(Testimony of Cortlandt Cunningham)
Mr. Eisenberg.
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.
Representative Form. When you say bulky----
Mr. Cunningham.
A "C" press or an "O" press will stand anywhere from 10 to 12 inches high with a 2-foot handle. Your turret-type would run almost a foot and a half high above the table. And they are all made very heavy be cause of your full-length resizing--not only on your small revolver cartridges, but for all your hunting cartridges--that takes great pressure. They are heavy duty. And you need quite a bit of equipment. Most of the time there will be a case trimmer, your complete press--there is a primer press, and then you have to have dies for the cartridge you are loading--your sizing dies and your bullet dies that you use to press the bullet into the cartridge case. Then there are all sorts of sundry equipment that go along with hand loading--your powder measurer, which is usually quite large if it is one that will do it volumetrically. True, you can have a balance and weigh out a particular amount for each one, but it takes an awful lot of time. Normally they are volumetric powder measures.
You tip it and it puts a certain amount of powder into the cartridge case.
Representative Ford.
Is it expensive equipment to buy?
Mr. Cunningham.
Originally, yes. Comparatively so. A good press, I think you can buy one anywhere from $29 to over $100. You will have to invest, I would say, $150 to have a fairly good outfit. But over the years it is a cheap in vestment. Instead of paying $2.80 a box, or $2.85 a box, you are turning out cartridges, once you have your brass, for even rifle, hunting cartridges--for about 7 cents, and lead bullet cartridges down to around 3 cents apiece.
Representative Ford.
$2.80 a box?
Mr. Cunningham.
I have the component list here from Western. I do not have the cost per box of ammunition, but it can run anywhere from $2.25 all the way up to $6 to $8 for some of your larger hunting rifle cartridges--boxes of 20 in hunting ammunition, boxes of 50 in your revolver and pistol ammunition.
Even buying components, it is comparatively cheap. If you buy them by the hundred, and they will run, for instance the .38 Special, 158 grain lead bullets per hundred, only $2.80, and that is for original components. If you have the
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