Oswald's Marine Corp Rifle Scorebook

[Zeon Mason]

Imo, if there’s a 1st shot fired as early as Z150-160, then the reason it was a complete miss was because the shooter , sitting on the box , (as Mr.Collins demonstrated in his self built full scale model of the SN),  maybe had to adjust himself more than he anticipated and he in haste fired the 1st  shot before he had his rifle securely resting on the top of the box on the window ledge.

Perhaps  he leaned over at about Z140, rested the rifle on the window ledge box, and then saw when he looked thru his scope or his iron sights that he couldn’t get JFK in his sight without partially standing, so being in a state of anxiety already. he tried  to stand up partially and take a shot and in doing so, maybe he did not lead the moving  target enough, since the limo at Z150-Z160 being a closer angle requires a faster tracking speed than at  the longer angle at. Z224.

Unfortunately the CBS trial shooters did NOT replicate this  theoretical firing position that Mr.Collins experiment shows is reasonably plausible.

[Charles Collins]

Imo, if there’s a 1st shot fired as early as Z150-160, then the reason it was a complete miss was because the shooter , sitting on the box , (as Mr.Collins demonstrated in his self built full scale model of the SN),  maybe had to adjust himself more than he anticipated and he in haste fired the 1st  shot before he had his rifle securely resting on the top of the box on the window ledge.

Perhaps  he leaned over at about Z140, rested the rifle on the window ledge box, and then saw when he looked thru his scope or his iron sights that he couldn’t get JFK in his sight without partially standing, so being in a state of anxiety already. he tried  to stand up partially and take a shot and in doing so, maybe he did not lead the moving  target enough, since the limo at Z150-Z160 being a closer angle requires a faster tracking speed than at  the longer angle at. Z224.

Unfortunately the CBS trial shooters did NOT replicate this  theoretical firing position that Mr.Collins experiment shows is reasonably plausible.

Thanks for the remarks Zeon. I am glad the experiments made an impression on you. There are some important ergonomic aspects that can only be learned by sitting in a full-sized mock up of the sniper’s nest with a rifle in hand and aiming at targets at the same approximate angles that the actual shots were estimated to have been taken at. As someone else pointed out, it is surprising that there has not been much attention paid to these ergonomic aspects. Here is a photo marked up that shows the targets and how close to the window box the rifle is when aiming at the Z160 target.





Another factor that I believe is relevant is the trigger pull weight of the Carcano rifle. According to Wikipedia, the M1 Garrand rifle’s average trigger pull weight is 6 to 6.5 lbs. And the minimum safe weight is 4.5 lbs. However, the Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the TSBD had a much lower trigger pull weight:

“The trigger pull was determined by the panel to be approximately 3 pounds.”

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/firearms_hsca.htm

Therefore, it appears that the Carcano rifle had a very significantly lower (around one-half) trigger pull weight than the average M1 rifle that LHO had trained extensively with while he was in the USMC. Even highly trained experts sometimes have guns inadvertently fire before they are completely ready. Especially when those guns have a significantly lighter trigger pull weight than what they have become accustomed to.

It seems to me that LHO would not have been likely to miss the entire limo when shooting a shot at the ~Z160 time frame unless the shot happened before he was completely ready and aimed to fire. I think the lighter trigger pull and possibly some interference from the window box, etc could have been factors that might have caused a missed shot.