Cult Arsenal--How Much Is Legal? : Weapons: Report says leader and gun dealer bought large quantities of arms. Almost any kind of firepower can be purchased in Texas.

Cult leader David Koresh’s boast that he could blow an armored car 50 feet into the air has again put the focus of authorities on how much firepower he possesses.

And the second part of the question--one that will be answered only when agents enter the cult’s compound--is whether Koresh and his followers may have purchased the arms and explosives legally, perhaps showing in a dramatic and tragic way what kind of arsenal can be put together while obeying the law.

What federal agents were looking for in their ill-fated raid is not known because the search warrant to enter the compound has been sealed. But concern that many of the weapons were obtained legally was heightened Wednesday with a report in the Dallas Morning News that Koresh worked in tandem with a Hewitt, Tex., gun dealer to legally buy large quantities of assault weapons, as well as a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been oblique in describing what agents were looking for when they staged their raid on the rural compound 12 days ago. When asked this week for a breakdown of the weapons his agents were seeking, Dan Conroy, an ATF deputy associate director, would say only that there was a “substantial quantity of firearms of various calibers and a large quantity of explosives.”

Conroy also said the ATF is looking into leads from all over the country about weapons Koresh or his followers may have purchased.

A national consortium of lawyers working on behalf of those inside the compound said it is time for the ATF to make it clear what agents were looking for when they staged their raid.

“We’d like to see the search warrant,” said Dave Holloway, a spokesman for the lawyers. “We want to know what probable cause they had.”

A look at what is available, and legal, in Texas shows that almost any kind of firepower can be purchased in gun shops or gun shows throughout the state.

“There’s hardly a weekend that goes by in Texas where there’s not some sort of gun and knife show,” said Ron Hatchett, director of the Mosier Institute of International Studies at Texas A & M University. He has done considerable research on terrorist tactics. “If you get in that clique, you can get anything you want.”

In Texas, almost any gun--with the exception of fully automatic rifles--can be purchased by merely signing a form attesting to mental competence and producing a Texas driver’s license that shows the buyer is 21 or older. It is also legal to own an automatic weapon if the ATF gives its approval after a complicated application process.

The same is true for explosives. The ATF lists hundreds of explosives, including blasting powder, dynamite and nitroglycerin, that can be purchased without permits.

Larry Butler, a Houston-based ATF agent, said it is unlikely that explosives dealers would sell to the likes of Koresh.

“Dealers are so afraid of liability in these matters, that someone might blow up a schoolhouse or something, that it would be hard to find someone to sell,” he said. “Though there are probably some out there.”

Butler said it is more likely that Koresh would make his own explosive devices, which can easily be put together with a formula involving diesel oil, fertilizer and a blasting cap. Butler said it was a mixture well-known in terrorist circles.

Mike McNulty, director of the California Organization for Public Safety, said it would not be unusual for the compound to have dynamite on the premises because of the rural setting.

“You take a ride in the country and look for ranch operations that don’t have dynamite around,” he said. “It would be a pretty short list.”

If cult members have been stockpiling illegal weapons, several experts said there is a likely list of possibilities. Hatchett of the Mosier Institute said one weapon might be a one-shot disposable shoulder-fired armor-piercing weapon.

“Those can be bought on the black market, I’m sure, because they are built by many different countries,” he said.

Hatchett said armor-piercing .50-caliber bullets and rocket-propelled grenades are also likely purchases, but he said a TOW antitank missile would be unlikely because they are prohibitively expensive. Hatchett said an explosive such as plastique also was unlikely because of what it would take to detonate it.

“How are you going to use the plastique?” he asked. “You can’t just throw it at a tank. You’ve got to have a detonator.”

Two days after the shootout, ATF Agent Earl Dunagan signed an affidavit in which he said that some of the massive hail of gunfire from the compound during the raid “was identifiable as machine gun generated and as well consisted of heavy caliber weaponry.”

Some have suggested that there is a .50-caliber machine gun in the compound. But McNulty said it also could be a Barrett Light 50, a .50-caliber gun used for long-range target shooting. He said it may be enhanced by what is known as a hellfire device, which increases the speed of firing. Both the gun and enhancer are legal.