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A few follow-up points about the alleged shooting feat, zeroing the rifle, and Oswald's Marine Corps rifle scores:
-- Marine Corps rifle expert MSG Jamess Zahm explained to the WC why using the iron sights would have made the shooting feat harder:
Mr. SPECTER. Can you characterize the increased efficiency of a marksman in using a four-power scope as opposed to using only the iron sights?
Sergeant ZAHM. Well, with the iron sights you have more room for error in the fact that you have three variables. You have your targets, your front sight and your rear sight, and you have the possibility of an error in aligning the sights, and then you also have the possibility of an error in the sights on the targets, which we refer to as the sight picture. Looking through aperture or even the open buckhorn type sights, when you are concentrating on your sights, your targets tend to become blurred because of the close focus of your eye in aligning the sights. (11 H 307)
-- Not a single bullet was found in Oswald's possessions. In addition, no gun-cleaning equipment, no gun-cleaning oil, no spent cartridges, no nothing related to maintaining or using a rifle was found among his possessions.
-- The three Master-rated riflemen in the WC's rifle test failed to duplicate Oswald's alleged shooting feat, even though two of them took 6.45 to 8.0 seconds to fire their two sets of three shots. Moreover, they fired their most inaccurate shots on their second and third shots, i.e., the shots fired at the two farthest targets, the same two shots that Oswald allegedly nailed in 5.6 seconds. And they were firing from only 30 feet up, took as much time as they wanted for their first shot, and were allowed to fire practice shots before the test began.
-- Here's what FBI firearms expert Robert Frazier told the WC about the problems they discovered when he and other FBI technicians tried to sight-in (zero) the rifle with the scope:
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 (3 H 405-406)
-- As for the specious suggestion that the supposed lone gunman would not have needed to zero the rifle in the weeks leading up to the shooting, WC staffer Wesley Liebeler addressed this issue in an internal WC memo:
There is a great deal of testimony in the record that a telescopic sight is a sensitive proposition. You can't leave a rifle and scope laying around in a garage underfoot for almost 3 months, just having brought it back from New Orleans in the back of a station wagon, and expect to hit anything with it, unless you take the trouble to fire it and sight the scope in.
This would have been a problem that should have been dealt with in any event, and now that it turns out that there actually was a defect in the scope, it is perfectly clear that the question must be considered. The present draft leaves the Commission open to severe criticism. Furthermore, to the extent that it leaves testimony suggesting that the shots might not have been so easy out of the discussion, thereby giving only a part of the story, it is simply dishonest. (11 HSCA 230)
-- Regarding the fact that Oswald barely qualified in the second of three rifle qualification categories in the Marine Corps, it would be helpful to note just how relatively easy the Marine Corps rifle qualification standards were when compared to the alleged shooting, keeping in mind, too, that Oswald was using a superb semi-automatic rifle (the M1) when firing at Marine rifle ranges:
In Stage One-Slow Fire, the person had 12 minutes (yes, minutes) to fire 10 rounds.
In Stage Two-Slow Fire, the person had 6 minutes (yes, minutes) to fire 5 rounds.
In Stage Five-Rapid Fire, the person had 50 seconds to fire 10 rounds.
In Stage Six-Rapid Fire, the person had 50 seconds to fire 10 rounds.
Some sources say 60 seconds for the two rapid-fire phases, but I recently found a source that says 50 seconds, so I'll err on the side of caution and go with 50 seconds. That still means Oswald had 5 seconds per shot in the "rapid fire" phases.
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