The Truly Magical Bullet

[Howard Gee]

It's not a diversion.  It points out your drooling hypocrisy.  "Duh, I dunno...musta disappeared" is apparently a reasonable answer, but only when you're the one giving it.

Your "challenge", like everything you post here, is BS trolling.

Here's the problem, Johnny.

You asked what could have happened to a missed shot. I responded that it probably hit concrete and fragmented and rationally explained why trying to find a bullet that missed the limo and could wind up anywhere in or around the plaza would be much more difficult than finding a bullet that supposedly entered JFK's throat.

I never said "Duh, I dunno...musta disappeared", and if you weren't such a hairless drooling kook you'd realize that the entire point of this thread is that a 'vanishing' bullet isn't a reasonable or plausible position to take.

However, that's precisely the position you and the rest of the drooling kooks have taken.

Challenge still on to all kooks (especially the goofy midget bald ones)....

Where did the bullet go ?

[Joe Elliott]

That Z190 "jiggle" WOULD fit Roseary Willis coming to an abrupt halt at Z195 and that would fit nicely with Betzer Z186 and Wiliis photo Z205, the period of time both of those photographers thought they heard the 1st shot fired.

But that would be 1 sec before Z224 and so, that would mess up the MC rifle fired 3 times theory, unless someone can show its possible shoot 2 shots in 1 sec with an MC rifle.

I did a study of the Zapruder film and found that Rosemary Willis started to slow down in the z160?s. She came to a complete stop by around z195 but was slowing down well before then.

One can download the individual frames, measure the distance Rosemary is from some ?landmark? and with a little study, one can see the slowdown starts well before z195.





And does this also fit with Altgens photograph at z255, which he also thought was taken about the time of the first shot. It seems that Betzer, Willis and Altgens thought their photograph was taken at about the time of the first shot, even thought these three photographs cover a time span of 4 seconds. It seems they all thought their photograph was of special significance.

[Joe Elliott]

 the chip on the curb does not seem consistent with being hit by an entire bullet. That is total speculation, but maybe we should shot some curbs with Carcanos  A lot gun enthusiasts out there

Good luck with hitting the precise corner of a curb with a Carcano, or any other rifle, with a shot from 80 yards away.

And to get, not a bullet, but a bullet fragment, to hit the precise corner of a curb, will take a lot of trail shots before, by some fluke, it is done.



Or, one can drive a car, with a tire with lead balancing weights on it, up against the curb, simulating a careless or impaired driver. That shouldn?t be too hard to recreate. And is, most probably, how the smear (not a chip) was formed on the corner of the curb.

[Joe Elliott]

If you are referring to Virgie Baker (Rachley), initially, she said she thought saw something hit in front of the President's car on the road, not the curb (her November 24, 1963 interview). She didn't  mention it in her March 1964 FBI statement (22 H 635/6). In her deposition to the WC, she said that it hit BEHIND the President's car past the Stemmons freeway sign (7 H 510):

"Mr. LIEBELER. Where was the thing that you saw hit the street in relation to the
President?s car? I mean, was it in front of the car, behind his car, by the side of his car or
was it close to the car?
Mrs. BAKER. I thought it was-well-behind it."

Exhibit CE354 was marked to show where she said the bullet hit. She put it well past the
Stemmons sign. Now if that was BEHIND the President's car (I'm not sure how she
would have seen that because the follow-up car would have been in the way), it must
have happened at about z250. It couldn't have happened at z160. [Mrs. Baker was
standing at the point marked 1. and the thing that hit the road was at the point marked 2.
on CE354. See:

http://www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0487a.htm

I think there was more than one witness as I recall who saw something strike the road.

Ms. Baker could see something to the right of the limousine. Nothing would have definitely blocked her view. Perhaps the motorcycles. Perhaps not.

It depends on the target. It is just a matter of physics. The bullet asborbs energy when it compresses.  If the bullet does not deform or displace the target then all of the kinetic energy of the bullet is absorbed by the bullet itself.  A 10 gram bullet travelling at 670 m/sec has 2250 Joules of kinetic energy.  When that energy is transferred to the bullet, the bullet heats up. If enough energy is absorbed, the bullet lead melts. You can see this, for example, in these clips:

The specific heat of lead is .128 Joules per gram-degree C. The melting point of lead is 327C.   So in order to bring 10 grams of lead initially at 20C the bullet to its melting point it just has to absorb 307 x 10 x .128 Joules = 392 Joules or less than 20% of the total bullet energy. There is additional energy of 22.4 J/g to actually melt it, so an additional 224 Joules would be needed to melt 10 grams of lead, for a total of 616 Joules or less than 30% of the total bullet energy. 

We can estimate that the 10 gram bullet has 8 g. of lead and 2 g. of copper jacket. Copper has a specific heat of .385 J/g-deg. C, a melting point of 1083 deg. C, and a latent heat of melting of 207 J/g (9 times that of lead).  So to melt 2 grams of copper initially at 20C, the jacket needs to absorb 2 x 1063 x .385 + 2 x 207 = 1233 Joules or over half the bullet energy. 

