When Could Oswald Have "Zeroed" (Sighted-In) the Alleged Murder Weapon?

[Michael T. Griffith]

Say what we will about the Sports Drome story - and I'm not going to dive into it - these folksy characters are about as believable as it gets. I hadn't seen this before, but it's refreshing to see witnesses with no obvious agenda being interviewed by a reporter with no obvious agenda.

Very weird: The bolt-action rifle, wrapped and tied with string, is handed over the fence instead of being brought through the office ... "Oswald" is practicing rapid firing and gets off six shots in 6-9 seconds ... and when "Oswald" is confronted by this toothless old fart about shooting at his targets, "Oswald" says nothing in response (which indeed sounds somewhat Oswald-like).

The video repeats on here - it's really only about six minutes.

Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear.

Now, I actually fully agree with you that those witnesses are credible, had no agenda, and were interviewed by reporters with no agenda. But, in viewing those witnesses as credible, you could get in big trouble with your leading lone-gunman scholars for veering dangerously off message. Why? Because according to the Warren Commission, Gerald Posner, and Bugliosi, all of the accounts of encounters with Oswald at the Sports Drome Rifle Range in Dallas were "mistaken."

Why were they supposedly "mistaken"? Because the most credible of the accounts, those of Homer and Sterling Wood, put a man who was a dead ringer for Oswald at that rifle range when the real Oswald was known to be elsewhere, obviously providing more unwanted evidence that Oswald was being impersonated in Dallas before the assassination, which of course "just cannot be because there was no conspiracy."

According to the Woods, "Oswald," i.e., the Oswald lookalike, was using a "6.5 Italian carbine" but with a different scope than the one on the alleged murder weapon. The man was an excellent shot. The man was driven to and from the range by another man.

Both Homer Wood and his son Sterling Wood positively identified photos and footage of Oswald as being the man they had encountered at the rifle range.

Your post suggests you've done little reading of scholarly works that reject the lone-gunman theory, because virtually all of them discuss the accounts of the Oswald lookalike at the Sports Drome. Your post also suggests you don't even have a handle on your own side's talking points.

Here's some of what one of the first and most scholarly WC critics, Sylvia Meagher, said about Homer and Sterling Wood's encounters with "Oswald" at the Sports Drome in her classic work Accessories After the Fact:

By treating these witnesses as a group, the Commission has obscured the
fact that the testimony of Sterling Wood and his father is not subject to
serious objections. Sterling and his father went to the rifle range on Saturday
afternoon, November 16, 1963, when Oswald was not in Irving as usual.
He had remained in Dallas, at Marina Oswald's suggestion that he might be
at the birthday party for one of Mrs. Paine's children that weekend. It was
therefore physically possible for Oswald to be at the rifle range, as the Woods
testified he was. . . .

Dr. Wood testified (10H 387) that when he saw Oswald on the television
screen on the day of the assassination, he immediately told his wife that
Oswald looked like the man at the rifle range. He decided to say nothing
to his son and to see if the boy independently recognized Oswald.

About half an hour later the boy came in and as soon as he saw Oswald on
the TV screen, he said, "Daddy, that is the fellow that was sitting next to me
out on the rifle range."

During his testimony Dr. Wood was shown photographs, first of Larry
Crafard, whom he failed to identify. Next he was shown photographs of
Oswald on the street, with other men in the background. He unhesitatingly
pointed to Oswald as the man at the rifle range. . . .

Sterling, like his father, was shown photographs of Larry Crafard, whom
he failed to recognize. When he was shown a picture of Oswald and other
men on a street, he immediately pointed to Oswald as the man he had seen
at the rifle range. He also identified a photograph of the rifle found in the
Book Depository as the weapon he had seen at the rifle range, but said
that the telescopic sight was not the same. (10H 396) Finally, he volunteered
that he had looked at his neighbor's target at the rifle range and that the
man was "the most accurate of all." (10H 397)

There is no reason to question the credibility of this thirteen-year-old boy,
and it is gratifying that the Commission did not do so. What the Commission did
was to obfuscate his story, lumping him together with the other witnesses, and
then dismissing them all. Only when the full testimony is examined does it
become obvious that the Woods' story does not suffer from the same weakness
as the others and that the man they saw must have been Oswald's double if not
Oswald himself.

If the Commission had accepted the Woods' testimony, it would have
helped to corroborate its thesis of Oswald's marksmanship—a thesis which,
as it stands, has been the subject of much justified criticism. On the other
hand, it would have introduced an unknown friend who was driving Oswald
to target practice.

