The deformation of CE-399 adds credibility to the SBT

[Lance Payette]

Long thread at the Ed Forum that isn't too kind to the Knott/Orr project: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29880-%E2%80%9Cnew-evidence%E2%80%9D-why-the-sbt-is-impossible-so-says-the-video/page/2/

Larry Schnapf said this, which suggests there is no "study," just the dubious animation:

Knott Labs was hired by John Orr to develop photogrammetry for a 3D animation of DP. Orr provided the details and instructions to Knott to do a bare-bones 3D animation that focused on two frames of the Z-film.  Stoll-the CEO of KL- knew very little about the assassination and to this day continues to make serious mistakes when discussing the assassination, the project and the implications of the project.

After the initial 3D animation was completed in 2018,  John Orr and I formed a limited partnership to fund further work on this project.  We subequently parted ways with KL when the person who worked on the project left KL.  We have continued to revise the animation and are close to finishing it.

Stoll/KL is promoting an old version of the animation and I would not put much credence in anything Stoll or KL says. -FWIW

[Charles Collins]

CE 399 does not really “add credibility” to the SBT. CE 399 is “arguably not inconsistent with” the SBT. It would add more credibility to the SBT if it were far more extensively and plausibly damaged and its provenance were certain (e.g., it had been found lodged in Connally’s thigh at Parkland or on his seat in the limo). When we combine the startling condition of CE 399 with its uncertain provenance and the inherent implausibility of the SBT – well, sure, it’s way more of a problem for the LN narrative than a more damaged bullet lodged in JBC's thigh would have been.

I used to fire all sorts of guns at bottles and cans in a riverbed where the bullets lodged in a sand bank behind them. Sometimes we'd dig out the bullets just to see what they looked like. It was often very surprising how badly deformed they were. On the other hand, I was astonished at a documentary that showed a Carcano bullet penetrating two feet into a pine board and remaining more pristine than CE 399.

The biggest selling point of CE 399, it seems to me, is the connection to Oswald’s rifle. Assuming that CE 399 was indeed fired from Oswald’s rifle, then if the SBT isn’t correct we are quickly in the realm of an elaborate and implausible (to me) conspiracy. If CE 399 were a fake, what sort of Three Stooges conspirators would have produced a fake that looked so implausibly pristine and raised so many questions? How many shots would you have to fire to produce a bullet with that particular damage - 100 or more? And how would you know, before the JFKA or within a few hours thereafter, that you "needed" such a fake? And, unless you were in fact the Three Stooges, why would you ever have allowed a conspiracy scenario where the need for such a fake was even possible?

The SBT has survived 62 years of scrutiny, with enough medical, ballistics and forensics experts concurring with it, that it’s simply silly to say the SBT is "impossible." Yes, other experts have said this and tried to prove it, but to me the SBT, warts and all, stands as "implausible but possible" and probably the most likely explanation. To me, there are and always will be too many unknowns ever to say the SBT is definitely correct or definitely impossible. In the context of all else we know, it's a reasonable explanation.

What I don’t understand is why the debate continues on forums such as this, as though someone were going to say something new or startling at this point. I looked closely at the Knott Laboratory's study, and it seems to me to make assumptions about things that can’t possibly be known with the precision Knott claims. It was commissioned, moreover, by John Orr, who has been on an obsessive anti-SBT crusade for more than 30 years. I wonder how many people know that Orr’s theory, at least in 2013, had Oswald firing both the shot that hit JFK in the back and exited his throat and a separate shot that hit Connally in the back, as well as a third shot that missed; the head shot was (Orr says) a professional on top of what I take to be the Dal-Tex building. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-i-investigated-president-john-f-kennedys-assassination. It’s difficult to believe that the paying client being a longtime anti-SBT crusader like Orr had no effect on Knott’s work.

In the nearly two years since the Knott study was published, it seems to have generated remarkably little interest apart from self-promotion by Knott. I found this comment at the Ed Forum by Tom Gram, who is certainly a sane and thorough researcher and who seems to share my concerns about the "precision" perhaps being more illusory than real.

