[bm3719]

I own a 6.5 Carcano and can confirm that the this chambering does exhibit non-standard terminal ballistics when using the old bottle-nosed, flat-base surplus bullets. Also, a lot of these late-19th century surplus rifles (including my 1891 Truppe Speciali) have less than stellar bores, having seen hard use in two world wars. Mine was shot out pretty bad when in service and often keyholes rounds, for example. All kinds of weird things could be possible at impact in that case. That said, it's still a remarkably well-designed cartridge with many features considered modern now, so can be flat-shooting and very accurate. Some detailed analysis of Oswald's Carcano could lend some insight into whether this is relevant.

[giantrobot]

I would also be interested in a detailed analysis of Oswald's rifle. I don't know how conclusive it would be but it would be interesting. Since it was a surplus rifle there's no telling what sort of wear and tear it had. Same with any ammo recovered at his house or if any was found in the book depository.

Just something like a bottle nose bullet vs tapered is going to affect penetration and ricochets. The range from the book depository to the limo was not really that far, at the point of impact the bullets had significant amounts of energy. They could easily go through bones yet bounce off steel and repenetrate.

I think the Oliver Stone film did too good a job convincing people bullets magically stop when they hit something. Rifle bullets are often very angry and like to make it everyone else's problem.