What about that dent?

[Lance Payette]

Oh? Maybe you misspoke:

Do you not see the contradiction?

No, I do not. My first statement was that the dry-firing shell was still in the chamber of the M-C when it was wrapped in the blanket in Ruth's garage. You rather bizarrely stated that dry-firing a disassembled rifle seemed strange to you (as indeed it would be). I clarified that I was not talking about dry-firing the disassembled rifle but merely leaving the dry-firing shell in the rifle when he disassembled it, which would not be unusual, and then ejecting it after he had assembled the rifle in the TSBD.

Marina said Oswald "practiced" with the rifle on the porch. I recall that some neighbor also saw this. To fit your theory, you want to speculate that he was not dry-firing and thus there was not a dented shell in the chamber that became CE 543. Go ahead. I would suggest that for most of us and probably Oswald, "practicing" with a rifle would involve dry-firing. Dry-firing is basic in the Marines and Oswald reportedly spent considerable time doing this.

[Jack Nessan]

I do, but you clearly don't. You always pretend to know more than anyone else but then make one blundering statement after another.

LOL! One, CE 543 was supposedly fired during the assassination, but obviously it was not, even according to your amateurish take on Nicols' testimony. Two, this does not explain why there are no chambering impressions on CE 543. 

This is just silly, not to mention dishonest. Yes, that is indeed the point, which I made clear. I tend to doubt that you've even read Thompson's analysis of CE 543. If you did, you didn't understand it.

This is another one of your silly and dishonest strawman attacks. Why don't you quote from Thompson's analysis, hey? I wonder if you just don't know that Thompson argues that at least four shots were fired.

LOL! Are you in junior high or something? The level of silliness and dishonesty in your strawman arguments is pitiful. I notice you snipped Dr. Thomas's comments. Gee, I wonder why.

I know far more than you do about firearms. You're a silly troll who pretends to understand issues that you clearly don't understand. Your tactic is to make ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments because you can't deal credibly with the evidence.

Why don't you address the arguments about CE 543 made by recognized firearms experts that I present in my article? I'm guessing you still haven't bothered to read my article on CE 543.

People should know that you're a peddler of the fringe two-shots-only lone-gunman scenario, a theory that even 98% of your fellow lone-gunman theorists reject as ridiculous, including Gerald Posner, Vincent Bugliosi, and Jim Moore.

The thread is about CE 543. Why does that have to be explained to you. Josiah clearly states LHO only fired two shots in his book. Try reading it.

If you are as knowledgeable about firearms as you claim, how about act like it. Stop posting only half the story. 

Josiah can argue there were six shots, as some clowns do on this thread, but it does not change what is known about just two shots from LHO and also what is known about CE 543.

Given how many different subjects you have misrepresented the information, why would anyone care what you have written.

[Lance Payette]

One might also add - so I will! - that explaining CE 543 as a dry-firing shell is the explanation most in accord with Occam's Razor. MTG consistently violates Occam's Razor to an almost unbelievable degree. Given two possible explanations, MTG always opts for the most complex, conspiratorially-oriented. and frankly least believable one. ALWAYS. This is precisely why I started my thread encouraging CTers to focus on plausibility. CTers like MTG are embarrassments to rational thought and analysis.

[John Corbett]

One might also add - so I will! - that explaining CE 543 as a dry-firing shell is the explanation most in accord with Occam's Razor. MTG consistently violates Occam's Razor to an almost unbelievable degree. Given two possible explanations, MTG always opts for the most complex, conspiratorially-oriented. and frankly least believable one. ALWAYS. This is precisely why I started my thread encouraging CTers to focus on plausibility. CTers like MTG are embarrassments to rational thought and analysis.

Here is the AI response to the dented shell:

How Warren Commission Exhibit CE543 Got Dented

Commission Exhibit 543 (CE 543) was one of three spent 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano cartridge cases found in the “sniper’s nest” on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. It had a noticeable inward dent on the mouth (the open lip where the bullet had been seated) www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

Official and Expert Explanations
The Warren Commission’s own analysis, supported by FBI ballistic testing, concluded that all three cases (CE 543, 544, and 545) had been fired from the same rifle (CE 139) based on matching firing-pin, extractor, and bolt-face marks www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

The dent on CE 543 was examined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Firearms Panel in the 1970s–1970s. They found that the dent was produced during ejection from the rifle, specifically from the rapid operation of the bolt/ejector mechanism, not before firing or from manufacturing/loading www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

The panel duplicated the dent in test firings with Oswald’s rifle, showing that one of four test cases produced a similar dent when the bolt was worked quickly. Microscopic comparison confirmed all three cases were fired in the CE 139 rifle, with no evidence of multiple chamberings or prior firings

[Lance Payette]

Here is the AI response to the dented shell:

How Warren Commission Exhibit CE543 Got Dented

Commission Exhibit 543 (CE 543) was one of three spent 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano cartridge cases found in the “sniper’s nest” on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. It had a noticeable inward dent on the mouth (the open lip where the bullet had been seated) www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

Official and Expert Explanations
The Warren Commission’s own analysis, supported by FBI ballistic testing, concluded that all three cases (CE 543, 544, and 545) had been fired from the same rifle (CE 139) based on matching firing-pin, extractor, and bolt-face marks www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

The dent on CE 543 was examined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Firearms Panel in the 1970s–1970s. They found that the dent was produced during ejection from the rifle, specifically from the rapid operation of the bolt/ejector mechanism, not before firing or from manufacturing/loading www.jfkassassinationforum.com.