The issue I think is that the limo and human models are just photogrammetry using the Zapruder film; so basically Dale Myers, and a few things don’t look particularly accurate. They have JFK way over on the edge of the car with his arm hanging over, shots at Z210 and Z225 which seems like an odd choice of frames for 2023, etc. etc.

One thing I’m surprised no one has commented on is it looks like they have the back wound positioned below the shoulder line and coming right out of the official exit on JFK’s neck. In that sense their model seems to support the SBT more than refute it.

On the other hand, I was astonished at a documentary that showed a Carcano bullet penetrating two feet into a pine board and remaining more pristine than CE 399.

If I remember correctly, and we are talking about the same documentary, it was practically 3-feet penetration.

Another thing that might astonish folks is the fact that a very similar rifle that shoots ammo with very similar characteristics and ballistics was one of three favorite rifles of W.D.M. Bell, who killed about 300 African elephants with it. This is one of his books. It can be had (as a kindle version) on Amazon for chump change.

[Tim Nickerson]

No, I have been puzzled by this myself. I have Googled extensively and have (I think) read everything Knott has put out, but I have not seen the actual study. Pat Speer wrote that he understood there had been a falling out between Orr and Knott. Is it possible Orr owns the rights? It seems very odd that Knott does all this self-promotion but never actually says (as far as I can tell), "You can read the full study HERE."

I doubt that a fully detailed study by them exists. Certainly not one like that of the ITEK film analysis of 1976. In their synopsis, Knott says that Connally would have had to be seated 10" inboard of Kennedy at Z225 for the SBT to work.They tell us that they ruled that out through their photogrammetry process but they don't tell us just how far inboard that they determined that Connally was. We're also not told by them what copy of Zapruder film that they used or what other photos that they used. In their video animation, they have Connally turned just barely to the right, when in reality his torso was rotated between 30 and 37 degrees at Z223. 30 degrees of right rotation moved the point of entry on Connally's back about 3 inches to the left. So, when you use the range given by ITEK(6.4"+/-2.2") plus the right rotation of Connally, the lateral angle of the SBT can be made to work.

Michael Griffith and Royell Storing both claim that the Knott Lab study is the most thorough, sophisticated, and scientific SBT trajectory analysis ever done. Griffith adds that "No previous analysis even comes close to matching the depth and sophistication of the Knott Lab analysis". Yet, when asked to provide particulars of the study they clam up. Neither of them will say if they read a full detailed study by Knott Lab on the SBT. 

[Tim Nickerson]

Long thread at the Ed Forum that isn't too kind to the Knott/Orr project: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29880-%E2%80%9Cnew-evidence%E2%80%9D-why-the-sbt-is-impossible-so-says-the-video/page/2/

Larry Schnapf said this, which suggests there is no "study," just the dubious animation:

Knott Labs was hired by John Orr to develop photogrammetry for a 3D animation of DP. Orr provided the details and instructions to Knott to do a bare-bones 3D animation that focused on two frames of the Z-film.  Stoll-the CEO of KL- knew very little about the assassination and to this day continues to make serious mistakes when discussing the assassination, the project and the implications of the project.

After the initial 3D animation was completed in 2018,  John Orr and I formed a limited partnership to fund further work on this project.  We subequently parted ways with KL when the person who worked on the project left KL.  We have continued to revise the animation and are close to finishing it.

Stoll/KL is promoting an old version of the animation and I would not put much credence in anything Stoll or KL says. -FWIW

There are some real crazies over there. Varnell might not even be the looniest. I don't understand why Pat Speer feels the need to cater to them. He calls the SBT a hoax. His take on the theory is flawed. In reading his chapter on the SBT, I had a brief moment of doubt on my own stand on it. After measuring the lengths of my own ears, that doubt went away. I now think of Pat as Pat "Small Ears" Speer. 

I do like and respect Larry Schnapf.

