Shells, rifle, SN... Who?

[Walt Cakebread]

I don't think it is likely that a Mauser was introduced into evidence as you state. Note that Weitzman does not mention specific characteristics like the serial number, the clip, the home-made sling etc. In his signed Affidavit of November 23rd he states that the rifle was a

- 7.65 (wrong)
- Mauser (wrong)
- bolt-action (correct)
- equipped with a 4/18 scope (correct)
- with a thick leather brownish black sling (correct.)

Nowhere in the record is there any reference to TWO rifles being discovered, it was always just the one. It does not make sense for any conspirators to create a paper trail leading from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano via the Hidell alias to Oswald's PO box and back to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago, and then to leave the wrong rifle at the crime scene!

On the one hand the conspirators devised a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel, but also so sloppy to leave the wrong evidence behind? I don't buy that.

I don't think it is likely that a Mauser was introduced into evidence as you state

I didn't state that.....  I said that it appears as if "someone" ( Fritz & co.  ?) was attempting to  introduce a 7.65 mauser into the evidence stream.....  At the time ( Friday afternoon) the conspirators were in a bit of a panic....( Lee Oswald was still alive and protesting his arrest) They may have been preparing a fall back position by claiming they had found a mauser in the TSBD that they suspected belonged to one of Oswald's confederates...  That's pure speculation, but the fact remains that Fritz gave Weitzman a 7.65 Mauser and Weitzman described that mauser for FBI agent A1bert Sawyer.    FWIW.... Sawyer was from the Houston office of the FBI, and he wasn't even in the TSBD when the Carcano was found......so his report cannot be from the time that Weitzman saw Detective Day pick the rifle up from the floor.

Why do I feel that I'm required to argue both sides of this coin?......  I'm 100% certain that the rifle that Weitzman and Boone discovered was a Mannlicher Carcano,, while at the same time I'm 100% certain that Weitzman had a 7.65 mauser in his hands and described that mauser for FBI agent A1bert Sawyer .....

I do know that Weitzman testified that he was ordered to report to the police station later that Friday afternoon.....long after he had departed the TSBD at about 2:00pm.   The question is:....  Why was Weitzman ordered to report to the police station?? 

[John Iacoletti]

Whether or not a Mauser was found in the TSBD is irrelevant, as the bullet found at Parkland after falling out of the Governor's thigh, as well as the two large bullet fragments recovered from the limousine were determined to have been fired through the barrel of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other rifles in the world.

You mean the two fragments that were allegedly found and removed by a secret service deputy and a navy corpsman before the FBI arrived to process the limo, and for which there is no documented chain of custody? The fragments that were so mutilated that Robert Frazier matched then up by lining up marks “in his mind” because they didn’t line up under the microscope? Those fragments? Is there any evidence that those fragments ever went through Kennedy or Connally?

No bullets or cartridges of 7.65 mm were ever recovered at the assassination scenes: the TSBD, Dealey Plaza etc.

Supposedly the ARRB found an empty evidence envelope that was dated 2 December 1963 and indicating that it was a 7.65 mm shell found in Dealey Plaza.

Lead fragments recovered from the victims' bodies and the limousine were analyzed using Neutron Activation Analyses and it turned out that they all originated from the recovered bullet and fragments.

That is way overstated.  All NAA tells you is what concentrations of antimony were in the various fragments.

[Mitch Todd]

"To begin with, the rifle only fooled one law enforcement officer:"

I guess I'm not explaining myself clear enough.
The TSBD Carcano wasn't mistaken for a model 1891 Argentine 7.65 mauser by any of the LE officers present.
That Mauser's build quality and distintive markings compared to the Carcano make the idea one was mistaken for the other improbable.

We already figured out your first assertion. The second requires that you have someone who not only knows the difference between the two rifles, and is in a position to be able to clearly see said markings. In the right light, you can see engraving on a rifle from an arms length away. Don't count on reading it much further away than that. And that's in good light.

"Nothing implies Weitzman possessed any particularly useful knowledge regarding identifying firearms"

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9926&relPageId=34&search=lane_and%20weisberg%20and%20mauser
"In addition to Weitzman having a familiarity of rifles because of his sporting good operation and his own interest, Weitzman was an engineer, a graduate engineer."

Weizman had an engineering degree, which in itself has nothing to do with whether Weitzman knew anything at all about firearms. And, by the time he encountered the rifle in the TSBD, he'd spent the bulk of his adult life in the rag trade. His sole foray into "the sporting goods business" was the year --if that-- he spent winding down a small-chain "discount operation."

"Boone had only been a Deputy for about a year, and supposedly holds the record as the youngest deputy that Decker ever hired.
I doubt he was a firearms expert"

Boone didn't need to be a firearms expert to tell the difference between a Carcano and a Argentine Mauser. This is Dallas, Texas, a gun culture, and as pointed out by Officer Marion Baker in his WC testimony.

SENATOR COOPER - Have you fired other types of rifles other than the one you used?

Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir; the first one I had was a 30-30 Marlin lever type.

SENATOR COOPER - Have you ever seen the rifle that is alleged to have belonged to Lee Oswald?

Mr. BAKER - I saw it, a photograph of it, in the newspaper.

SENATOR COOPER - Do you know what kind of rifle it is?

Mr. BAKER - Not offhand. I heard it was some foreign make gun. Most of the boys down there at the police

department have had dealings with foreign type guns, rifles, you know of this kind, and a lot of them sell them,

and a lot of them rework them, you know, make them into deer rifles.

I'm well aware of "Dallas, Texas gun culture." In fact, I'm part of it. And as a part of it,  I can tell you that there are guys out there who own a half-dozen model 98's who would be mystified by a model 91 if they saw it on someone's wall. The '91's are mechanically different from the later Mausers in a number of ways. Because of that, they aren't as sought after, and are somewhat obscure any more.

