Mr. Eisenberg. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce these diagrams as Commission Exhibits Nos. 546 and 547?
Mr. McCloy. They may be admitted.
(The documents referred to were marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 546 and 547, and were received in evidence.)
Mr. Eisenberg. Could you give us the results of your tests by using these diagrams, Mr. Frazier?
Mr. Frazier. Yes, sir.
In this test, Commission Exhibit 546, the diagram illustrates the positions on the floor at which cartridge cases landed after being extracted and ejected from the rifle, Commission's Exhibit 139. In the top portion of Exhibit 546, the barrel was held depressed at a 45-degree angle, and in the lower half of the exhibit it shows the pattern with the barrel held in a horizontal position. Each spot marked with a figure on the diagram shows where one cartridge case landed in both instances, and each one is marked with the distance and the angle to which the cartridge case was ejected.
With the barrel held in the depressed condition, all of the cartridge cases landed within an 85-inch circle located 80 degrees to the right front of the rifle. That may be confusing. It was 80 degrees to the right from the line of sight of the rifle and at a distance of 86 inches from the ejection port.
Now, this circle will not necessarily encompass all cartridge cases ejected from the rifle, since the ejection is determined, not only by the angle of the weapon, but more by the force with which the bolt is operated. A very light force on the bolt can cause the cartridge case to tip gently out and fall at your feet. However, under normal conditions of reloading in a fairly rapid manner, we found the cartridge cases to land in this circle.
The same situation is true of the test made with the muzzle in the horizontal condition.
All of the cartridge cases landed within a 47-inch circle, which was located at right angles to the ejection port, or 90 degrees from the line of sight, and at a distance 80 inches from the ejection port.