[Zeon Mason]

What is confusing to me is the notion that an MC 6.5 mm ball nosed bullet , spinning end over end at a reduced velocity of 900 ft/sec can go thru a wrist bone and hand also. I do not there has been any experiment which replicated this end over end spinning AS the bullet strikes  a human cadaver wrist bone and exiting palm of hand which proves the minimal flaking at the nose end of an MC bullet similar to CE 399.

It may be that there is some misinterpretation with the description of the bullet “ tumbling” when in fact , it may be that it was more like “wobbling”. IE: instead of the bullet spinning end over end in the vertical plane, the bullet instead had its horizontal axis spin just slightly off center thus the bullet when it hit the wrist bone was still traveling nose first , but with a wobbling” spin.

I think a good example of the wobbling effect is the 5.56 mm type bullet designed for the AR-15/ M-16 rifles. It’s purposely designed to wobble slightly about its trajectory line axis so as increase probability of causing more internal damage to a human body on impact, as opposed to the typical conical shaped hunting bullets designed to penetrate completely thru a human or animal body.

And as I recall, the MC 6.5 mm ball nosed bullet was designed to penetrate thru a human body (including skull). At least one experiment has demonstrated that the 6.5 mm bullet can go thru two replica human torsos  and continue on afterwards at a velocity of approx 900 ft/sec.

In conclusion, the very slight minimal flake damage on the nose end of the CE 399 6.5mm MC bullet, is the real issue that CTs have criticized as improbable if the bullet impacts the wrist bone and hand of a human , given  the end over end “tumbling” description by conventional WC advocates. Therefore, it maybe that an experiment with a “wobbling” MC 6.5 mm bullet fired at 900 ft/sec velocity directly into a human cadaver wrist , such that the nose end of the bullet impacts the wrist bone, will produce a bullet more similar to CE 399 with resultant minimal flaking at the nose end.

[Dan O'meara]

It is clearly the case, obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense, that CE399 had nothing to do with JBC's wrist injury. What evidence have LNers based their interpretation on, supporting the view that CE399 "matches the injuries"?

So, what you are insinuating is John and everyone else does not know, but you do know what the bullet should look like to match the injuries. Especially given the wrist injury.

I'm just asking a simple question - what evidence supports the claim that the condition of CE399 "matches the injuries"?
What is the evidence?
Is there any?
Is it just an empty, unsupported claim?

The reason I ask this question is because,according to the Warren Commission, this is what a bullet looks like that's been fired into a wrist bone:



I'm sure you'll agree, it looks nothing like CE399.
And this is what a wrist bone looks like that has had a bullet fired through it:



I'm sure you'll agree that this looks nothing like JBC's wrist injury.
It makes sense that a bullet passing through the bone would leave a hole where it passed through. What mental gymnastics can be employed to explain this most obvious discrepancy?



The lack of hole through JBC's wrist bone indicates that a bullet has not passed through it.
We can determine where the bullet struck the bone as it creates a jagged kind of "X" shape with the fractured pieces of bone. But there's no hole for a bullet to pass through.
Also note the small cluster of metallic fragments.
In the LN version of events, these pieces of metal where deposited from the base of the bullet as it passed through JBC's wrist, the argument being that the bullet was tumbling ( ) and entered the wrist injury base-first (even though it was tumbling it also entered his thigh injury base-first.)
If that were the case then this cluster of metallic pieces would be found where the bullet struck the bone (the "X").
As we can see, this is not the case with JBC's wrist injury. This metallic cluster is nowhere near where the bullet struck the bone (relatively speaking).

I am simply asking, what is the evidence supporting the claim that the deformation of CE399 "matches the injuries"?

[Tim Nickerson]

I'm just asking a simple question - what evidence supports the claim that the condition of CE399 "matches the injuries"?
What is the evidence?
Is there any?
Is it just an empty, unsupported claim?

The reason I ask this question is because,according to the Warren Commission, this is what a bullet looks like that's been fired into a wrist bone:



I'm sure you'll agree, it looks nothing like CE399.

This is what a bullet looks like that's been fired into a wrist bone:



I'm sure you'll agree, it looks somewhat like CE-399.