A classmate of mine in high school bought the Lee Harvey Oswald rifle, a 6.5x52 Carcano and some ammunition through the mail soon after the Kennedy assassination out of morbid curiosity I guess and after he was done with it I bought it with his left over ammunition. This rifle and the Italian ammunition was literally the bottom of the ba…
A classmate of mine in high school bought the Lee Harvey Oswald rifle, a 6.5x52 Carcano and some ammunition through the mail soon after the Kennedy assassination out of morbid curiosity I guess and after he was done with it I bought it with his left over ammunition. This rifle and the Italian ammunition was literally the bottom of the barrel in terms of military arms when used by the Italian Army. I shot it some and determined it was as bad as advertised including a roughly machined bolt that was hard to cycle. For me this was an opportunity to get a center fire rifle for a good price, but it was so bad it proved a total waste of the twenty some dollars it cost.
Fast forward to decades later and I was at a conference in Dallas, staying downtown, and one evening I had dinner with a good, but much older friend, who had been working for an oil company in Dallas the day of the assassination. It was an unusually pleasant Texas evening so after dinner we decided to walk down to Dealey Plaza. When we arrived my friend set up the scenario including pointing out the school book repository. My thoughts went back to shooting that rifle at the little range I had set up in the woods behind my home in high school and my first thought was "no way is this official narrative believable"! I haven't believed a word of that official narrative since!
Lots for sale at the time! M1 Carbines were $100 and I really wish I had that much at the time. The rare ones have appreciated to a few thousand and they are nice little rifles.
Not the actual rifle, same make&model, same/similar ammo - the point being that the rifle was of such poor quality that the poster believes the events impossible. However, there are sufficient opinions on the interwebs that this rifle wasn’t as bad as the poster makes it out to be. Me, the only two conspiracy theories I hew to are that all of our leaders are actually pod people and we’re alone in the galaxy. As for Kennedy, Oswald, and Ruby 🤷♀️ : the answer is probably out there, probably in a nondescript wooden crate, parked in a cavernous building, sitting next to the crate holding/hiding the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, the one with the Star of David burned on to the side.
Not just the rifle, but the cheap bulk ammunition was all you could get. The cartridge had a lot in common with the current market darling, the 6.5 Creedmore, but not all ammunition is created equal and what suffers is precision and accuracy, These had corrosive primers and maybe cheap steel cases like the 7.62x39. I am a life long shooter with a scientific background (physics and chemistry) and am enough of an expert to argue with any other “expert”!
Also a life long shooter since iron sight .22 competition south of the Everglades (funny aside - we were talking in church yesterday and I have no memory of ever using ear protection until I took my son out shooting - the .22 rifle I wish I’d had back in the mid 60s).
Also USMC early 80s
Everything I’ve read about this rifle, the one round left of the 4 he started with, his certified skill as a marine - none of that says to me he could NOT have fired the fatal shot; BUT, HOWEVER
I have questions, doubts.
Oswald was USMC late 50s, discharged ‘59, dishonorable, flew to USSR. He would have qualified with an M14 gas powered semiautomatic- predecessor to my M16. I was a moment of wedded amorous bliss when this goober was in the corp so I don’t know if he had any training with using a bolt action rifle - his wife is reported as saying he spent time operating/dry firing his weapon. But to fire three rounds, even close to accurate, in the range of 80-120m, at an 8" pumpkin, moving around, in a moving vehicle.
IDK, nothing screams capable of target acquisition, load, target acquisition, cycle, acquire, repeat. Less than 9 seconds.
The fellas who tested the rifle to assess its capabilities were all expert marksmen familiar with bolt action rifles - no doubt more acquainted than the nameless goober.
Mail order for around $20 just like Oswald. They were cheap and available, advertised in Shooting Sports Magazines of the time. This was, of course, before the National Firearms Act of 1968 that went into effect on Oct 22 as I recall and created the ffl system.
