No.
Oswald's rifle when tested was as accurate as the then current American M-14.
Mr. EISENBERG. I should ask first if you are familiar with this weapon.
I have handed the witness Commission Exhibit 139.
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. We fired this weapon from a machine rest for round-to-round dispersion. We fired exactly 20 rounds in this test, and the dispersion which we measured is of conventional magnitude, about the same that we get with our present military rifles, and the standard deviation of dispersion is .29 mil.
Mr. EISENBERG. That is a fraction of a degree?
Mr. SIMMONS. A mil is an angular measurement. There are 17.7 mils to a degree.
Mr. EISENBERG. Do I understand your testimony to be that this rifle is as accurate as the current American military rifles?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. As far as we can determine from bench-rest firing.
Mr. EISENBERG. Would you consider that to be a high degree of accuracy?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes, the weapon is quite accurate. For most small arms, we discover that the round- to-round dispersion is of the order of three-tenths of a mil. We have run into some unusual ones, however, which give us higher values, but very few which give us smaller values, except in selected lots of ammunition.
Mr. McCLOY. You are talking about the present military rifle--will you designate it?
Mr. SIMMONS. The M-14.
JohnM
The scope was misaligned when they found it in the TSBD. To zero it in they needed to shim it. There is no way the scope could have helped anyone shooting the Carcano hit a target on 11/22/63.
The iron sights were fixed and zero'd in at 200 meters. When US Army experts test fired the rifle for the WC using the iron sights, at the distances the WC claimed, the bullets tended to not only miss high they sailed over the top of the board holding the target at the head shot distance.
Those same Army experts found the bolt action to be sticky. Cycling the bolt between shots caused their shooters to take the sights off the
target. The LN shooter didn't have time to reacquire a moving target between shots in the time the WC came up with.
The trigger on the Carcano was 2 stage. They found the 2nd stage to be a hair trigger that took live practice firing.
There is no record of Ozzie practice firing it.
~snip~
Mr. EISENBERG. Do you think a marksman who is less than a highly skilled marksman under those conditions would be able to
shoot in the range of 1.2-mil aiming error?
Mr. SIMMONS. Obviously considerable experience would have to be in one's background to do so. And with this weapon, I
think also considerable experience with this weapon, because of the amount of effort required to work the bolt.
Mr. EISENBERG. Would do what? You mean would improve the accuracy?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. In our experiments, the pressure to open the bolt was so great that we tended to move the rifle off the
target, whereas with greater proficiency this might not have occurred.
~snip~
Mr. EISENBERG. When you say proficiency with this weapon, Mr. Simmons, could you go into detail as to what you mean--do
you mean accuracy with this weapon, or familiarity with the weapon?
Mr. SIMMONS. I mean familiarity basically with two things. One is the action of the bolt itself, and the force required
to open it; and two, the action of the trigger, which is a two-stage trigger.
Mr. EISENBERG. Can familiarity with the trigger and with the bolt be acquired in dry practice?
Mr. SIMMONS. Familiarity with the bolt can, probably as well as during live firing. But familiarity with the trigger
would best be achieved with some firing.
~snip~
Mr. EISENBERG. Why is there this difference between familiarity with the bolt and familiarity with the trigger in dry firing?
Mr. SIMMONS. There tends to be a reaction between the firer and the weapon at the time the weapon is fired, due to the
recoil impulse. And I do not believe the action of the bolt going home would sufficiently simulate the action of the recoil
of the weapon.
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. But there are two stages to the trigger. Our riflemen were all used to a trigger with a constant pull.
When the slack was taken up, then they expected the round to fire. But actually when the slack is taken up, you tend to
have a hair trigger here, which requires a bit of getting used to.
Mr. McCLOY. This does not have a hair trigger after the slack is taken up?
Mr. SIMMONS. This tends to have the hair trigger as soon as you move it after the slack is taken up. You achieve or you
feel greater resistance to the movement of the trigger, and then ordinarily you would expect the weapon to have fired,
and in this case then as you move it to overcome that, it fires immediately. And our firers were moving the shoulder into
the weapon.
~snip~