Hunters/riflemen JFK head shot ? Stay on topic please.

[TexasRifleman]

However, I doubt Oswald would have used an unsighted rifle to take such an important shot.He would have know from his U.S.M.C. training that sights and scopes need to be set.

Trying to follow my own advice and stay strictly on the topic

As far as practice goes a local Dallas doctor and his son testified they saw Oswald shooting a rifle with a scope at a local shooting range for about an hour and a half a week before the assassination.

Where did he get his ammo?

The same report showed that 2 local Dallas gun stores sold the type of ammo used.

This was pre GCA of course so no record of ammo sales was kept. So, let's be done with those subjects.

 

[hso]

The OP's question is about the type of ammunition used and the damage done. We have good responses here AND there are at least 2 or 3 separate sets of reenactment videos showing much the same as the explanations here (Pen & Teller's "Conspiracies" episode, Mythbuster's #25, and the Myers work). That seems to have answered the OP's question about whether standard Carcano ammunition could have caused the damage seen in the shooting.

We're wandering into the marksmanship issues instead and that's going to be an open ended discussion with no definitive answers about Oswald's skill with the rifle.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I was convinced, and remain so, that it had to be a varmint round that exploded his skull.

So please if you reply keep it on topic and if you know from experience with hunting and shooting tell me if a FMJ could have done that or is it more likely to have been a varmint round in the 22 CF class ?

Since it is your belief that differs from the current accepted database, how about presenting your arguments as to why you think it was a varmit round and not the round reportedly used. What is it that convinces you that a varmit round was used?

 

[1911Tuner]

The simple answers are:

Yes. A FMJ bullet at 2200 fps impact velocity could easily have blown away that much skull and brain.

Yes. The shot could have been made with an iron-sighted rifle. IIRC, the range was 78 yards. Nearly any 16 year-old country boy could have made that shot with grandpa's Winchester .30-30 carbine.

On to the "six shots" that so many reported hearing.

A high-velocity rifle bullet produces a supersonic crack whenever it passes a solid object.
If an observer is on one apex of an equilateral triangle...with each point of the triangle equidistant from the observer's point...the rifle and the location of the sonic boom...he'll be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two sounds...and unless he's heard it before and knows what he's hearing...he'll swear that he heard two shots.

 

[Jimmy10mm]

Since it is your belief that differs from the current accepted database, how about presenting your arguments as to why you think it was a varmit round and not the round reportedly used. What is it that convinces you that a varmit round was used?

At the risk of getting kicked out of here and laughed at I have to admit that I haven't shot a rifle in forty years. Virtually all of my shooting experience has been with handguns and punching paper. I've been an armchair adventurer and read Charles Landis's books on varmint hunting and rifles but never done any myself. I figured that this forum would have members who have shot various mammals with FMJ and with varmint rounds. Head shots and what have you. People who have seen what these rounds do or don't do. Hence my question to those people. For those like me who've read it in a book there is no hands on experience.

My assumption that it would have been a varmint round is based on the difference between the physical damage done by the rounds that did score hits. We are told that the round that hit the skull broke up and shattered and that is responsible for the spectacular damage seen in the Zapruder film.

OTOH, the magic bullet goes through JFK, the car seat Connelly's back, arm, and wrist, breaks bones, and ends up pristine. I have been studying this crime off and on for over forty years and could go on and on with inconsistencies in the gov's version of events but I asked y'all to remain on topic so I won't go astray myself.

All I will say is that I do not believe that LHO was the lone assassin and I am in good company along with Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert Kennedy.

 

[Tommygunn]

OTOH, the magic bullet goes through JFK, the car seat Connelly's back arm and wrist, breaks bones, and ends up pristine.

The "magic bullet" as it's been called, was not "pristine." It had experienced a bit of flattening and had partially extruded some lead from the open base.
This is not inconsistant with a FMJ round that had penetrated tissue, slowed down, and then done the damage to Governor Connally.

 

[hso]

This one's done since the original question has been answered and we're wandering into the JFK assassination mythology.