From: schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck)
Subject: Type of Bullet
Reply-To: Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 02:34:59 GMT

Joel seems to be under the impression (shared by WC supporters)
that JFK was struck in the head by a full metal-jacketed bullet.

The following are the views of Howard Donahue, a ballistics expert
and firearms examiner with 40 years experience. These are from the
book "Mortal Error" by Bonar Menninger.

Donahue was one of the experts hired by CBS in 1967 to try and
duplicate the 3 shots in 5.6 seconds. Donahue did it in 5.2 seconds on
his third try. Two others matched Oswalds supposed feat. Nine failed.
They each had three trys.

 "If one was to believe the WC, the first bullet to hit Kennedy pierced
his neck and went on to inflict extensive damage to the bone and flesh
of Connally. For all that, CE399 remained essentially intact. Donahue
accepts this explanation, given that the Carcano round was a full
metal-jacketed bullet specifically designed not to fragment or expand.
 But precisely for this reason he could not understand how exactly the
same kind of bullet, fired from exactly the same weapon six seconds
later, could have exploded in a hail of lead that shattered the
Presidents skull and left an exit portal the size of a small plate.
 How differently could two supposedly identical pieces of
ammunition perform?
 To Donahue, the second round appeared to have acted not as a bullet
encased in a thick metal jacket would have, but more like a frangible,
soft or hollow nosed missile with a thin metal jacket traveling at
extremely high velocity. Unlike full metal-jacketed bullets, soft or
hollow nose missiles are specifically designed to flatten and
disintegrate in order to inflict the shattering wounds the Geneva
Convention sought to outlaw in the 1920's.
          
       [Read the following paragraphs carefully Joel. They do a
        great job of refuting the pathetic research done by Lattimer]

 Donahue was willing to concede that the Carcano bullet, the full
metal jacket notwithstanding, probably would have broken up to some
extent after piercing the skull and hitting the brain. Although the
Carcano's thick casing was specifically designed to hold the lead core
together, the bullets impact against the thick, dense bone of the
skull might have split the jacket, and the split would have widened as
the bullet spun through the brain.

 Still, the resulting fragments would have been much larger and far
less numerous than the ones found in Kennedy's skull; two or three
large pieces at most. The Carcano round simply did not have the
velocity--either rotational, from the rifling in the gun barrell, or
linear, from the gunpowder charge in the shell--to completely shred
the thick metal jacket and disintegrate the lead inside upon impact.

        [Remember Joel, Lattimer only got Carcano rounds to fragment
         into a few pieces, just the way Donahue said they should.]

 Yet Humes had reported "multipile minute metal fragments" embedded in
the skull and brain along the aparrent flight path of the bullet
Numerous tiny fragments? It didn't make sense.

        [Remember Joel, Lattimer *never* got Carcano rounds to  
         fragment into dozens of pieces the way the JFK head shot did]
     
 The startling fact was that that the bullet that hit Kennedy's head
had not behaved like a full metal-jacketed round at all. A great
number of tiny lead fragments was characteristic of a completely
different type of bullet, one spinning with far greater speed and
hence exhibiting much more centrifigul force upon impact."

				   
As Joel continues to post Lattimers 'research', remember, he never
tested soft-nosed high velocity ammunition. Thats the type of bullet
that hit JFK in the head. I personnally believe that JFK was hit twice
in the head almost simultaneously. I also know that Oswald didn't
shoot JFK in the back of the head. The bullets found in the TSBD were
full metal-jacketed medium velocity, not soft-nosed partially jacketed
high velocity.