With the JFK Files coming out soon, I wanted to pass along this little piece of paper that has recently surfaced in my circle. More in the comments.
(media.greatawakening.win)
SINGLE SOURCE ONLY
Hand guns produce different wound cavities than rifles. Mostly because of projectile velocity. Handgun rounds don't come close to rifle rounds in terms of velocity and pounds of force.
Perhaps.... But wounds also depend on range. A nearby pistol can create more damage than a distant rifle. Remember that you can load a rifle.for subsonic velocities...
If they recovered the projectile.then they know the caliber, but not the load or the weapon. There is no chance that they would have been able to match ballistics and projectile striations that quickly back then.
True, there are lots of variables. When a round is traveling at about 2,000 fps and contacts flesh a phenomenon occurs called hydrostatic shock. Essentially the flesh expands so fast that elasticity is overcome and the flesh shreds instead of flexes and returns to shape to some degree. There are basically no handguns, of that time anyway, that send a round that exceeds that 2,000fps threshold. Rifles, with "necked" cartridges and more powder regularly achieve the 2,000fps threshold. Though the round that Oswald allegedly used was a 6.5x52 carcano and at that distance it would have been right at that threshold whereas a round from a pistol, even just feet away, would bit have caused hydrostatic shock. For sure there are lots of variables like you said.