Category Archives: Ballistics

There are three types of ballistics as it relates to firearms. Interior, exterior, and terminal. Joe wrote the PC app Modern Ballistics and Windows Phone app Field Ballistics.

Pick on Joshua Horwitz day

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As I reported in my previous post Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence, is now working from home to save money but that didn’t stop him from talking about stuff he didn’t know anything about to the D.C. City Council yesterday:



A gun-control advocate told the D.C. Council’s public safety committee Wednesday that officials should consider adopting a complex method of ballistics tracking to help identify guns used in the city.


“In crime scenes, what we find are cartridges and no guns,” said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. “Microstamping can provide the link between the gun and cartridge.”


Mr. Horwitz’s comments came during a hearing before the council’s Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary regarding gun laws in the District.


Apparently he didn’t realize one or more of the following facts:



  • There are no microstamped guns in production.
  • Requiring guns to be microstamped would indirectly be a ban on guns in D.C.
  • The Supreme Court said complete gun bans are unconstitutional.
  • There are over 200 million guns in the U.S. that are not microstamped and no criminal with room temperature I.Q. would use a microstamped gun. Those with sub room temperature I.Q. will get caught without having a microstamped gun.
  • Microstamping is easily defeated:

But we already knew these guys are clueless about guns and microstamping.


P.S. Some gun bloggers erroneously compared the suggested microstamping to Maryland and New York’s “ballistic fingerprint” programs. These are very different things and cannot be directly compared. See my Microstamping research post for details on the differences.

Easier said than done

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I really like what Ronnie Barrett has to say here:

Be aware there are more companies that will respect this position. If Hawaii or any state bans the sale of the .50-caliber rifle, we will immediately stop the sale and service of all Barrett products to that state’s government agencies. We will also welcome all small arms manufacturers to take the same action.

He already stopped sales to California as did STI.

I did a similar thing with my restrictions on Modern Ballistics. But I have no way to enforce this when the downloads are free and essentially anonymous. Plus I have only received a couple hundred dollars for all the hundreds of downloads and usage of the product over the years. Any income I lose from adhering to my principles is measured in pennies.

While I greatly admire and encourage the Barrett and STI actions it is not my pocket book that suffers from this. I know other manufactures that simply cannot afford to refuse sales to California because of the volume of business they would lose.

Microstamping research

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I’ve been doing a little research into microstamping. High emotions on either side are not productive. I’ve tried to gather facts and sources for your own research.

This was instigated at the suggestion of Justthisguy in the comments.

First off I would like to point out there are two types of microstamping. Neither of which should be confused with “ballistic fingerprints”.

The Technologies

Ballistic Fingerprints are Dead for Now

“Ballistics fingerprints” are a system where law enforcement obtains a bullet and cartridge casing from the manufacture for every new gun. Maryland and New York have passed laws requiring this and at last check not a single crime had been solved with this additional data and Maryland State Police were advising the money should be spent on something more effective.

Microstamping of Bullets

This concept is about putting matching serial numbers on the bullet, shell casing, and bullet box. Of course there would have to be a database that tracked the bullets from manufacture to the end user. It is impractical for many reasons.

I don’t expect this to go anywhere in the immediate future.

Microstamping of Firearms

This is about putting unique codes (essentially a serial number) on the firing pin, breach face, ejector and extractor. Typically you will hear the example of the firing pin being marked but actually there will be markings in other places as well. Some people pretend it’s a secret where these markings will be. Anyplace that strikes or presses against the shell casing is a potential location for imprinting the codes. This includes inside the chamber but those marking are at high risk of being sheared or smeared away in semi-autos during the extraction while there is still some pressure in the barrel and casing.

These codes will correspond to the serial number of the gun. The manufacture of the gun will be required to cooperate with law enforcement to find the distributor->retailer->initial buyer — just like current firearm traces when law enforcement has the make, model, and serial number of a firearm.

This technology poses the greatest potential to be generally implemented and California passed such a law on October 13, 2007. This law mandates the technology be used on all new firearms sold in California beginning on January 1, 2010. It requires the microscopic codes be put in two or more places such they are transferred to the cartridge case.

For more information see Wikipedia on microstamping.

The Debate

Overview

The claimed benefit of the proposed technologies is the promise of making it easier to solve crimes committed with firearms.

