A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) report shows that a bullet jacket from a .30 caliber round was found during the autopsy of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was assassinated on September 10, 2025, and the next day, Breitbart News reported that FBI Special Agent Robert Bohls indicated that law enforcement recovered the rifle they believed was used in the shooting.
Bohls described the firearm as a “high-power, bolt-action rifle.”
The New York Post noted that the rifle was a “30-06-caliber Mauser bolt-action rifle.” A .30.06 has long been a popular big-game hunting round in the U.S., and it is in the .30 caliber classification.
The ATF report says that during Kirk’s autopsy, a “.30-caliber class deformed/damaged bullet jacket fragment and four lead fragments” were found.
Legal commentator Andrea Burkhart pointed out, “The jacket fragment shared class characteristics with Tyler Robinson’s Mauser 98 rifle, so the rifle couldn’t be excluded as having fired the bullet. But the fragment lacks individual characteristics permitting identification of one rifle to the exclusion of all others in the class.”
Utah has informed the legal team for alleged Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson that “The FBI lab intends to conduct Virtual Comparison Microscopy (VCM) analysis on the bullet jacket fragment to examine any markings that the rifle imparted to the fragment. This analysis is non-destructive and employs technology to capture multiple scans of the object.”
In a court filing, Utah noted that “The State also intends to conduct metallurgical testing on at least one of the recovered lead fragments. This testing involves taking a small scraping from the fragment. The examiner will document the area from which the scraping is taken. The examiner will not take a scraping from an area that would affect additional ballistics analysis through either VCM or LCM analysis.”
In addition to the bullet jacket fragment and the lead fragments, the ATF or FBI possesses one spent .30.06 shell casing and three unspent .30.06 cartridges, which were found following the assassination.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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