Reply #218: BTW, you say that you know rifles and ammo, so answer me this:

[stopbush]

why would any assassin who knew what he was up to use as his weapon of choice 1) a 20+-year-old surplus military rifle that 2) took only one kind of ammo, that ammo being full metal jacket military ammo, ammo designed to pass through a body, rather than breaking up inside a body and causing maximum damage?

If the idea was to kill JFK, and an experienced assassin was hired to do the job, why not use soft-tipped bullets that would break up even when encountering soft tissue, causing maximum damage to the target? Why use ammo that might pass right thru the victim? The doctors at Parkland speculated that had JFK only suffered the back/neck wound, he may well have lived. Yet, if he had been hit with a soft-nosed round, the damage would have been much greater in that wound. Why on earth would trained killers and conspirators plan so elaborate a plot and then fail miserably in choosing the weapon and the ammo used in that weapon to carry out the plot?

There is no evidence that any other weapon was used (no bullets of any other kind were recovered, only two bullets from Oswald's rifle; no other weapons were found, etc).

What's your personal knowledge of firearms tell you about the above?