Yeah. You could even buy by mail unused army issued Remington 30.06s for something like $30. Buy one and gunsmiths sportified (?) them. Made excellent hunting rifles
I didn’t mention it, but the high school was an old style military school at the time not the same one, but more or less like Donald Trump’s high school. The school was founded by an, at least, acquaintance of some of my ancestors in 1814. They all swore allegiance to the commonwealth of Virginia and therefore not to King George signing a still existing document. The school became a military school during the Civil War. Also in 1863 the school loaned a previous building to the new Government of West Virginia for a temporary Capitol until one was built.
03s and 03a3s from CMP were standard issue for freshmen through juniors, then some got to be officers with fake sabers based on a point system. You got points for extra curricular activities and lost them for punishment detail. I wasn’t big on activities, but didn’t loose many. and was a first lieutenant. Anyway, those are not this left side dominant guy’s favorite rifle, but if I had one I could do either a conventional or fancy manual of arms to this day. They were stored over the summer in cosmoline and annual ritual was getting it all off to pass inspection... not a lot of fun.
In my day most of the teachers were WW II or Korean War Vets, so without regard to more recent experiences most of the woke issues of today’s education system are totally foreign to my personal experience.
Over night I had a thought. Snipers or “sharp shooters” had been regarded as an important element of combat since at least the Civil War. At least at first in WW II the official sniper rifle of at least some of our forces was the 1903 Springfield with a low power telescopic sight. As I recall these were 8x Weavers. This combination was well regarded for accuracy and reliability, so why did Oswald buy the cheapest rifle he could find when for $10 albeit 50% something much better both in terms of accuracy and reliability sometimes listed in the same ad. Also, much more lethal 30-06 ammunition was commonly available with expanding bullet hunting rounds, while military full metal jacket rounds was all that was really available for the 6.5 Carcano.
Hmmm… Also, (sorry to be so blunt) the Kennedy head shot suggests he was hit by such an expanding bullet not generally available in 6.5 Carcano.
A classmate of mine in high school bought the Lee Harvey Oswald rifle, a 6.5x52 Carcano and some ammunition through the mail soon after the Kennedy assassination out of morbid curiosity I guess and after he was done with it I bought it with his left over ammunition. This rifle and the Italian ammunition was literally the bottom of the barrel in terms of military arms when used by the Italian Army. I shot it some and determined it was as bad as advertised including a roughly machined bolt that was hard to cycle. For me this was an opportunity to get a center fire rifle for a good price, but it was so bad it proved a total waste of the twenty some dollars it cost.
Fast forward to decades later and I was at a conference in Dallas, staying downtown, and one evening I had dinner with a good, but much older friend, who had been working for an oil company in Dallas the day of the assassination. It was an unusually pleasant Texas evening so after dinner we decided to walk down to Dealey Plaza. When we arrived my friend set up the scenario including pointing out the school book repository. My thoughts went back to shooting that rifle at the little range I had set up in the woods behind my home in high school and my first thought was "no way is this official narrative believable"! I haven't believed a word of that official narrative since!
I had the Mannlicher-Carcano version. Agreed. Total piece of junk.
Very interesting! But how did your classmate gain access to the rifle that Oswald had used?
I think he means a replica, not the very one.
Lots for sale at the time! M1 Carbines were $100 and I really wish I had that much at the time. The rare ones have appreciated to a few thousand and they are nice little rifles.
Not the actual rifle, same make&model, same/similar ammo - the point being that the rifle was of such poor quality that the poster believes the events impossible. However, there are sufficient opinions on the interwebs that this rifle wasn’t as bad as the poster makes it out to be. Me, the only two conspiracy theories I hew to are that all of our leaders are actually pod people and we’re alone in the galaxy. As for Kennedy, Oswald, and Ruby 🤷♀️ : the answer is probably out there, probably in a nondescript wooden crate, parked in a cavernous building, sitting next to the crate holding/hiding the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, the one with the Star of David burned on to the side.
