Thread: Any ballistic experts out there? JFK Assassination ?

Let's take a look at the rounds since that seems to be where a lot of the "Theories" come from....

First the "pristine" magic bullet, first off it is not pristine as many would like you to believe, it is actually deformed just as one would expect a heavy medium velocity round to look... The bullet itself is a round nose FMJ with an open core base (this means that it is not a true FMJ the base has exposed lead).. The conspiracy buffs would like to believe the crazy trajectory that we all saw in the Movie "JFK" this just isn't true... When you look at the true trajectory with the Limo jump seats being lower and to the inside like they actually were, then the trajectory straightens right out...

Contrary to popular belief this combination in the ballistics create the exact one necessary to accomplish both shots...
You have a 160 gr round nose bullets traveling at just over 2000 fps it could very well have caused all the wounds of the "Magic" bullet and the head shot..
Take a look at the head shot again and you will actually see what happens and don't forget that the car is moving away from the shooter...

As the bullet hits it will give a slight push to the head forward, and as it exits the snap back that everyone thinks is a high velocity round striking from the front is actually the jet effect from the blood and brain matter exiting the head wound.. sorry for the graphic description...

Now don't by any means think that I am saying that I believe there was not a conspiracy, but when you really start looking at all the facts you have to "Look" at them all, not just one side....

Now lets look at the grassy knoll shot, many people believe that if this occurred, the shot was actually taken with a Remington XP and a .221 Fireball was used... But let's put in any high velocity .223 bullet
These rounds will punch a small hole going in and do one of two things when all that kinetic NRG is dumped... If it is an HP round they explode with quite dynamic results, if it is a FMJ they either go through and leave a huge exit wound or punch straight through leaving a .22 caliber hole in and out... it really depends on what the bullet upset is as it travels through the target... Any varminter will tell you some shots give explosive results "The Red Mist Club" and others fired from the same gun using the same bullets and the same range barely leaves a hole....

Now there is a theory floating out there, done only on the ballistics of the Kennedy assignation that the fatal head shot came not from Oswald nor the "Grassy Knoll" shooter.... But the cover up and the head shot came from an accident in the Secret Service car behind the presidents... That an accidental discharged occurred from the early model CAR-15 that was in that car had a bolt slam fire and caused the cover up and the fatal head shot.... I have the book gotta look for the title and author interesting read...

I read the book where the author said that the secret service agent in the car following JFk's limo accidentally squeezed off a round for the head shot.

The 'magic bullet was supposed ot have gone through the President, through the car seat breaking Governor Connelly's shoulder blade and his wrist and then embedded in his thigh. It then is supposed to have fallen out on a stretcher and was found in the hallway of the hospital by a passing FBI agent. Too bad the same guy wasn't in Iraq, the WMD might have been found. IOW, I think it is hogwash.

Just out of curiosity, there have probably been more books written on this then on anything else excepting the Bible, Abraham Lincoln, and WW ll . Doesn't the fact that LBJ told Walter Cronkite in an interview that I have on DVD that he believed there was a conspiracy involving foreign governments. That carries a lot of weight with me. If anyone had access to information denied the public it was President Johnson.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

But let's put in any high velocity .223 bullet
These rounds will punch a small hole going in and do one of two things when all that kinetic NRG is dumped... If it is an HP round they explode with quite dynamic results, if it is a FMJ they either go through and leave a huge exit wound or punch straight through leaving a .22 caliber hole in and out...

not really. 5.56 FMJ rounds are famous for fragmenting in a spectacular way when they are going fast enough. (in my earlier post I said 2300fps, it's more like 2700fps, my mistake) Most FMJ bullets that have a lengthidth ratio bigger than 2.5:1 will do this when going fast enough.

from wikipedia (and by extension, the studies of fackler)
"The 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge with the standard military ball bullet (NATO: SS109; U.S.: M855) will penetrate approximately 15 to 20 inches (38 to 50 cm) into soft tissue in ideal circumstances. As with all spitzer shaped projectiles it is prone to yaw in soft tissue. However, at impact velocities above roughly 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s), it may yaw and then fragment at the cannelure (the groove around the cylinder of the bullet). These fragments can disperse through flesh and bone, inflicting additional internal injuries.[1] Fragmentation, if and when it occurs, seems to impart much greater damage to tissue than bullet dimensions and velocities would suggest. This fragmentation effect is highly dependent on velocity, and therefore barrel length: short-barreled rifles generate less muzzle velocity and therefore lose effectiveness at much shorter ranges than longer-barreled rifles."

try shooting a round of M855 into a jug of water from a barrel long enough to reach these velocities... it will explode very much like if you had used an ultra-light 45grain hollowpoint.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I.

Doesn't the fact that LBJ told Walter Cronkite in an interview that I have on DVD that he believed there was a conspiracy involving foreign governments. That carries a lot of weight with me. If anyone had access to information denied the public it was President Johnson.

