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Originally Posted by turbonium
As to the type of bullet, again there has been much debate. Certainly a bullet fired from a pistol would be a low velocity bullet, and would cause a small and shallow wound. But it seems unlikely that any sniper would ever use a pistol to shoot at a target from the distance required.
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What range would we be talking here? In the early 70's there was a target shooting organisation called the IHMSA. International Handgun, Metallic Sillouhette Assocition. The rules were simple enough. Target were placed at 50, 100 150, and 200 meters. THey were metal plates the size and shape of a chicken, pig, turkey, and ram and weigted from 16 to 42 pounds. The pistol had to be used with opene sights (no telescopic sights) and th shooter could not use an atrificial rest, including the ground. Standing, if your non firing hand held the firing hand in front of the wrist, it was okay, if was behind the wrist, is was an artifical rest and not allowed. I used a 9mm in a break action Contender sigle shot pistol, and could hit the rams pretty well, but it did not have the power to knock them over. Other shooters could call shots, giving the target and 'eye'. This was with an open sight pistol at 200 meters. A well made pistol would be an ideal sniper weapon because is could easlily fit in a bag or case that was far too small to even hold a rifle.
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Originally Posted by turbonium
A case has been made for the use of a saboted bullet. A sabot is a plastic carrier that grips a bullet within it. A small caliber bullet is placed within a sabot to enable it to be fired from a larger caliber weapon. I'm not sure of the veracity of the following story, but in 1975, a maintenance man reportedly found a 30.06 shell on the roof of the County Records Building in Dealy Plaza. The casing had an unusual crimp in its neck, which has led some to believe it may have been fired from a sabot. His son is said to still have the shell in his possession. I haven't looked into this theory enough to form an opinion either way.
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Bolding mine. The casing is the spend brass cartride that remains in the gun after the round is fired. The bullet would be the only part encased in a sabot. There is a flaw in the terminology there somewhere.
The .30-06 fires a bullet of .308 inch diameter, the same as the 7.62 nato round. The difference is the .30-06 has a large case and goes faster. The largest sabot rounds I've ever seen in a .308 were .224, or 5.56 mm. Oswald's gun fired a 6.5 mm round which would leave just about 0.55mm for the sabot. While possible, it seems a little thin The other thing to consider is that the plastic or other bits from the sabot will be on the ground where they could be found.
Also, all military ammo is stamped with the year of manufacture on the bottom. In '63 the .30-06 was the main caliber used by the US military in both the M-1 and M-14. This means that pre-1967 ish, there was a very good schance that any .30-06 case found would have the year on the head stamp. That could be used quite easliy to disrove the thoery that that round was involved. Even if the round is stamped 63 or older, it could have been surplus sold off in the late 60's when the US changed to the 7.62 and 5.56mm rounds as the standards.
All rifle bullets are crimped. There is a groove in the bullet itself that is intended specifically for this. Some pistols, like .44 and .357 magnums are this way as well, This stops the bullet from slidig back and forth in the case due to recoil. For an odd crimp in the neck, the most likley cause is a round that failed to eject and got caught in the action; or was ejected with great forc and hit something that dented it There doesn't seem to be any benefit from having a round crimped on one side if the goal was to actually hit anything
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Originally Posted by turbonium
Another theory suggests a low velocity dissolving projectile that would leave no bullet in the body, leaving only a small diameter, shallow wound. I personally have found the argument for this theory to be weak.
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There is some work being done on these in the form of powdered aluminum held in a epoxy base The theory is that the bullet will basically disolve on impact in to a fine dust, and transfer 100% of it's, very high, kinetic energy. The KE will be high, because the velocity of these rounds is much higher than with a standard round. This has been an ongoing debate for a long time among makers of self defense pistol ammunition. Slow and heavy, vs. fast and light. Fast and light has little penetration, whereas big and heavy will go through a target completely. The single best argument I've ever seen on this tips the scales toward big and heavy of you want to be absolutely positive that target will stay down.