If the Commission had accepted the Woods' testimony, it might have
lengthened the shadow of an unknown accomplice or of a man deliberately
engaged in impersonating Oswald. (Vintage Book Edition, 1992 reprint of
1967 edition, p. 371)

The Woods are the kinds of solid, credible witnesses that prosecutors dream of. But, nope, the WC had to reject them because the real Oswald could not have been at the Sports Drome when the Woods saw a man there who looked just like Oswald. We now know that the WC was aware of the possibility that Oswald was being impersonated, but they rejected all evidence of impersonations and ignored the issue.

[Benjamin Cole]

MTG--

Thanks for your collegial replies.

BTW, there are Youtubes of gun enthusiasts shooting M-C's with good results. As war surplus, there was probably some variation in the quality of rifles, post-war on the market.

Give the relatively short range at which JFK was shot, my guess is the M-C could have been used.

We have the additional problem of Secret Service agent Paul Landis saying he found a slug, which looked like the large CE-399 slug, in the JFK limo. If Landis is speaking the truth, that strongly suggests the M-C rifle was used in the assassination. In fact, it suggests an undercharged slug from the M-C struck JFK in the upper back.

This does not rule out the use on 11/22 of another rifle (from the Dal-Tex building), or the use of rifles with silencers.

Due to multiple earwitnesses, some relatively deep within the TSBD, I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that three loud audible shots were heard inside the TSBD on 11/22. I contend that means there were three shots fired from TSBD6, almost certainly from the sniper window.

LHO is invisible during the JFKA, but remains the prime suspect as one of the shooters.

What is interesting is that there may have been three wild missed shots during the JFKA. (Tague, the Elm St. manhole cover and the asphalt behind the limo). Maybe that was LHO shooting to miss, a replay of his Walker expedition.

IMHO, the JFKA makes more sense with LHO as a participant, unwitting or otherwise, rather than totally innocent.

LHO's immediate post-JFKA behavior is that of a complicit party, or one who quickly, within moments, deduced he had been framed. That suggest he was part of the JFKA plot.

IMHO, caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

[Tim Nickerson]

We have the additional problem of Secret Service agent Paul Landis saying he found a slug, which looked like the large CE-399 slug, in the JFK limo. If Landis is speaking the truth, that strongly suggests the M-C rifle was used in the assassination. In fact, it suggests an undercharged slug from the M-C struck JFK in the upper back

Landis is not speaking the truth.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-paul-landis-really-find-a-bullet

[Benjamin Cole]

Landis is not speaking the truth.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-paul-landis-really-find-a-bullet

Could be. Or maybe Landis is telling the truth. 

Other witnesses reported finding the slug, which could have been CE-399, where Landis said he left it.

JFK witnesses are an exasperating lot. Some alter their commentary as the years go by, and others emerge years later. Many witness statements conflict.

My time-traveling lie detector sometimes fails me.

[Benjamin Cole]

Say what we will about the Sports Drome story - and I'm not going to dive into it - these folksy characters are about as believable as it gets. I hadn't seen this before, but it's refreshing to see witnesses with no obvious agenda being interviewed by a reporter with no obvious agenda.

LP--Thanks for posting. I have never seen these vignettes before.

I agree...sure seems like LHO was at the gun range, and practicing.

Not sure what to make about the story about someone handing LHO a rifle over a fence. That would suggest a friend, or we could use the word "accomplice."

While I lean to the theory of more than one gunsel on 11/22, I think the idea that LHO "was a bad shot" and that the M-C rifle is a terrible rifle are exaggerations.

We have seen from the recent horrible assassination (Kirk) and near-assassination (Trump-Butler) that an amateur armed with a rifle can be lethal.

Just IMHO, caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions. 

[Dan O'meara]

WC apologists never mention the fact that the supposed lone gunman, Oswald, would have needed to fire about 10 rounds just to sight-in, or "zero," the weapon in order for it to fire accurately. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant James Zahm, who was an instructor in marksmanship training, explained this to the WC:

Mr. SPECTER. How many shots in your opinion would a man like Oswald have to take in order to be able to operate a rifle with a four-power scope, based on the training he had received in the Marine Corps?

Sergeant ZAHM. Based on that training, his basic knowledge in sight manipulation and trigger squeeze and what not, I would say that he would be capable of sighting that rifle in well, firing it, with 10 rounds. (11 H 308) 

And FBI firearms expert Robert Frazier told the Commission how difficult it was to sight-in the Carcano rifle:

Mr. FRAZIER. When we attempted to sight in this rifle at Quantico, we found that the elevation adjustment in the telescopic sight was not sufficient to bring the point of impact to the aiming point. In attempting to adjust and sight-in the rifle, every time we changed the adjusting screws to move the crosshairs in the telescopic sight in one direction-it also affected the movement of the impact or the point of impact in the other direction. That is, if we moved the crosshairs in the telescope to the left it would also affect the elevation setting of the telescope.