Unless of course he was covering up for himself and his hired gun. His plan of course was to be president all along!

Conspiracy theories can be pulled in so many directions! That's the fun of not having any solid proof to back any of these theories up.

Originally Posted by jockeys

not really. 5.56 FMJ rounds are famous for fragmenting in a spectacular way when they are going fast enough. (in my earlier post I said 2300fps, it's more like 2700fps, my mistake) Most FMJ bullets that have a lengthidth ratio bigger than 2.5:1 will do this when going fast enough.

from wikipedia (and by extension, the studies of fackler)
"The 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge with the standard military ball bullet (NATO: SS109; U.S.: M855) will penetrate approximately 15 to 20 inches (38 to 50 cm) into soft tissue in ideal circumstances. As with all spitzer shaped projectiles it is prone to yaw in soft tissue. However, at impact velocities above roughly 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s), it may yaw and then fragment at the cannelure (the groove around the cylinder of the bullet). These fragments can disperse through flesh and bone, inflicting additional internal injuries.[1] Fragmentation, if and when it occurs, seems to impart much greater damage to tissue than bullet dimensions and velocities would suggest. This fragmentation effect is highly dependent on velocity, and therefore barrel length: short-barreled rifles generate less muzzle velocity and therefore lose effectiveness at much shorter ranges than longer-barreled rifles."

try shooting a round of M855 into a jug of water from a barrel long enough to reach these velocities... it will explode very much like if you had used an ultra-light 45grain hollowpoint.

it really depends on what the bullet upset is as it travels through the target...

Yes I said that....

Glen,

That book is Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK by Bonar Menninger.
I have read it a couple of times. The Author presents a plausible scenario.

That sounds like the one Jeeter:
Correct me if I am wrong, been awhile since I read it, but wasn't the author or one of his technical advisers on the book one of the shooters that re-created the 3 shots?????

Originally Posted by gssixgun

That sounds like the one Jeeter:
Correct me if I am wrong, been awhile since I read it, but wasn't the author or one of his technical advisers on the book one of the shooters that re-created the 3 shots?????

I believe he claimed to be the first to accomplish it. One way or the other yes he did make that claim.

I've read a bit on the JFK assassination and I've also seen one or two documentaries on the subject - which is fascinating, by the way - but I can't seem to settle on an opinion. And it seems that nobody, despite the investigation on this matter and all the theories out there, can really come to a conclusion. The case, in itself, gives rise to more questions than answers... I, for one, think it's suspicious (at the very least) that Jack Ruby shot Oswald before he could present a palpable statement... and it is even more suspicious that after so many years, so many presidents and the end of the cold war and the apparent dismisal of Castro as cuban president, a conclusion has not been reached. Will we ever know what really happened and who killed JFK and why did we not know sooner? People say that Johnson was involved; they also say that it was the work of a lone madman (as they say it was a madman that killed Martin Luther King); they also say it was a conspiracy and that foreign powers were involved... will we ever know the truth? Maybe not... maybe it is one of those secrets that the american government doesn't want to be leaked out in any way. Maybe JFK was the necessary victim for some sort of strange plan... I really have no idea but, if you ask me, I think it was Aristoteles Onassis that plotted aginst the life of the President in order to wed his wife!

The video posted on this thread is horrible... the second shot, in slow motion, is absolutely brutal.

I often wonder if Barrack Obama will not meet the same end... let's all hope he doesn't. I seem to think that, whenever a man is willing to change things and starts being a nuisanse to some lobbies and established powers, he becomes a traget for the underworld. I can give you an example: in 1981 the portuguese prime minister and the defense minister died in a plane crash. The plane was sabotaged and there was a bomb aboard. To this very day we do not know what happened. I have reason to beleive that there are polititians - whose names are known to all of the portuguese people... - that do not want the truth to be found out. The investigations were slow and reached no conclusion and the case is a taboo subject in some political circles. You know why he was killed? Because he was the hope of a nation, the hope for change after a very tense revolutionary period - he was an honest man and could face up to the circumstances and the people (from left to right) loved him... the tragedy of his death can only be compared to the murder of JFK, however smaller it's influence on the political world. This man was, indeed, the change we could beleive in.

This all goes to say the following: will we ever know what really happened?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

To me the damage done by the final shot is more characteristic of a varmint cartridge such as a 22-250 with a hollow point then the full metal jacketed 6.5 mm Carcano round. Any riflemen out there with an opinion ?

I have shot a lot of different type rounds thru my 22-250 and I can say with a fair amount of certainty based on the terminal results that it wasn't that round. A long range shot using a Nosler partition might duplicate that but not a hollowpoint...and not any type bullet shot at close range.

When one of those small caliber hyper velocity rounds hits something hard like bone they tend to fragment with spectacular results...hence the term "red mist". If you want to see for yourself find someone with a 22-250 and put a watermelon behind a piece of 1/4" plywood...shoot it at around 100 yards and see what happens. Better yet film that and post it!