Anyway, in order to tell the difference between a Mauser '91 and a Carcano, you have to know what they look like. Where did Boone say that he knew what they look like? For that matter, how many of those "Dallas gun culture" cops saw the rifle and said it was definitely a 7.65 Mauser?

[John Iacoletti]

You can’t have it both ways. If they didn’t know what rifles looked like then why were they so specific about it being a 7.65 Mauser?

[Mitch Todd]

You can’t have it both ways. If they didn’t know what rifles looked like then why were they so specific about it being a 7.65 Mauser?

I didn't say that "they" didn't know what the rifles looked like beforehand. Weitzman had to have known something about a 7.65. Mauser, since he was the source of the ID. As for why he was so specific, I've covered this before, but I guess everyone forgot, or just didn't pay attention.  Beginning in the late '50's, the Argentinian military began to unload it's inventory of old bolt action service rifles. First to go were the old model 91 Mausers. The 89, 90, and 91 models (effectively, they were the same design) were unique among Mauser rifles in that they had a single stack magazine that extended well below the forestock to about the bottom of the trigger guard. All of them were chambered in 7.65x53 Mauser, which didn't turn out to be that popular of a military cartridge. The upshot is, it you see a Mauser with the single stack magazine, the factory chambered it in 7.65 x 53. The thing is, there are more than one bolt action rifles with that dangling single stack magazine out there. If you don't know about the others, but are familiar with the model 91, it can't be too hard to see that magazine sticking out of a Carcano and [wrongly] think it's a Mauser 7.65.

[Walt Cakebread]

You can’t have it both ways. If they didn’t know what rifles looked like then why were they so specific about it being a 7.65 Mauser?

You can’t have it both ways. If they didn’t know what rifles looked like then why were they so specific about it being a 7.65 Mauser?

They??    Only Weitzman said ( spoken ) that he thought the rifle was a 7.65 mauser, and he said he based that on a quick glimpse of the rifle as Detective Day picked it up from the floor.  ( Although Fritz denied that he had speculated that the rifle was a 7.65 Mauser, it's entirely possible that Fritz did say ...." it looks like a 7.65 Mauser" .... and Weitzman may have concurred with that observation )
At any rate .... Boone based his statement ( affidavit) on Weitzman's pronouncement and NOT an actual visual observation.

[Gary Craig]

We already figured out your first assertion. The second requires that you have someone who not only knows the difference between the two rifles, and is in a position to be able to clearly see said markings. In the right light, you can see engraving on a rifle from an arms length away. Don't count on reading it much further away than that. And that's in good light.
Weizman had an engineering degree, which in itself has nothing to do with whether Weitzman knew anything at all about firearms. And, by the time he encountered the rifle in the TSBD, he'd spent the bulk of his adult life in the rag trade. His sole foray into "the sporting goods business" was the year --if that-- he spent winding down a small-chain "discount operation."
I'm well aware of "Dallas, Texas gun culture." In fact, I'm part of it. And as a part of it,  I can tell you that there are guys out there who own a half-dozen model 98's who would be mystified by a model 91 if they saw it on someone's wall. The '91's are mechanically different from the later Mausers in a number of ways. Because of that, they aren't as sought after, and are somewhat obscure any more.

Anyway, in order to tell the difference between a Mauser '91 and a Carcano, you have to know what they look like. Where did Boone say that he knew what they look like? For that matter, how many of those "Dallas gun culture" cops saw the rifle and said it was definitely a 7.65 Mauser?

"The second requires that you have someone who not only knows the difference between the two rifles, and is in a position to be able to clearly see said markings"

If the markings on the rifle are observable why do they need to know the difference? They brought their own lights to do the search so visibility wouldn't have been a problem.

"Anyway, in order to tell the difference between a Mauser '91 and a Carcano, you have to know what they look like. Where did Boone say that he knew what they look like?"

You tell me. It's only an issue if you're a WC apologist and need Boone and Weitzman to misidentify the TSBD Carcano as a Mauser to explain the affidavit and investigation reports they filed saying they found a mauser.
The model '91 comes up because it looks the most like the Carcano and they would have to have some knowledge of it to mistake one for the other.

[Walt Cakebread]

"The second requires that you have someone who not only knows the difference between the two rifles, and is in a position to be able to clearly see said markings"

If the markings on the rifle are observable why do they need to know the difference? They brought their own lights to do the search so visibility wouldn't have been a problem.

"Anyway, in order to tell the difference between a Mauser '91 and a Carcano, you have to know what they look like. Where did Boone say that he knew what they look like?"

You tell me. It's only an issue if you're a WC apologist and need Boone and Weitzman to misidentify the TSBD Carcano as a Mauser to explain the affidavit and investigation reports they filed saying they found a mauser.
The model '91 comes up because it looks the most like the Carcano and they would have to have some knowledge of it to mistake one for the other.

WHY??  Is there a discussion about the markings on a 7'65 Argentine Mauser??    Weitzman said that at the time Detective Day picked up the rifle he got only a quick glimse of the rifle and based on that quick glimpse he assumed the rifle was a 7.65 Mauser.   The most prominent characteristic that both the Carcano and the Argentine mauser share is the magazine below the receiver forward of the trigger guard.   Weitzman couldn't have seen any small identifying marking on the rifle, He saw that magazine forward of the trigger guard and assumed the rifle was a mauser which was much more common than the unusual Mannlicher Carcano.

Even when Weitzman was handed a 7.65 Mauser at the police department later that afternoon he did not describe the small stamping on the mauser....The first identifying characteristic he described in A1bert Sawyer's report was the MAGAZINE below the receiver and forward of the trigger guard.