The arguments against the use of the technology center on the ease of a criminal defeating the technology, the difficulty of manufacturers implementing it, the risk of innocent people being framed, and the increased costs to all gun owners.

Anti-gun advocates

Gun control advocate appear to be in favor of any restrictions on firearms and are in favor of all of the technologies. See also microstamping webpages for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence and their PowerPoint presentation.

Pro-gun advocates

This report on a paper from UC Davis provides some support for the case against microstamping of firearms but probably made a lot of errors and should not be considered strong evidence for the case against microstamping.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. has a document on microstamping that outlines the problems from the manufacturer’s viewpoint and the Association of Firearms and Toolmarks Examiners, and that it will not reduce crime. Other documents I found on the NSSF site probably have serious flaws and shouldn’t be used as reference material.

Technology advocates

Todd Lizotte is a co-inventor of firearms microstamping. Here is a video of him describing and demonstrating the technology. He also commented on David E. Petzal’s Field and Stream blog. I have extracted his comments from this blog and uploaded them here. One of his arguments is the following (a copy and paste with typos intact):

I am not sure a defensive strategy to protecting rights has ever worked. A proactive stretgy always keeps the fight off in the distance. Microstamping does not change the status quo, all data is at the manufacturer. No registration, no licensing and no imaging.

What many people are not aware of is there is a new 3D mapping imaging system being produced. We helped successfully defeat ballistic imaging for new firearms, however the ATF and its vendor are not giving up, the ATF has a $500 Million system in place for linking current ballistic imaging data from crime labs. The company who built that system, located in Quebec, needs to expand its market, it needs to capture the new firearm market.

The old system they built can not accurately imaging new firearms, however it is possible for the new 3D system to work at a much larger expense.

Microstamping neutralizes the need for imaging all togther.

In the end I am for being proactive, instead of being reactive.

If you want to see how bad it could really get, google 3D ballistic imaging and see how costly that system will be, since that system will require all info on the pruchaser and firearm to be entered into a government controlled criminal database.

I am not sure most people understand this fact.

Microstamping is a perfect technology — completely benign and all data remains at the firearm manufacturer.

In essence of what he is saying is the alternative to microstamping the firearm is a much more expensive version of the “ballistic fingerprint” system implemented with better technology and the associated additional databases.

Conclusions

Because no new database is required, only an additional entry in the manufacturer’s database with the serial number, firearm microstamping gets around a number of the arguments against “ballistics fingerprints” and bullet/casing microstamping. For this reason I expect the anti-gun people to push this technology the hardest and have the most success with it.

The best argument against microstamping of firearms is the manufacturing process does not lend itself to serialization of multiple parts. The firing pins are made by some supplier, the extractors, ejectors, and slides by other companies. The manufacture of the gun itself may just assemble the pieces. Each of the serialized parts must be matched with the frame that has the actual official firearm serial number. The code on these serialized parts are not visible without a microscope and all would have to be verified and recorded in database during the assembly process. This will make it expensive and error prone. This argument will not gain much traction with the anti-gun people because increasing the expense of firearms is not regarded as a problem.

The next best argument is probably that criminals can easily defeat the technology. This seems indisputable. Changing of firing pins, extractors, ejectors, and barrels is commonplace in the gun community. A few minutes with an grinding stone on a Dremel tool will obliterate the laser etching without affecting the functioning of the firearm. The counter arguments are somewhat weak; 1) Criminals aren’t very smart; and 2) There are redundant markings.

The framing of innocent people is probably the weakest of the arguments against firearm microstamping. The powder residue and other forensic evidence will eliminate most planted shell casing from the real shell cases involved in the crime. Multiple stampings from reloaded shell cases also are probably easily eliminated with the available forensic evidence. It will slow down the process however, but probably no more than it would if they were to do it with existing forensic technology and this appears to be a non-problem. Of course this assumes the prosecutors and law enforcement are forthright and trustworthy in dealing with the evidence. I am inclined to believe this is generally the case but the actual instances of unethical actions of our government officials is much higher than I am comfortable with.

Pretty Pictures

The following pictures are from Forensic Technology and show the level of detail possible with modern microscopes.

