In the 1963 and 1967 rifle tests, 14 of the 15 riflemen, 13 of whom were experienced and highly skilled riflemen, and three of whom were Master-rated riflemen, tried and failed to duplicate Oswald's alleged shooting feat of scoring two hits in three shots in 6 seconds on his first attempt. Even the one expert rifleman who scored two hits in three shots in 6 seconds on his first attempt did not actually duplicate Oswald's supposed feat because he fired under conditions that were substantially easier than those Oswald would have faced, and because he had far better rifle skills than Oswald had.
So, what would a valid, realistic lone-gunman rifle test look like? What would a rifle test need to include to duplicate all the conditions of the shooting feat attributed to Lee Harvey Oswald? The test would have to include the following:
-- None of the participants can have scored higher than the second category of the three qualification categories for the Marine Corps or the Army, if they have ever been in the military.
-- Any participant who has not been in the Marine Corps or the Army cannot have scored higher than the third category of the six NRA qualification categories.
-- Each participant must be described as a poor shot by nearly all of the 50-plus people who saw him shoot four to seven years earlier and who are interviewed and asked about his shooting skills. Rockefeller Foundation fellow and investigative journalist Henry Hurt:
In 1977 the author located and interviewed more than fifty of
Oswald's Marine Corps colleagues, who had never been questioned
by officials or journalists. On the subject of Oswald's shooting ability,
there was virtually no exception to Delgado's opinion that it was
laughable.
Sherman Cooley, an expert hunter who grew up in rural Louisiana,
knew Oswald well during their Marine Corps service. Cooley's
comment capsulizes what several dozen Marines had to say about
Oswald's ability as a marksman:
"If I had to pick one man in the whole United States to shoot me,
I'd pick Oswald. I saw that man shoot, and there's no way he could
have ever learned to shoot well enough to do what they accused him of.
Take me, I'm one of the best shots around, and I couldn't have done it."
Many of the Marines mentioned that Oswald had a certain lack of
coordination that, they felt, was responsible for the fact that he
had difficulty learning to shoot. They believed it was the same
deficiency in coordination responsible for his reported inability to
drive a car. Repeatedly, as an illustration of his ineptitude, the
former Marines harked back to the time Oswald managed to shoot
himself in the arm while fooling with an unauthorized pistol he had
stashed in his locker. (
Reasonable Doubt, pp. 99-100)
-- Each participant must be described as a poor shot by people who saw him shoot one to three years earlier. Oswald was in the Soviet Union from October 1959 till June 1962. For most of his time in Russia, he lived in the city of Minsk. While there, he belonged to a gun club. The members of his gun club viewed him as a poor shot:
Members of the club reported that Oswald had been considered a
poor shot. (G. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings,
Fatal Hour: The
Assassination of President Kennedy by Organized Crime, New York:
Berkley Books, 1992, p. 139).
Subsequent press releases out of the former Soviet Union likewise reported that Russians who saw Oswald shoot considered him to be a bad shot.
-- Participants must use a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which is not considered to be a high-quality rifle when it comes to firing rapidly with accuracy. Henry Hurt:
In any discussion of Oswald's Marine marksmanship, there is a
presumption that the rifle being used is one of acceptable quality.
The ancient, bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano—built around 1940—
represents the opposite extreme. One handbook on rifles has called
it "an odd choice" for the assassination, since it "has no great reputation
for accuracy." This type of weapon also has "a good deal of recoil,"
making rapid shooting "notoriously difficult" considering the
cheap telescope used.
Mechanix Illustrated, one of this country's most respected journals
of popular technology and gadgetry, carried an article in 1964 on
the best way to find bargains in purchasing surplus military weapons.
The article had nothing to do with the assassination rifle and did not
even mention the connection. In advising its readers about various
characteristics of more than a dozen rifles,
Mechanix Illustrateddismissed the Mannlicher-Carcano as being "crudely made, poorly
designed, dangerous, inaccurate . . . unreliable on repeat shots."
The Oswald rifle was further handicapped by the fact that, according
to the FBI, the scope was mounted off center, so that a shooter would
have to compensate for the error. (
Reasonable Doubt, p. 100)
-- The participants cannot fire any practice rounds before the rifle test.
-- The participants must fire in the same cramped conditions that Oswald would have faced in the alleged sniper's nest in the sixth-floor window. Look at these photos to get some idea of how cramped/tight the firing location would have been for Oswald:
"The Cramped Quarters/Tight Space of the Alleged Sniper's Nest in the Southeast Corner Window of the Texas School Book Depository"
https://sites.google.com/view/tight-space-for-sniper/home-- The firing location must include a half-open window, in addition to the same cramped space that Oswald would have faced, and participants must fire through that half-open window.
-- The participants can take up to 11 seconds to fire their three shots, but their final two shots must be fired in less than 6 seconds and must both be hits. If one of their final two shots is a miss, then their first shot must be a hit, the second shot a miss, and the third shot a hit.
-- A shot will only be counted as a hit if it lands in the same small area that Oswald allegedly hit with two of his shots.
-- The participants will get only one attempt.
-- The participants must fire from an elevation of 60 feet.
-- The participants must fire at a moving target silhouette.
-- The participants must believe there is a chance that they will be hit by a dart fired by one or more of the people riding behind the target silhouette if they do not fire their final two shots in 6 seconds or less. Obviously, there can be chance of serious injury, or else no one would agree to participate. So, the chance of injury must be no more than the dart hitting the arm or the shoulder, with an absolute guarantee that the dart will not hit the head, face, or chest of the participants.
People usually forget that the alleged lone gunman would have faced the very real possibility, at least in his mind, that one or more of the Secret Service agents could spot his rifle and fire at his window. This would have put great pressure on him to fire his shots as quickly as possible so he could begin his escape--unless, of course, he had been assured that no such return fire would occur, but lone-gunman theorists rule out such a scenario.
-- The participants must not have target-practiced within 40 days of the test. The FBI could find no evidence that Oswald did any target practice in the 40 days leading up to the 11/22 shooting. In fact, in the
four years leading up to the assassination, the Warren Commission could only come up with 12 alleged cases where Oswald had any rifle practice, and one of those included Marina's belated claim that he would practice working the rifle's bolt while relaxing in New Orleans.
I can think of a few more conditions, but they are minor. The above conditions would make any rifle test a valid, realistic lone-gunman rifle test.
