There's a case where a palmprint partial was obtained from a .38 Special cartridge, which is considerably smaller than the Carcano rifle barrel (roughly 3/8" vs. 5/8").
The print in the study came from the "interdigital region" of the palm, not the area of the palm circled in CE 638.
"Detection and Identification of a Latent Palmprint on a Cartridge" by Michelle E. Waldron and Adrianne Walls, Published 2017 ( Link )
Day could have meant the bulk of the print was on the "underside." What's he going to do? Write "underside of the barrel, with about 30% more on the right side of the barrel and about 20% more on the left side of the barrel"?
First things first.... Thank you, for replying with and an intelligent debate...... I sincerely appreciate your engaging the discussion with your views. Now if only you could admit that the photo of the so called "palm print" clearly shows that the photo is NOT of the bottom of the steel rifle barrel. The slot at the right hand side clearly reveals that the so called palm prinr was lifted from the WOODEN foregrip of a model 91 /38 Mannlicher Carcano.
And... as you have acknowledged in saying....
Day could have meant the bulk of the print was on the "underside." What's he going to do? Write "underside of the barrel, with about 30% more on the right side of the barrel and about 20% more on the left side of the barrel"?There is a right SIDE, a left SIDE, a TOP . and a BOTTOM of the barrel ...and each constitutes 1/4 of the circumference, and in the case of the carcano barrel that BOTTOM quarter that Day wrote about is about 1/2 inch across .... if Day was referring to the metal barrel....(But he wasn't referring to the METAL barrel at the time he inscribed the 3 X 5 card, he was referring to the WOODEN forgrip)
If a man grabbed that barrel why would only a 1/2 inch of his palm come in contact with the metal barrel?