The rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository had a leather sling attached to it. The sling itself is believed to be a strap from a United States Air Force holster, and it is mounted to the side of the Mannlicher-Carcano by means of an oval ring (see photo right). Also note, that there is no mounting ring on the underside of the rifle.

On the day following the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was shown a photograph of him holding a rifle in one hand, and two leftist publications in the other. Around his waist, a holstered pistol. Immediately, Oswald told Captain Fritz that the photo was a fake, that someone had superimposed his face on someone else's body.

The backyard photo (CE-133a) appeared on the cover of Life Magazine on February 21, 1964, as well as several other magazines and newspapers shortly thereafter. Although Oswald's claim that the photograph was a fake was not publicly known until the release of the Warren Commission Report, several critics came to the exact same conclusion based on conflicting shadows and other inconsistencies in the photograph.

Closer examination of the photograph reveals that the rifle being held by Lee Harvey Oswald is not the same rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Notice the circular mounting ring attached to the underside of the rifle, and compare it to the photo of the rifle found in the Depository. I have marked it with an "A" at the spot which the circular ring appears on the rifle in the backyard photo of Oswald. The mounting ring, so clearly visible in the backyard photograph (see close-ups below), does not exist on the rifle discovered in the Texas Schoolbook Depository. They are not the same rifle.

I've included elargements of the mounting ring below.

Finally, I'd like to thank Jack White for bringing this matter to my attention, and for providing the high-quality image (photo right) used in this discussion.

  

The photo on the right shows three Mannlicher-Carcanos.  On the top is the TSBD rifle (notice no bottom ring). The center is the 133-a rifle. The bottom is a photocopy of a 91/38 short rifle, the model which Klein's supposedly sent to AJ Hidell. It is from an article in the August 1961 issue of American Rifleman. Note the bottom mounting ring, exactly where the 133-a rifle shows one. Just coincidence???