Not just the rifle, but the cheap bulk ammunition was all you could get. The cartridge had a lot in common with the current market darling, the 6.5 Creedmore, but not all ammunition is created equal and what suffers is precision and accuracy, These had corrosive primers and maybe cheap steel cases like the 7.62x39. I am a life long shooter with a scientific background (physics and chemistry) and am enough of an expert to argue with any other “expert”!
🤔 I am a 6.5 Creedmoor owner 😆
Also a reloader
Also a life long shooter since iron sight .22 competition south of the Everglades (funny aside - we were talking in church yesterday and I have no memory of ever using ear protection until I took my son out shooting - the .22 rifle I wish I’d had back in the mid 60s).
Also USMC early 80s
Everything I’ve read about this rifle, the one round left of the 4 he started with, his certified skill as a marine - none of that says to me he could NOT have fired the fatal shot; BUT, HOWEVER
I have questions, doubts.
Oswald was USMC late 50s, discharged ‘59, dishonorable, flew to USSR. He would have qualified with an M14 gas powered semiautomatic- predecessor to my M16. I was a moment of wedded amorous bliss when this goober was in the corp so I don’t know if he had any training with using a bolt action rifle - his wife is reported as saying he spent time operating/dry firing his weapon. But to fire three rounds, even close to accurate, in the range of 80-120m, at an 8" pumpkin, moving around, in a moving vehicle.
IDK, nothing screams capable of target acquisition, load, target acquisition, cycle, acquire, repeat. Less than 9 seconds.
The fellas who tested the rifle to assess its capabilities were all expert marksmen familiar with bolt action rifles - no doubt more acquainted than the nameless goober.
Could he⁉️ He had the tools (where we disagree)
Did he⁉️ I’m not convinced.
Mail order for around $20 just like Oswald. They were cheap and available, advertised in Shooting Sports Magazines of the time. This was, of course, before the National Firearms Act of 1968 that went into effect on Oct 22 as I recall and created the ffl system.
Yeah. You could even buy by mail unused army issued Remington 30.06s for something like $30. Buy one and gunsmiths sportified (?) them. Made excellent hunting rifles
I didn’t mention it, but the high school was an old style military school at the time not the same one, but more or less like Donald Trump’s high school. The school was founded by an, at least, acquaintance of some of my ancestors in 1814. They all swore allegiance to the commonwealth of Virginia and therefore not to King George signing a still existing document. The school became a military school during the Civil War. Also in 1863 the school loaned a previous building to the new Government of West Virginia for a temporary Capitol until one was built.
03s and 03a3s from CMP were standard issue for freshmen through juniors, then some got to be officers with fake sabers based on a point system. You got points for extra curricular activities and lost them for punishment detail. I wasn’t big on activities, but didn’t loose many. and was a first lieutenant. Anyway, those are not this left side dominant guy’s favorite rifle, but if I had one I could do either a conventional or fancy manual of arms to this day. They were stored over the summer in cosmoline and annual ritual was getting it all off to pass inspection... not a lot of fun.
In my day most of the teachers were WW II or Korean War Vets, so without regard to more recent experiences most of the woke issues of today’s education system are totally foreign to my personal experience.
Over night I had a thought. Snipers or “sharp shooters” had been regarded as an important element of combat since at least the Civil War. At least at first in WW II the official sniper rifle of at least some of our forces was the 1903 Springfield with a low power telescopic sight. As I recall these were 8x Weavers. This combination was well regarded for accuracy and reliability, so why did Oswald buy the cheapest rifle he could find when for $10 albeit 50% something much better both in terms of accuracy and reliability sometimes listed in the same ad. Also, much more lethal 30-06 ammunition was commonly available with expanding bullet hunting rounds, while military full metal jacket rounds was all that was really available for the 6.5 Carcano.
Hmmm… Also, (sorry to be so blunt) the Kennedy head shot suggests he was hit by such an expanding bullet not generally available in 6.5 Carcano.