The Single-Bullet-Theory Elephant

[Martin Weidmann]

Why would you assume that the bullet now in evidence as CE399 was even (planted) at Parkland Hospital?

[Bill Chapman]

You'd think the planters would have fired the bullet into something harder than cotton wadding in order to get a bullet that looked like it had actually travelled through someones body.

The whole controversy with the single bullet theory is not that it could travel through two bodies, but that it could come out the other end so pristine.

FMJ ammo was designed to pass through-and-through human flesh and remain as intact as possible (as per the Geneva Convention).

Additionally, look at the butt-end view of CE399 and imagine your head being crushed to that extent.

Call that 'pristine'.

And now, boys & girls, for your entertainment:

Phil Leotardo bites the dust

[John Tonkovich]

The SBT posits the bullet was no longer pristine by time it struck the Connally's wrist, having gone through Kennedy's neck and Connally's torso, making it slow down and tumble.

The cadaver test -- by showing how mangled a pristine bullet (one fired nose-on at full velocity) would look from just hitting the wrist bone -- was I think meant to demonstrate that CE399 must have not arrived at the Governor's wrist that way. Since then some tests have sought to duplicate the "non-prisitne" SBT path, with the Australian people coming close in the 2004 "Unsolved History" episode "JFK: Beyond the Magic Bullet".

BTW, the cadaver bullet might have struck the wrist bone more squarely, whereas CE399 might have simply slapped off the Governor's radius. Connally's X-ray doesn't show a hole through the bone, only fractures with the bone present.

CE 399 hit  Kennedy in an irregular fashion in his back.

[Jerry Freeman]

FMJ ammo was designed to pass through-and-through human flesh and remain as intact as possible ....

CE 399 was designed to pass through as many guys as it had to
 

Why would you assume that the bullet now in evidence as CE399 was even (planted) at Parkland Hospital?

In threads past...it was discussed that the Parkland employees that handled the item in question stated that the bullet that they saw had a pointed nose.

[Martin Weidmann]

CE 399 was designed to pass through as many guys as it had to
 In threads past...it was discussed that the Parkland employees that handled the item in question stated that the bullet that they saw had a pointed nose.

In threads past...it was discussed that the Parkland employees that handled the item in question stated that the bullet that they saw had a pointed nose.

Actually only Wright said that, but it's only minor detail of everything that's wrong with the bullet now in evidence as CE399.

I don't believe for a second that the MC bullet we now know as CE399 was ever at Parkland Hospital and/or fired at Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63

[Andrew Mason]

FMJ ammo was designed to pass through-and-through human flesh and remain as intact as possible (as per the Geneva Convention).

Additionally, look at the butt-end view of CE399 and imagine your head being crushed to that extent.

Call that 'pristine'.

You assume that CE399 was at room temperature when it was deformed slightly. 

But it carried 2250 Joules of kinetic energy (10 g. at 2200 fps or 670.6 m/sec muzzle speed).  The specific heat of lead is .16 Joules/gram degree C.   The melting point of lead is 375 degrees C and the addition of tin and antimony will lower that a bit.  That is the melting point.  The lead core will soften at temperatures much lower than that.

To heat a 10 gram MC bullet at 20 C to say 170 C (150 deg. C change) would require around  .16 x 10 x 150 = 240 Joules of energy.  If half of the bullet kinetic energy loss is absorbed as heat by the bullet, that represents a loss of 480 Joules of bullet energy, or a reduction from 2250 to about 1750 Joules (670 m/sec to 591 m/sec).   

[Joe Elliott]

FMJ ammo was designed to pass through-and-through human flesh and remain as intact as possible (as per the Geneva Convention).

Additionally, look at the butt-end view of CE399 and imagine your head being crushed to that extent.

Call that 'pristine'.

Maybe not pristine but the Black Knight would consider it but a scratch, if he thought anything of it at all.

[Joe Elliott]

You assume that CE399 was at room temperature when it was deformed slightly. 

But it carried 2250 Joules of kinetic energy (10 g. at 2200 fps or 670.6 m/sec muzzle speed).  The specific heat of lead is .16 Joules/gram degree C.   The melting point of lead is 375 degrees C and the addition of tin and antimony will lower that a bit.  That is the melting point.  The lead core will soften at temperatures much lower than that.

To heat a 10 gram MC bullet at 20 C to say 170 C (150 deg. C change) would require around  .16 x 10 x 150 = 240 Joules of energy.  If half of the bullet kinetic energy loss is absorbed as heat by the bullet, that represents a loss of 480 Joules of bullet energy, or a reduction from 2250 to about 1750 Joules (670 m/sec to 591 m/sec).

Question:

Are you saying that CE 399 should have been greatly deformed because it should have melted?