gun fingerprinting
avecfrites
that any kid can do, or does it take a gunsmith?
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Kevin Baker
"avecfrites" <avecf...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:aol33v$bdm$1...@news.laserlink.net...
> How hard is it to change a gun's "fingerprint"? Is it something
> that any kid can do, or does it take a gunsmith?
Depends on the gun. A automatic pistol? Simplest thing would be to buy a
new slide & barrel. Only the frame is the "gun" - the part with the serial
number. Same for an AR-15. The LOWER receiver is the "gun." You can buy
new uppers (the part with the barrel and bolt) by mail.
Change the extractor, polish the bolt face, run 1,000 rounds through the
gun, it all will affect the "ballistic fingerprint."
Read this report for some really INTERESTING information on the efficacy of
a "ballistic fingerprint database"
http://www.nssf.org/PDF/CA_study.pdf
--
Kevin
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Jeffrey C. Dege
>How hard is it to change a gun's "fingerprint"? Is it something
>that any kid can do, or does it take a gunsmith?
If you don't intend to change the fingerprint, it will change, anyway.
How fast depends upon the type of bullet (jacketed bullets will change
the signature faster than unjacketed.)
The normal tuning you do on a new target gun (lapping the barrel, etc.)
will change the fingerprint beyond recognition.
If you intend to change the fingerprint, it'll only take 30 seconds or so.
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sprock...@earthlink.net
It is quite easy. Being careless and permitting the cleaning rod to
abrade the muzzle of the barrel is sufficient to alter the rifling
enough to reduce the accuracy.
Swapping barrels on semi-automatic pistols is a snap.
Firing dozens of rounds can alter the rifling enough to ruin any attempt
to compare rifling marks. Rifling only works on two bullets that are
relatively "contemporary" of each other.
In other words, "fingerprinting" a firearm is useless, unless the gun is
almost never fired before it is used in a crime. This is just another
attempt to create a central registry of firearms.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>How refreshing, a REAL question. Happy to oblige...
>
>It is quite easy. Being careless and permitting the cleaning rod to
>abrade the muzzle of the barrel is sufficient to alter the rifling
>enough to reduce the accuracy.
Simply using a different ammunition manufacturer can result in differences
in the markings sufficient to evade a match.
The extractor in my gun doesn't make the same mark on an aluminum case
that it does on brass.
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Gray Ghost
news:aol33v$bdm$1...@news.laserlink.net:
I'm going to have a go at what I know about ballistic fingerprinting since
I've yet to see anyone give the comprehensive and fairly straight forward
rebuttal to this nonsense.
There are two type of fingerprinting. One is of the case, the other is of
the bullet.
The case's distinctive markings come from the extractor, the ejector and
the firing pin primarily. Other markings caused by the magazine, the ramp,
the bolt face and from striking the side of the ejection port may also be
in evidence. On magazine fed firearms the bolt or slide moving backwards in
the extraction/ejection stroke will also bear on the top case in the
magazine, also possibly causing marks.
The bullet's markings are caused by the lands of the rifling, the twisting
pattern one sees when looking down a barrel. The original markings are from
the rifling die. There are at least two ways I think to cut rifling but the
specifics probably don't matter here.
Any sample taken, however, is only really viable for the shot taken and for
some variable number of shots following. The firing pin, extractor and
ejector wear over time and are all maintenance parts and usually can be
replaced be any person who is competent with tools, has some patience and
may or may not have access to an exploded drawing of the particular gun's
assembly. The drawings BTW are pretty ubiquitous and can be found readily.
Marks made by a magazine would change if you put a different magazine in it
or if you changed the follower or spring on a fixed magazine firearm. The
ramp and the bolt face are also subject to wear and any and all parts could
be filed, stoned or polished with steel wool or polishing compound and a
soft cloth. I stoned and polished the underside of the slide on my S&W 908
because I didn't like the way it dragged on the top round in the magazine.
A friend (who works in a government security related field) also confided
in me that he had already demonstrated to some police agencies that he
could do something (he wouldn't tell just what exactly) that would
completely remove any bolt face markings.
Bullets suffer the same problems. If you have a series of bullets fired
from the same gun the rifling marks will appear to be virtually identical.
And if you find the firearm that produced them at the end of that series
you will in fact be able to match a police fired bullet from that gun with
the ones collected from the crime scenes. However! As nice as that sounds
there is a longer term flaw with this. The barrels are made of metal. The
bullets are jacketed in metal. The bullets are pushed through the barrel at
high speeds, under great pressures and heat. The metal in the barrel will
in fact give over time, this time being affected by the quality of the
metal that the barrel is constructed of, the hardness of the bullets and
the power levels of the individual loads. A cop friend has told me that
with a .357 Magnum 50 rounds is probably enough to make the match not sure
enough for legal purposes. Think about that, you could shoot someone, go
down to the range and pop off 1 box of ammo and be in the clear.
Also cleaning may affect the markings. Typically long slender metal rods
are used to push various metal brushes and patches through a barrel. The
rod itself may bear against the surface and leave a mark. The brushes also
have some effect. And it would all be cumulative.