Since it is apparent that a significant amount of energy is transferred to the target when hitting asphalt, there is likely not enough energy available from the impact to melt the copper even if the jacket absorbed all the compression energy.  But the 8 g of lead absorbing its share of half the bullet energy (.8 x .5 x 2250 = 900 J.) receives almost twice the amount of energy needed to melt all the lead.

This is outside of my field of expertise but checking the internet for the amount of energy needed to melt lead, your calculations look good to me.

There is certainly enough kinetic energy to melt all the lead, but surely not all the energy will go into heat. Much of the energy will go into breaking up part of the asphalt into little fragments. And much of it will go into breaking up the copper jacket into little fragments. And much of it will go into breaking up the lead into little fragments.

While it is theorically possible for all the lead to melt, maybe only 5%, or 10% of the energy goes into heat. Maybe less. I do not know.



A brief look at the video, I see bullet fragments being created, but it?s not clear to me that any liquid metal was formed.



I would be interested in any video which clearly shows the bullet turned to liquid, or a ballistic expert who states that a bullet hitting asphalt or rock will melt all the lead in the bullet.

[Matt Grantham]

Good luck with hitting the precise corner of a curb with a Carcano, or any other rifle, with a shot from 80 yards away.

And to get, not a bullet, but a bullet fragment, to hit the precise corner of a curb, will take a lot of trail shots before, by some fluke, it is done.



Or, one can drive a car, with a tire with lead balancing weights on it, up against the curb, simulating a careless or impaired driver. That shouldn?t be too hard to recreate. And is, most probably, how the smear (not a chip) was formed on the corner of the curb.

 My point was that others here called it a chip and am suggesting it is too insignificant so why you are suggesting I am overestimating its significance There is likely already existing examples of what a rifle shot does to a curb in similar circumstance I never suggested a bullet fragment test would be necessary Certainly not if you could provide compelling evidence a single bullet would create damage well beyond what is seen at Elm st You are not an anti re creationist are you?

[Joe Elliott]

 My point was that others here called it a chip and am suggesting it is too insignificant so why you are suggesting I am overestimating its significance There is likely already existing examples of what a rifle shot does to a curb in similar circumstance I never suggested a bullet fragment test would be necessary Certainly not if you could provide compelling evidence a single bullet would create damage well beyond what is seen at Elm st You are not an anti re creationist are you?

I?m not an anti re-creationist, just an anti Creationist. I am meanly pointing out that the experiment you propose is very difficult.

People, at least most people, who think the curb smear was caused by a bullet, don?t think it was caused by a bullet, but by a bullet fragment.

It is impossible to predict the exact path of a bullet fragment. They are generally deflected some by the first target they strike which creates the fragments. Getting the fragment to hit a desired second target, like a melon, is a little difficult. Getting the fragment to hit precisely on the edge of the curb, just like the curb near Mr. Tague, is going to take days and days of testing, I imagine.

Getting a fragment to hit a curb that is just 3 feet behind the first target would be difficult. Getting a fragment to hit a curb that is 80 yards behind the first target, to recreate the speed the fragment would strike the curb near Mr. Tague, would be extraordinarily difficult.

I am not against trying to recreate a proposed scenario. I just hope the person who does so is not blind to other possibilities, like the lead smear being formed by one of the thousands of cars that pass by there each day.

If they try out both scenarios, I think they will find it is far easier for a car to put a lead smear precisely on the corner of a curb than a bullet fragment to do so. And far more likely.

[Matt Grantham]

I?m not an anti re-creationist, just an anti Creationist. I am meanly pointing out that the experiment you propose is very difficult.

People, at least most people, who think the curb smear was caused by a bullet, don?t think it was caused by a bullet, but by a bullet fragment.

It is impossible to predict the exact path of a bullet fragment. They are generally deflected some by the first target they strike which creates the fragments. Getting the fragment to hit a desired second target, like a melon, is a little difficult. Getting the fragment to hit precisely on the edge of the curb, just like the curb near Mr. Tague, is going to take days and days of testing, I imagine.

Getting a fragment to hit a curb that is just 3 feet behind the first target would be difficult. Getting a fragment to hit a curb that is 80 yards behind the first target, to recreate the speed the fragment would strike the curb near Mr. Tague, would be extraordinarily difficult.

I am not against trying to recreate a proposed scenario. I just hope the person who does so is not blind to other possibilities, like the lead smear being formed by one of the thousands of cars that pass by there each day.

If they try out both scenarios, I think they will find it is far easier for a car to put a lead smear precisely on the corner of a curb than a bullet fragment to do so. And far more likely.

 Bullet test not difficult

 Fragment test more difficult and far less important if bullet test is relatively significant

 Pretty sure I have already made that clear, but you keep speaking like you are explaining something to me

[Joe Elliott]

 Bullet test not difficult

 Fragment test more difficult and far less important if bullet test is relatively significant

 Pretty sure I have already made that clear, but you keep speaking like you are explaining something to me

I should think that most people who think a bullet was involved think the smear was caused by a fragment, not a bullet. After all, the curb was not, presumably, the target.