LHO used an Italian Carcano.
Eyewitness police at the book depository that were former military reported in the written record that he used a Mauser. They recovered a Carcano later on, and a bullet from a Carcano on his hospital gurney, and a receipt from LHO for a Carcano and a defective scope from a Chicago milsurp dealer.
None of this info gave me much comfort, someone calling something a Mauser is fairly declarative, and it looks nothing like a Carcano.
From the web:
The rifle Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly used to shoot President Kennedy was an Italian-made 6.5 Manlincher-Carcano. However, the rifle was originally identified by Dallas police as a German-made 7.65 Mauser. Was it human error that caused this discrepancy, or was this a sign there was a conspiracy?
Deputy Eugene Boone worked for Bill Decker in the Sheriff’s Department. After JFK was shot, Boone was on the 6th floor of the TSBD when he found a rifle hidden behind a stack of boxes. He credited the flashlight he was carrying, saying without it he never would have seen it. Captain Fritz and Lt. J.C. Day of the Dallas Police Department arrived next and examined the rifle. They were soon joined by Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman, who had once owned a sporting goods store, and he identified the rifle as a 7.65 Mauser. He was so certain that the next day he wrote in his deputy’s report that the rifle was a 7.65 Mauser. When he testified before the Warren Commission, he told them he had told the FBI in Dallas that the gun was a 7.65 Mauser. Sheriff’s Deputy Roger Craig said the same thing, and under oath and in sworn testimonies, both Weitzman and Craig said the rifle was a 7.65 Mauser.
Captain Fritz took control of the rifle and handled it closely. He confirmed it was a German-made Mauser. He even ejected a live round from the chamber, so he had a good look at the rifle.
In the early morning hours of November 23, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade told a press conference that the murder weapon was a Mauser. Later that day, the FBI reported that Oswald had purchased a 6.5 Italian-made rifle through the mail under the name A.J. Hidell, and once that was known, all references to the Mauser disappeared and the murder weapon became a Manlicher-Carcano. There were no signed affidavits from police officers or sheriffs deputies explaining why the rifle was originally said to be a Mauser, nor was there an explanation from Captain Fritz or anyone else in authority that it was a Carcano. No one claimed to have seen or handled the rifle the day before.
A receipt from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago with Oswald’s handwriting was then found among his possessions, indicating that’s where he had bought the rifle. The Post Office receipt for the rifle should have been signed by the person who received it, which would have been Oswald. However, Postal Inspector D.H. Homes, who was also an FBI informant, somehow lost the receipt, even though the Post Office was supposed to retain it. So, an opportunity to connect Oswald directly to the rifle could not be done.
The Carcano rifle had stamped on the barrel: “Made Italy” and “Cal 6.5.” How was it that so many people handled this rifle, for extended periods, on the 22nd and the 23rd, but no one noticed this?
Also of interest is the story of a man who would eventually become the director of the Marine Corps in the Intelligence Center at Quantico, Virginia. He did not want his name revealed, but he is on record as saying, “I know more about the rifle found in the Depository than most people.” At the time of the assassination, he worked as a clerk for the Dallas FBI, and was asked by FBI agent Vincent Drain to build a box for the rifle so it could be flown to Washington for testing late on the night of November 23rd. The clerk’s name is in the Warren Report, his fingerprints were found on boxes on the 6th floor, and Agent Drain said that two clerks had packed the rifle, so his story is believable.
The unnamed clerk would also state, “The rifle had a dirty bore…an exceptionally dirty bore,” which meant it had not been fired for quite some time. It was likely wrapped in something that collected dust particles inside the barrel. With this in mind, let’s consider the testimony of Robert Frazier, the FBI firearms expert who examined the rifle closely when it was sent to Washington. He was asked by Warren Commission member John McCloy specifically if he found any metal fragments in the barrel of the rifle. Frazier replied, “I did not examine it for that.” It seems plausible that an expert like Frazier would have checked the barrel to compare metal fragments found there to fragments removed from JFK’s and Connally’s bodies. So, he dodged the question, which suggests he did not want to honestly answer what the barrel looked like.
Supporters of the Warren Commission have said that at Ruth Paine’s house after the assassination, Marina Oswald directed the police to the garage where she said Oswald kept his rifle. All that was found was a blanket. Ruth Paine never saw the rifle, so we only have Marina’s account that a rifle was there, and her testimony was most inconsistent and unreliable throughout the assassination weekend.
One final point. If the Dallas Police, FBI, and Warren Commission were so sure it was Oswald’s gun that was found on the 6th floor, why did Police Chief Jesse Curry tell Dallas reporter Tom Johnson on July 16, 1964, “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.” Something does not add up. For more stories like this, please check out It Did Not Start With JFK, published by Sunbury Press.
en.wikipedia.org