Update: The following pictures are from The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s PowerPoint presentation:


Primer after 2500 rounds through a Thompson SMG.
Glock firing pin after 1400 rounds (image reversed).
Primer from a Glock after 1400 rounds.


Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image from Glock showing smearing of the primer.

One shot, one kill at 2100 meters

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Ry reports on a new Army sniping record from Afghanistan by a Arfcom member. Awesome!

If you are wondering at all the amazing sniping shots coming out of Afghanistan you aren’t alone. I knew the high altitude would make a difference but I didn’t know exactly how much until I ran some numbers through Modern Ballistics. Below you see the numbers for the .50 BMG shooting a high end bullet/cartridge with a gun zeroed at sea level for 1000 yards at a target at 2300 yards (2100 meters) away for various altitudes. Notice the difference in expected group size as the altitudes goes from 0 to 10000 feet. Notice the windage difference. All those things help but still, the shooter and spotter had to be top notch and have a little luck as well. Assuming a target of 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall the altitude difference changed the odds of a hit from about 10% to 20% (not shown).

Good job SnakeaterM24!

Modern Ballistics Data Created: 02/04/08 09:24:30

Firearm: Default
Cartridge: .50 BMG HMI with 750 gr. A-MAX
Conditions: Standard Conditions.
Range: 2300
Altitude (ft):           0   1000   2000   3000   4000   5000   6000   7000   8000  10000

Drop (inches)         2263   2193   2129   2070   2016   1966   1920   1877   1837  1765
Height (inches)      -1609  -1539  -1475  -1416  -1362  -1313  -1267  -1224  -1184 -1112
Height (moa)        -66.84 -63.93 -61.26 -58.82 -56.58 -54.52 -52.61 -50.83 -49.16 -46.17
Height (mils)       -19.44 -18.60 -17.82 -17.11 -16.46 -15.86 -15.30 -14.79 -14.30 -13.43
Windage (inches)    258.89 244.21 230.39 217.47 205.43 194.19 183.72 173.94 164.81 148.27
Windage (moa)        10.75  10.14   9.57   9.03   8.53   8.06   7.63   7.22   6.84   6.16
Windage (mils)        3.13   2.95   2.78   2.63   2.48   2.35   2.22   2.10   1.99   1.79
Mid rng Ht (in)       78.8   79.2   79.5   79.8   80.2   80.5   80.8   81.1   81.4   81.9
Midrange (yds)       532.1  535.4  538.6  541.8  544.9  547.9  550.8  553.7  556.4  561.8
Zero (yds)          1000.0 1008.1 1016.0 1023.6 1031.2 1038.7 1045.9 1053.0 1060.0 1073.4
Near zero (yds)        5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3
P.B. Size (in)      157.66 158.35 159.03 159.69 160.33 160.95 161.56 162.15 162.72 163.82
P.B. Range (yds)      1182   1192   1202   1212   1222   1231   1240   1249   1258   1275
Velocity (ft/S)       1118   1157   1200   1245   1290   1335   1380   1425   1469   1553
Energy (ft-lbs)       2082   2229   2397   2581   2772   2970   3173   3382   3593   4018
PF                     839    868    900    934    968   1002   1035   1069   1102   1165
Time (S)             3.941  3.857  3.779  3.705  3.637  3.573  3.514  3.458  3.406  3.312
Group (inches)       81.20  77.10  73.25  69.68  66.37  63.31  60.47  58.02  55.56  51.17
Group (moa)           3.37   3.20   3.04   2.89   2.76   2.63   2.51   2.41   2.31   2.12
Group (mils)          0.98   0.93   0.88   0.84   0.80   0.76   0.73   0.70   0.67   0.62
Groups <= desired    0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.20%  0.40%  0.60%  1.20%  1.20%
1 grp of <= desired    0.0    0.0    0.0    0.0    0.0  500.0  250.0  166.7   83.3   83.3
—–
Constants:
M.V. (ft/S)        2794   M.V. SDev (fps)    10.0   B.C.               1.050 
Mass (grains)      750    Sight Ht (in)      1.50   Indicated SA (moa) 27.19 
SA Offset (moa)    0.00   Incline (deg)      0      Wind (mph)         10    
Wind error (mph)   2      Wind (deg.)        90     Temp (F)           59    
Barometer          29.53  Gravity            32.17  Shots per group    5     
Bullet acc. (moa)  0.50   Desired Grp (moa)  1.00   Group Simulations  500   
—-
Firearm name: Default
Firearm notes:
Cartridge name: .50 BMG HMI with 750 gr. A-MAX
Cartridge notes: BC is for Hornady A-Max.  MV is for max load of H50BMG.
Conditions name: Standard Conditions.
Conditions notes:

