Roger Craig

[Walt Cakebread]

It was never mentioned that the crest on the receiver was ground off so crudely. That would have been more distinguishable and noticeable to a sporting goods store salesman like Weitzman. It would truly have been a unique characteristic. And like Walt said it is not the barrel.

Jack, In the photo of the rifle that you've posted, I'd bet that this rifle has been converted ( re-barreled)  to fire the 7.65 mm mauser cartridge.... and the original stamping was ground off and then the receiver was re-stamped "7.65 MAUSER.   

[Jack Nessan]

Boone, who found the rifle, stated he watched Fritz come and pick up the rifle and eject the cartridge

This simple statement could be a crucial clue about the validity of the claim that the carcano was the murder weapon.....

There is film of Captain Fritz removing the live round from the carcano. And in addition there are eyewitness who described the removal of that live round...   

The live round was not EJECTED.....  It simply fell out at Captain Fritz's feet....   This is a crucial point, because if the rifle had been fired during the assassination that live round would have been served up to the bolt and stripped from the clip by the forward stroke of the bolt.  Thus the live round would have been married to the face of the bolt and locked in the breech of the rifle and the rifle would have been ready to fire that live round.

However...The live round was NOT married to the face of the bolt....We can know this because the live round merely dropped to the floor at Captain Fritz's feet, IT WAS NOT EJECTED and flipped away from the rifle by the action of the ejector as Captain Fritz retracted the bolt of the carcano.   

The fact that the live cartridge simply dropped at Captain Fritz's feet is strong evidence that the carcano was not fired during the assassination.

PS..... If the live round had been the last round (bottom most ) in the clip,  the cartridge elevator would have scratched that live round every time the rifle was fired and reloaded. There are no scratch marks on the live round which indicates that the live round was not the last cartridge in the rifle....  And it was merely dropped into the breech and the bolt was closed BUT NOT LATCHED behind it .    We can know that the bolt was NOT closed to the latched position by examining photos of the rifle as it was picked up from the floor and held up to Captain Fritz..... The bolt can be seen to be in the UNLATCHED position.

The ejection process can be effected by how much force is used to pull the bolt back. I have never watched the film.

CE 141 had to have been loaded into the chamber when the chamber had been expanded due to heat of CE 544 and CE 545 having been fired in the rifle. The reason that is known is the indentation on the side of the shell of CE 141 is similar to the indentation on the sides of CE 545 and CE 545. The FBI referred to the indentation as a "chamber mark". There is not a chamber mark on CE 543 but there is one on all the 30+ other shells that were test fired in the rifle.

[Jack Nessan]

Jack, In the photo of the rifle that you've posted, I'd bet that this rifle has been converted ( re-barreled)  to fire the 7.65 mm mauser cartridge.... and the original stamping was ground off and then the receiver was re-stamped "7.65 MAUSER.   

 Why someone would destroy the crest and place that stamp there is anyone's guess. What is left of the crest looks like the top of the 1891 Argentine Mauser crest, which makes no sense given the 1891 was chambered in the 7.65 x53 round . I don't know where that photo came from but the rifle is definitely the product of a real clown.

[John Iacoletti]

If that could be done to one Mauser, it could be done to another.  Clown or not.

[Walt Cakebread]

If that could be done to one Mauser, it could be done to another.  Clown or not.

The debate is not focused on the feasibility of re-stamping a rifle to designate the caliber of the cartridge to be used on that rifle.
 
Any rifle can be modified to fire a cartridge that is not the cartridge that it was originally manufactured to fire.

There are some rifles that have excellent strong actions that were manufactured to fire a cartridge that isn't a very strong cartridge or the projectile is too light to be effective at longer ranges. Thus a well designed Mauser might have been manufactured  to use a weaker cartridge but was then re-barreled to use a bigger, heavier, and more powerful cartridge. Of course the rifle has to be re-stamped to identify the cartridge to use in that rifle.

But this discussion has jumped the track.....  The rifle that was found HIDDEN BENEATH boxes of books in the NW corner of the sixth floor was NOT stamped 7.65 MAUSER....  It was a carcano and it was stamped "caliber 6.5 "  on the rear sight.

[John Iacoletti]

Not according to 3 deputies who were there.

[Walt Cakebread]

Not according to 3 deputies who were there.

Well as much as hate to agree with detective Day about anything.....In this case because my eyes tell me the rifle he picked up from the flor was a Mannlicher Carcano..... and he scribbled a hasty identification on his evidence sheet that said that the rifle was 6.5 caliber "LEVER ACTION" rifle.  Of course it wasn't a "lever action" rifle as anybody can plainly see in the photos of the rifle...

BUT..... in response to those who believe the rifle was a MAUSER.....I could easily argue that the rifle that was recovered was not a bolt action rifle because Lt Day identified it as a LEVER ACTION rifle.  An utterly ridiculous idea ....  Of course...but it's the same sort of nonsense that is presented by the It was a Mauser crowd....

[Mitch Todd]

Why someone would destroy the crest and place that stamp there is anyone's guess. What is left of the crest looks like the top of the 1891 Argentine Mauser crest, which makes no sense given the 1891 was chambered in the 7.65 x53 round . I don't know where that photo came from but the rifle is definitely the product of a real clown.

The Argentine national crest was ground off by the Argentine government before export. The Argentines had a law requiring the removal of national markings from arms before they could be sold. Almost any example of a model 91 you can find will have been put to the grinder.  I've never seen one that hasn't been scalped.

BTW, the Gun Control Act of 1968 requires that any firearm imported into the US has the weapon clearly and permanently marked with the caliber. The caliber stamp on the pictured example may mark it as such a "post-import" rifle. As a rule, those old military rifles didn't have any caliber markings, and didn't need them. The model 38 and 91/38  Carcanos are a rare exception to this, due to WWII breaking out at a very inconvenient time for the Italian army.