The panel duplicated the dent in test firings with Oswald’s rifle, showing that one of four test cases produced a similar dent when the bolt was worked quickly. Microscopic comparison confirmed all three cases were fired in the CE 139 rifle, with no evidence of multiple chamberings or prior firings

Well, there is irony for ya: The guy who complains about the use of AI turns around and uses it to bolster his position. When are people going to understand: AI is fine if you want to know some specific fact like the boiling point of water (323° F., my AI tells me) or the date of the JFKA (November 11, 1982). It is not some "separate mind" that analyzes data and reaches a reasoned conclusion. It just scans the internet and regurgitates what seems to be the prevailing opinion. Besides, AI is an alien plot to transform humanity into a non-biological life form, or something like that.

[John Corbett]

Well, there is irony for ya: The guy who complains about the use of AI turns around and uses it to bolster his position. When are people going to understand: AI is fine if you want to know some specific fact like the boiling point of water (323° F., my AI tells me) or the date of the JFKA (November 11, 1982). It is not some "separate mind" that analyzes data and reaches a reasoned conclusion. It just scans the internet and regurgitates what seems to be the prevailing opinion. Besides, AI is an alien plot to transform humanity into a non-biological life form, or something like that.

I did not endorse or refute the AI answer to this question. I merely put it out there for discussion. The important question here is whether the sources AI turned to correctly documented the findings of the HSCA firearms panel on this subject. The source it used for that answer came from this forum so based on that information, the source might or might not have correctly stated the finding. Now if you want to explore this question further, I could delve deeper and find or more credible source but my belief is if the person who posted that had incorrectly stated the findings of the HSCA firearms panel, somebody would have refuted that and AI would have found the refutation as well and made note of that in its answer.

[Michael T. Griffith]

This thread is a good example of the refusal of lone-gunman theorists to deal credibly and factually with hard physical evidence that refutes their theory.

One of the things that led firearms expert Howard Donahue to doubt the Warren Commission's version of the shooting was that he realized there was no way CE 543 could have been used to fire a bullet during the assassination. He also realized that the HSCA's firearms experts were blowing smoke when they falsely claimed they had produced shells that were as dented as CE 543 in their test firings (as I've mentioned, anyone can look at the HSCA's shells and see that not of them is dented as severely as CE 543).

A number of other firearms experts have studied the matter and have agreed with Donahue that CE 543 simply could not have been used to fire a bullet during the shooting. I discuss this fact in my article "The Dented Bullet Shell: Hard Evidence of Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination" (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ihue8a0GmN_Ptl38bPjpu1F99nqU0Z6f/view).

The evidence that CE 543 could not have fired a bullet on 11/22/63 is so strong that some anti-conspiracy researchers have actually acknowledged it and have proposed the theory that the alleged lone gunman only fired two shots. (However, this theory is rejected even by the vast majority of lone-gunman theorists.)

A few of these commentators have also theorized that the supposed single assassin did not fire the ammo that hit JFK's head but that Secret Service agent George Hickey, riding in the follow-up car, accidentally shot JFK in the head. This is the mortal error theory. It has few adherents, but it is partly based on sound forensic science.

Donahue was the first one to propose the mortal error theory. He did so because he knew there was no way that JFK's head was hit by the kind of ammo that Oswald allegedly used, i.e., FMJ ammo. He knew that the forensic evidence clearly showed that JFK's head was hit by high-velocity frangible ammo, not by low-/medium-velocity full-metal-jacketed (FMJ) ammo. This fact was confirmed by one of the world's leading forensic pathologists, Dr. Vincent DiMaio, in his highly acclaimed book Gunshot Wounds.

The ammo that hit JFK's head left dozens of tiny fragments in the right-frontal region of the skull, along with a few small fragments near the entry point in the back of the head. An FMJ bullet would have never behaved in this manner. Here's what DiMaio said about FMJ bullets leaving numerous fragments (a "snowstorm") inside a skull (which is what we see in the right front on JFK's lateral autopsy x-ray):

In x-rays of through-and-through gunshot wounds, the presence of small fragments of metal along the wound track virtually rules out full metal-jacketed ammunition.... In rare instances, involving full metal-jacketed centerfire rifle bullets, a few small, dust-like fragments of lead may be seen on x-ray if the bullet perforates bone. One of the most characteristic x-rays and one that will indicate the type of weapon and ammunition used is that seen from centerfire rifles firing hunting ammunition. In such a case, one will see a “lead snowstorm” [Figure 11.4]. In high-quality x-rays, the majority of the fragments visualized have a fine “dust-like” quality. Such a picture rules out full metal-jacketed rifle ammunition or a shotgun slug. (Gunshot Wounds, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1999, p. 318, emphasis added).

For more information on the evidence that JFK's head must have been hit by high-velocity frangible ammo, see https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,3641.0.html.

The mortal error theory has been debunked. Hickey never fired a shot during the assassination. All of his ammo was accounted for almost immediately after the shooting. No one in the follow-up car saw or heard him fire a shot. However, the mortal error theory at least acknowledges that JFK's head must have been bit by high-velocity frangible ammo.