The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that a rifle cartridge commonly known as the Springfield Thirty Ought Six (.30-06) was used last month to assassinate a prominent conservative activist during an outdoor rally at a Utah college. Online pushback against this statement began immediately and continues to thrive, with an ongoing cottage industry of digital sleuthing. The general public’s trust in the FBI and other institutions is lower than for expired gas station sushi, but still. Why would a common bullet type fuel so much pushback? Short answer: people who use it know that it is physically impossible. What follows is based on 50 years experience using the suspect’s rifle along with many others.
After a 33 hour investigation, the FBI officially released these details: a lone 22 year old gunman carried his grandfather’s scope-equipped .30-06 Mauser hunting rifle across a campus, climbing stairways to a roof overlooking an assembly. He conceals the rifle by stuffing its separated stock, barrel, and scope down his jeans. Between the stairs and the shooting he changes clothes. Using only a Phillips screwdriver, he reassembles the 60s-era rifle on the roof. At a distance of 140 yards in front of 3,000 spectators, he shoots his target in the left carotid artery just above the clavicle. The gunman disassembles and re-conceals grandpa’s Mauser, runs across the roof and jumps down. He goes to a small wooded area just across the street and again re-assembles the rifle. This time without the screwdriver he left on the roof.
The killer leaves the rifle and drives to a local Dairy Queen for an ice cream sundae. Ironically enough, this last part is the most plausible assertion in the story thus far. (After a stressful shooting, assassins often need comfort food.) There are problems with the FBI’s account. A rifle down his jeans? A stretch. But there were some more expensive and custom break-down Mausers sold in the 60s that could be taken apart in a minute or two, so we’ll skip past the jeans and incredibly speedy rifle assembly and re-assembly. Not realistic for a novice, but with practice theoretically possible. Let’s move to the bullet and where it is said to have struck.
The .30-06 cartridge, first released by Springfield in 1905, was a response to the 1899 Hague Convention’s prohibition on soft-head “dum-dums,” or rounds that would significantly expand after entry into the body. Military planners specified improved range, penetration, velocity, and ballistic efficiency within the constraints of hard “spitzer,” or expansion-resistant Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullets. These were intended to often pass through and more mercifully wound soldiers with aimed fire up to or beyond 500 yards.
The power of the .30-06 is staggering. Even today, only two somewhat more powerful rounds are widely available, usually reserved for elk and moose at ranges beyond 400 yards. If you hit a quarter-inch steel plate at 140 yards with a .30-06 FMJ, it will punch right through. If you put three thick books behind that same plate, it’ll punch through those, too. It will disintegrate 3 concrete blocks laid end to end. It will go through an oak tree a foot and a half thick.
So what would happen if you were to shoot a human being in the neck at 140 yards? A hydrostatic shock wave would move across the entire upper torso ahead of the bullet’s entry. Its path would open a temporary wound channel bigger than the approximate length and diameter of a 24 ounce Energy Drink can, pulverizing a tissue layer on both sides. Then it would make a somewhat larger exit wound on the body’s far side, trailing aerosolized blood on its way to drilling into something else.
Officially, the prominent activist named Charlie Kirk had no visible exit wound. The autopsy doc said his steel-like spine stopped the Miraculous Bullet in its tracks. But that they also failed to recover it. Wrong. While some variances can occur, this isn’t how a .30-06 FMJ works, so one did not hit the victim. How about the soft point version?
A hundred years ago, Field & Stream popularized the soft point .30-06 to hunters for bigger game at longer ranges. It’s a heavy bullet, with a lead tip that starts to mushroom upon entry into a body, rapidly transferring much of its 2,500+ foot-pounds of energy into the flesh. The effect is like a pickup truck hitting a big animal, knocking them off their feet. The expanding bullet blows open a huge wound channel the size of a 2-liter Coke bottle, turning flesh and bone into a mound of hamburger. It may still exit whole, stay inside, or can also break into fragments upon the spine or shoulder of a large animal.
If a .30-06 soft point bullet hit a human’s left front neck, its devastating effect would be censored. Humans lack an elk’s thick hide and fur to help contain resulting tissue damage. The impact would drag a large man’s body right off a chair. Much of the victim’s throat, inner neck, soft palate and surrounding muscles would be displaced in a spray of red. For comparison, a smaller and much less powerful military Full Metal Jacket bullet hit President JFK in the head, removing a large section of his right skull and brain.
Charlie Kirk’s wound was very different. The shock wave started on his opposite side, his right, proceeding across his upper torso to the left. His head was pushed forward and down. He slumped to the left and fell off his chair–not away from the gunman’s position, but towards it. His jaw remained tightly closed the entire time. If you shoot a big whitetail buck in the neck with a .30-06, the impact can make the tongue fly right out of his mouth. Kirk’s carotid artery appears to be not an entry wound, rather an exit wound’s location from a bullet packing much lower kinetic energy.
I learned to shoot and hunt as a child in the Adirondacks, as was typical in those times. My teachers were World War Two combat veterans, all of whom earned Marksman or Sharpshooter badges with the .30-06 as part of their military training. Not one of them used it for deer hunting. They didn’t want to waste meat and considered it overkill at practical distances. More than that: my uncle Hank and our neighbor across the street were decorated heroes from the Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal, respectively. To my knowledge they never shot a .30-06 again.
Despite hunting since age 6, I’m still squeamish about killing. Still scared of guns. I’m scared of the bodies, the gutting and skinning, the shock of taking a life. Even after many, they become part of you. The swirl of emotions include pride and sometimes shame. It’s not something healthy people take lightly. Most develop rituals to reach up into the sacred and down into the profane.
It’s tempting to speculate about what and who murdered the activist named Charlie Kirk. It’s also some kind of magic trick above my pay grade. All I need to know is that the FBI is lying, with a new level of straight-faced ignorance and intent, no regard or self-respect for how painfully obvious. They just don’t care. Not the sort of people you’d ever want to take deer hunting.
