Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Which is four.
Mr. EISENBERG. But then you only have to lose one cartridge case. You
do not have to lose a bullet and a cartridge case.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is right. You do have to lose one case.
Mr. EISENBERG. And the case you lose would be a Western case?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is correct. Western.
Representative FORD. Is it unusual to have a mixture of this kind in a
pistol?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir. Usually they are all the same brand. Although
if you have two boxes--.38 Special cartridges come in boxes of 50. And
you will see hand-loaders once in a while. By the way, we found no
indication that they had been hand loaded.
Representative BOGGS. Is this a police weapon as well?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes; and a very good one. Not in that particular
caliber. In other words, the caliber----
Representative BOGGS. That is what I meant.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. .38 S&W is not a popular cartridge in this country. The
.38 Special is.
Representative BOGGS. .38 Special is?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir. That cartridge.
Representative BOGGS. With police forces?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. We use it. Most of your larger police forces use the
.38 Special. It is a better cartridge.
Mr. EISENBERG. Getting back to the example we were using before as a
second possible theory--the cartridge case that would be lost would be
a Western case, I believe actually?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, it would be a Western case.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, also getting back to a subject we were discussing,
I will quote in part from a letter from Mr. Hoover to Mr. Rankin dated
March 31, 1964.
"On March 30, 1964, Mr. Eisenberg requested that the Dallas Police
Department be contacted to determine whether any additional cartridge
cases had been recovered." And I say parenthetically I mean in addition
to the four which we have seen here.
"On March 30, 1964, Lieutenant Carl Day, Dallas Police Department,
advised the Dallas office of this Bureau that all of the cartridge
cases and bullets recovered had been previously submitted to the FBI."
You mentioned or discussed the question of hand loading. Can you
describe what you mean by hand loading?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Hand loading is nothing more than taking components and
by means of a press you make your own cartridges. You put them together.
Mr. EISENBERG. In this process, would you be able to take a bullet of
one manufacturer and a cartridge case of another?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. You said that you found no evidence that that had been
done in this case?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. We found no sizing marks on the cartridge cases, which
after the first time it has been fired, you many times have to resize
it, due to the fact that one chamber can be too large. They always
full-length resize, for in a police department many officers will be
using this ammunition. You might not resize if one were only firing
them in one gun. In other words, you are limiting the chambers of your
cylinder that they will fit into. But normally they are full-length
resized, and from this you get these sizing marks. Actually they are
scrape marks from the sizing die.
Mr. EISENBERG. In a hand-loading operation, is the equipment needed
bulky or small?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. It is quite bulky.
Mr. EISENBERG. If Oswald had hand-loading equipment, would it have been
likely to have been turned up among his personal effects? Could it be
easily missed?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. You could not miss it; no, sir.