[David Andrews]

Apropos of the general topic, and not any specific post, people may like to read Richard Case Nagell's take on an assassination bullet:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16238#relPageId=35

Help me, firearms experts: a "gigantic white puff of smoke" because it was specially hand-loaded?

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by David Andrews

[Chris Newton]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

"gigantic white puff of smoke"

...or it's the first round out of a recently cleaned and oiled weapon (which any shooter worth his pay would have done).

[David Andrews]

Chris, did you check out the Nagell article?  Nagell seems to refer to some characteristic of the .22 Hornet hollow point, or its reloaded version.

Nagell was locked up on November 22, but he is reputed to have been close to the assassination planners. That makes him among the best of the second-guessers, and better than a third- or fourth-guesser such as me.

Edited November 24, 2016 by David Andrews

[Chris Newton]

33 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

Nagell seems to refer to some characteristic of the .22 Hornet hollow point, or its reloaded version

I appreciate Nagell's writings as well but if he got something through Werbel it's anyone's guess as to what the weapon was since Werbell designed and forged them himself.

There is a standard silenced pistol used by the Allies in WW2, the Welrod (32. Cal. single shot). It's a capable weapon but not something I think anyone would choose for a knoll weapon based on it's effective range and capacity.

I'm sure there are probably .22 hornet pistol rounds though I've only seen the rifle variety, they don't smoke any more than any other round (although they may have at some early stage (pre-WW1) when they may have been loaded with black powder).

[Mark Knight]

According to Wikipedia, the .22 Hornet was introduced in 1930.

I'd therefore doubt the availability of black powder loads for that caliber.

[Michael Walton]

Question - not being argumentative here and of course this is pure speculation - but if the shooters were in the Dal-Tex building, knoll, or wherever they were, don't you think it'd have been more appropriate to have used automatic weapons?  I watched that video above of that guy using the Enfield(?) and although it seems fast, the shooters had to have known that they only had a 5-7 second window to do the shooting and be 99.9% accurate to not blow someone else's head off beside JFK's and then quickly get out.  It just seems like a bolt-action gun would have been too risky to have used in this situation.

[Chris Newton]

14 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

According to Wikipedia, the .22 Hornet was introduced in 1930.

I'd therefore doubt the availability of black powder loads for that caliber.

Thanks Mark for that correction and indeed, I went to the wiki for this which confirms that the round itself was developed in the '20s and commercially sold at first in the 30's :

Quote

Prior to the development of the modern .22 Hornet, there was a conceptually similar but physically different cartridge by the same name invented in the 1890s by Reuben Harwood (nicknamed "Iron Ramrod)", sometimes called the ".22 Harwood Hornet" to avoid confusion, as the two rounds are not compatible. Harwood's cartridge was formed by necking down .25-20 Winchester brass to .22 caliber, and was initially loaded with black powder.^[3]

The modern .22 Hornet's ancestry is generally attributed to experiments done in the 1920s using the black-powder .22 WCF at Springfield Armory.^[2]Winchester adopted what had so far been a wildcat cartridge in 1930, producing ammo for a cartridge for which no commercially made guns yet had been built. It was not until 1932 that any company began selling commercially made guns for the cartridge.

Wildcat variants of the .22 Hornet, such as the .22 K-Hornet, can boost bullet velocity and energy considerably above factory .22 Hornet levels, but performance still falls short of what is deer-legal in the Netherlands or the United Kingdom.^[4]

 

[Chris Newton]

5 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

Question - not being argumentative here and of course this is pure speculation - but if the shooters were in the Dal-Tex building, knoll, or wherever they were, don't you think it'd have been more appropriate to have used automatic weapons?  I watched that video above of that guy using the Enfield(?) and although it seems fast, the shooters had to have known that they only had a 5-7 second window to do the shooting and be 99.9% accurate to not blow someone else's head off beside JFK's and then quickly get out.  It just seems like a bolt-action gun would have been too risky to have used in this situation.

I think you'll find with snipers that they prefer the accuracy and control that a single shot weapon features. If you are close to a target, shorter barrel weapons are generally preferred. I can't pretend to "get into the mind" of the shooters, (maybe Paul Trejo can help us here), but I think it was just "luck" that saved four of the occupants of the limo from injury.

I personally think there were many more shots that we can count than were suggested by the WC and while I don't think automatic weapons were necessary, they certainly would be an option.

If we toss the SBT theory (into the rectangular file):

 

1 shot to JFK back

1 shot to JFK skull (possible fragment exit at throat)

1 shot to right-front JFK skull from Knoll

1 shot through JC side exiting chest entering thigh

1 shot hitting JC wrist

1 shot in Limo chrome molding between visors

1 shot to curb (possible Tague ricochet)

1 possible shot to overpass abutment (possible Tague ricochet)

1 possible miss to street (puff observed)

1 possible miss in grass opposite knoll

 

7 - 10 shots?

 

 

[Michael Walton]

I agree it really is remarkable that no one else was injured in the car, especially with flying pieces of bullet like the ones that hit the chrome and windshield (unless those were bullets too).

[Tom Hume]

My candidate for a possible knoll weapon is the M4 Survival Rifle. It’s chambered for .22 Hornet, has 4 shot magazine, a 14-inch detachable barrel, and with the telescoping stock closed, it can make a 14-inch package. It weighs just under two kilos, and an assassin wearing the right clothing could easily conceal this thing. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Survival_Rifle

 

David Andrews provided the link below, which contains a related quote from Richard Case Nagell: “LIL’ OL’ SILENCER MAKER”. This appears to me to be a large “ICO” puzzle, the first puzzle anagram being:

 

“LANCER KILLER IS OL’ M4”

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16238#relPageId=35

 

David, I think your mailbox is full.

 

Tom

 

Number/letter translation device:

(A=0)(B=1)(C=2)(D=3)(E=4)(F=5)(G=6)(H=7)(I=8)(J=9)(K=10)(L=11)(M=12)(N=13)(O=14)(P=15)(Q=16)(R=17)(S=18)(T=19)(U=20)(V=21)(W=22)(X=23)(Y=24)(Z=25)

 

 

Edited December 1, 2016 by Tom Hume