I am familiar with this theory, but I don't think it's effectively established itself.

I am not an expert in forensics or ballistics so I cannot offer any great expert opinion on the wounds, but I'll give you my best layman's perspective.

As this interviewer asks in the latter part of this interview, I think this theory falls down where Mr. Donahue asserts that a different and smaller scale conspiracy took place - one between all the Secret Service Members present that day - not one of whom will come forward and admit that which should have been obvious to hundreds of eyewitnesses present in Dealey plaza. If some see fit to reject the idea that Oswald could pull of the headshot from his alleged nest in the TSBD, I can't see why there would be more appeal in the idea that a completely unintentional shot just so happened to align perfectly with the President's head by accident while somebody who was actually trying to kill him just a relatively few hundred feet away did not.

The ballistics he uses to back up his theory certainly do sound plausible - but again, I would ask - are they *more* plausible than the Warren Report's version? I'm not so certain. I have been shooting guns for the past 28 years and one thing I know for sure is that you simply cannot ever predict what a bullet will do on impact against much other than a paper target. You can shoot an empty pop can where the bullet goes right through - shoot the same can again where this time it falls over, and shoot it a third time when it propels itself straight up into the air. His opinion on which was the better round to produce the eventual result may be entirely plausible - but the question isn't "which bullet would be the better option for creating this desired result?" The question is "*could* the bullet from the Mannlicher-Caracano have achieved the same result? I am going to say that yes, it could.

A few other thoughts on the topic:

The rifle is often maligned as having been a "cheap" rifle. The problem with this characterization is that the word cheap has a few different nuances. It could mean cheap as in that it is a piece of crap, or it could mean cheap an in that it is inexpensive. The Mannlicher-Caracano was not a top-end sniper rifle; but neither was it a piece of crap either. It was an inexpensive military surplus rifle just as today surplus Russian SKS and other such former military weapons are often cheap to acquire. At the relatively short distance a sniper would have to be successful in making a kill shot from the Texas Schoolbook Depository, a high end rifle would not be required.

The so-called magic bullet theory, also referred to in this video, is a misnomer which appears to be based on an assumption initially made by Jim Garrison that Kennedy and Connally's seats were in alignment - in fact, they were not. The middle jump seat that Connally was seated in was positioned to the left - and three inches lower than Kennedy's. Once the true alignment of the seats is taken into account, the trajectory of Oswald's bullet makes a lot more sense.