And when we had sighted-in the rifle approximately, we fired several shots and found that the shots were not all landing in the same place, but were gradually moving away from the point of impact. This was apparently due to the construction of the telescope, which apparently did not stabilize itself--that is, the spring mounting in the crosshair ring did not stabilize until we had fired five or six shots.

We found in this telescopic sight on this rifle that this ring was shifting in the telescope tube so that the gun could not be sighted-in merely by changing the screws. It was necessary to adjust it, and then fire several shots to stabilize the crosshair ring by causing this spring to press tightly against the screws, to the point that we decided it would not be feasible to completely sight the weapon in as far as windage goes, and in addition found that the elevation screw could not be adjusted sufficiently to bring the point of impact on the targets down to the sighting point.

Mr. EISENBERG. As I understand it, the construction of the scope is such that after the elevation or windage screw has been moved, the scope does not--is not--automatically pushed up by the blade spring as it should be, until you have fired several shots?

Mr. FRAZIER. Yes; that is true when the crosshairs are largely out of the center of the tube. And in this case it is necessary to move the crosshairs completely up into the upper portion of the tube, which causes this spring to bear in a position out of the ordinary, and for this windage screw to strike the side or the sloping surface of the ring rather than at 90 degrees, as it shows in Exhibit 555. With this screw being off center, both in windage and elevation, the spring is not strong enough to center the crosshair ring by itself, and it is necessary to jar it several times, which we did by firing, to bring it to bear tightly so as to maintain the same position then for the next shots. (3 H 405-406)

The FBI found that the rifle's scope was so clumsily attached and so unrelated to the weapon's line of fire that it could not be adjusted; indeed, metal shims had to be placed under the scope before the rifle's accuracy could even be tested.

Okay, so when and how would Oswald have been able to sight-in the alleged murder weapon before 12:30 on the day of the assassination?

I've never really understood the story about Oswald disassembling his rifle. The disassembled rifle was as long as the rifle he was going to originally buy, so it's not like he was disguising the fact he was bringing a rifle to work in a bag. The few inches lost by disassembling would gain him nothing.
The only way the rifle could have remained sighted would be to do this before taking it to the TSBD building and not disassembling it. Disassembling the rifle destroyed the sighting of it. Oswald would know this.
And when do Nutters believe Oswald had time to reassemble the rifle?

[Charles Collins]

I've never really understood the story about Oswald disassembling his rifle. The disassembled rifle was as long as the rifle he was going to originally buy, so it's not like he was disguising the fact he was bringing a rifle to work in a bag. The few inches lost by disassembling would gain him nothing.
The only way the rifle could have remained sighted would be to do this before taking it to the TSBD building and not disassembling it. Disassembling the rifle destroyed the sighting of it. Oswald would know this.
And when do Nutters believe Oswald had time to reassemble the rifle?

Disassembling the rifle destroyed the sighting of it.

Why would anyone think that? I believe that the disassembly for reducing the length to the size of the bag only involves taking the wooden stock off of the rest of the rifle. The scope stays mounted to the receiver/barrel assembly. So no alignment of the scope is changed relative to the barrel and where it would shoot. If LHO zeroed in the rifle for the (~100’) distance involved for the Walker attempt, then it should have stayed pretty much like that and been just fine for the distances involved in Dealey Plaza.

[Lance Payette]

Your post suggests you've done little reading of scholarly works that reject the lone-gunman theory, because virtually all of them discuss the accounts of the Oswald lookalike at the Sports Drome. Your post also suggests you don't even have a handle on your own side's talking points.

Michael, there is something seriously wrong with you. I don't know if I'm even allowed to say that here, but I'm saying it. You have got serious screws loose. The posts of yourself, KGB Tom and WC Sham Man Dan are so tedious, so nonsensical and so repetitive that they are destroying any semblance of a forum. Putting you three on Ignore leaves the forum looking like a blank canvas. Engaging with any of you is, at least in my opinion, a complete waste of time. I can put up with a CT enthusiast, or even a flock of them, if they are at least rational and/or amusing. You are neither. The folks at the Ed Forum seem to have reached the same conclusion insofar as you are concerned, which is presumably why you have taken your insane act here.

Unlike you in your deranged, one-dimensional, believe-absolutely-anything, nothing-is-too-crazy little CT world, I have no "side." I have no "talking points." Unlike you, I can acknowledge a genuine mystery when one exists without peeing in my pants because it doesn't mesh perfectly with my overarching theory of the case. Unlike the many factoids I have exposed. the Sportsdrome is a genuine mystery. It may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with Oswald or the JFKA, but it is a genuine mystery that is not easily dismissed. I have read, insofar as I know, pretty much everything published about the Sportsdrome; I simply had not seen this video.

'Bye now.