In other words any markings taken at the point of sale, would after even a
moderate amount of target shooting have been altered. Not to mention the
fact that things like bolts, slides and barrels are also readily available
on the aftermarket. I recently purchased a very used police trade in 15 rd
9mm pistol at a very good price. Some of the parts were worn, the barrel
had been recrowned poorly. I bought a parts kit that included basically all
the pins, parts, springs, etc less the receiver and replaced the worn parts
including the barrel. On my coffee table with hand tools. With semi
automatic pistols in particular, barrels seem to be an industry unto
themselves. For the Colt 1911A1 and copies there are probably hundreds of
different barrel makers plus all the older surplus ones.
Also with revolvers and bolt, lever action and single barreled rifles no
case is left behind unless an action is taken by the shooter. The revolver
may hold 5 to 7 rounds depending on model. 5 to 7 shots and no cases left
behind. Shotguns can provide an even worse problem. For one thing there
aren't any fingerprints on pellets or even slugs unless you have a very
specialized rifled shotgun (which are not particularly rare but not as
common as smooth bores by any stretch). And with a double barreled shotgun
you have two shots and no case left behind. I have a marvelous reproduction
of a 12 gauge coach gun, a break open 20" barreled double with exposed
hammers. By the very nature of it's design it is very compact and again,
two shots, no case, no bullet.
Also lead bullets tend to really get torn up, rifling marks aren't likely
to be found on them. Nor on .22s, they are usually so badly deformed as to
be useless.
So much for the technical aspects. Now for the logistics.
Fingerprinting newly purchased guns is a flat out waste of time. Given the
hoops one must jump through to buy a gun, the forms, the background check
in some states there are still waiting periods it seems very unlikely that
someone going through the process is likely to go out and commit a crime
with it. In fact I think I can safely say that it is nearly impossible for
someone with a criminal record to legally buy a gun.
Witness New York and Maryland. It is my understanding that in 2 years
Maryland has fingerprinted 17,000 handguns at a cost of $5,000,000 and they
have nothing to show for it, not one crime solved! So we'll have this real
expensive national system in place and the murders continue and not a one
is solved by this expensive fingerprinting system. What you do have, though
is a registration list. Fingerprint linked to serial number linked to
owner. So now we'll say we're going to fingerprint every gun. OK. Will that
include all the police weapons, military weapons, etc? How many of the 100s
of millions of guns already in place do you think you are going to actually
fingerprint? Hint #1 only law abiding gun owners who are not greatly
offended by the stupidity and registration. How will you enforce it?
Now as it is spinning out of control lets go back to the cost question.
Let's say maybe 250 million total firearms, just a guess. You are going to
store either digitally or hard storage (actually both probably) 250 million
fired cases and 250 million spent bullets. Hmm. And you will need how many
overpaid federal govt workers to run this show?
It's going to cost how much? Let's see there are maybe 250,000,000
firearms in America (250,000,000 / 17,000) * $5,000,000 =
$73,529,411,764.71 (that's 73.5 billion US dollars) for data that will be
useless after the first box of ammo passes down the barrel. So what other
programs will we cut out to fund this (useless) mess?
But in the end there will be a registration list when it's done whether or
not the fingerprinting works. Now why do you suppose someone wants to spend
73.5 billion US dollars on a system that won't work just to get a list of
every legally owned firearm in America?
--
Frank
avecfrites
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"Jeffrey C. Dege" <jd...@jdege.visi.com> wrote in message
news:slrnaqsb03...@jdege.visi.com...
citizen
Only leftwing politicians and the media say "ballistic fingerprint", a
fingerprint rarely changes.
The signature that is imprinted by the lands and the grooves of the rifling
on the projectile and the five areas of markings on the spent cartridge case
continually change with use and abuse of the firearm.
Is it something
> that any kid can do, or does it take a gunsmith?
In many Simi auto handguns changing the barrel can be done by the gun owner
themselves which changes the signature of the projectile.
--------------------------------
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When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm
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Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all.
Unknown....
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Scott Miller
In article <Xns92AA8514D1348We...@216.166.71.239>,
fta...@yahooo.com (Gray Ghost) wrote:
>It's going to cost how much? Let's see there are maybe 250,000,000
>firearms in America (250,000,000 / 17,000) * $5,000,000 =
>$73,529,411,764.71 (that's 73.5 billion US dollars) for data that will
>be useless after the first box of ammo passes down the barrel. So what other
>programs will we cut out to fund this (useless) mess?
This also assumes you don't employ the Canadian Method of Cost Estimating,
because if you do your figure should actually be closer to 735 billion US
dollars. But hey, isn't three quarters of a trillion dollars worth it if it
saves even one life?
--Scott Miller
"Had it not been for [butterfly ballot in Palm Beach], American foreign policy
today would be made by Gore-Reiner instead of the Bush brain trust. Who says
God doesn't smile upon the United States of America?" --Charles Krauthammer
Scott Miller
In article <Ebpr9.2537$6o1...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com>, "Kevin Baker"
<khb...@flash.net> wrote:
>Read this report for some really INTERESTING information on the efficacy
>of
>a "ballistic fingerprint database"
>
>http://www.nssf.org/PDF/CA_study.pdf
thanks Kevin, I've heard about that one... it's the one that was suppressed,
yes?
Scott Miller
>It's going to cost how much? Let's see there are maybe 250,000,000
>firearms in America (250,000,000 / 17,000) * $5,000,000 =
>$73,529,411,764.71 (that's 73.5 billion US dollars) for data that will
>be
>useless after the first box of ammo passes down the barrel. So what other
>
>programs will we cut out to fund this (useless) mess?
None. We'll just raise taxes. Doh!