All my bags are packed

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I’m ready to go. Barb and I are leaving on a jet plane for Reno and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous this evening. That’s assuming the TSA will allow me, my guns, and ammo on the plane. Alaska Airlines will only allow me to take 50 pounds of ammo [heavy sigh]. That would have been enough for what I want to do except that with all the other stuff I’m taking (Boomershoot give aways, knives, spotting scope, tripod, range bag, magazines, holsters, guns, shot timer, eye and ear protection, laser range finder, binoculars, spare batteries, gun cleaning gear, walkie-talkie, altimeter, wind gauge, thermometer, exterior ballistics calculator, targets, and a clean pair of socks) I started running up against a different weight limit without bringing all the ammo I wanted.

I have enough match rifle ammo and if I decide I want some more pistol ammo I’ll buy it in Reno sometime tomorrow.

Update: We made it through security without incident. We are now sitting at our gate waiting to board. Pretty amazing considering all the electronics and cables I had in my computer bag. The holster in the computer bag apparently didn’t raise an eyebrow either. And the empty water bottle… I thought for sure they would want to open my backpack to make sure it was actually empty. They were cool with me wearing a shirt with the picture of a gun on it and the Boomershoot coat too. All nice to know. Maybe they are happy with just infringing on one constitutionally guaranteed right at a time.

So far the flight is on time. You can track it in near real time here.

North Central Idaho Practical Field Ballistics Terminology: “M.O.C.”

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We spent this weekend out camping in an Idaho mountain meadow, in an “open range” area (where cattle wander free, and are branded for later roundup).  Aside from being stunningly beautiful, with the fall colors coming on and the abundant wildlife resulting from recent logging operations (you did know that logging results in copious new foliage for the grazing of deer and elk, and cover for small game, didn’t you?) there are quite a lot of cow pies.

Grass and water go in one end of the bovine, you see, and cow pies are what come out of the other end.  The name applies whether the bovine in question is male or female.  That saves you the trouble of determining whether a given pie is a cow pie, a bull pie, or a heifer pie, etc..

I’d been doing some shooting out there with several firearms, and asked my 10 year-old daughter to get out her .22 rifle.  She wasn’t much interested until I pointed out that she could try shooting at small pieces of wood floating in a pond.  She quickly discovered that if you place a bullet just under the floating stick it will jump 15 feet into the air.  That got her attention, and she was soon asking for more ammo.  She’s a fairly new shooter, so her hit rate wasn’t very good, and she lost interest until she discovered that a fresh cow pie will explode if hit with a .22 Long Rifle hollowpoint.

In other words, her shooting may not be minute-of-angle accurate (one M.O.A. equals one sixtieth of a degree) but she can shoot “Minute Of Cow pie” (M.O.C.) which allows her to enjoy a 100% hit rate on these impromptu, reactive targets.

She spent the rest of the afternoon shooting cow pies with a big grin on her face (and me laughing to myself, thinking how wonderfully stereotypical, North-Idaho-redneck an activity that was).

For further study, I picked up some beer cans (probably discarded by some pale, leftist San Franciscans who thought getting drunk and littering in Idaho would be a hoot) filled them with water and shot them with various calibers.  It happens that a .223 Remington cartridge, pushing a 55 grain, hard-jacketed spitzer at around 3,000 feet per second will cause the water-filled aluminum can to burst out in all directions, yet still hold together in one piece, whereas a soft lead sphere of .495″ diameter (50 caliber patched round ball – the patched ball is an American innovation that was used with deadly effect against King George’s officers during the Revolution) traveling at about half that velocity will blow the can into several pieces, scattering them up and out about 15 yards, leaving the base of the can still holding water where it stood (I picked up the pieces and took them home if you must know, leaving the meadow cleaner than we found it).

I also discovered that you can hit gallon jug-sized targets at 200 yards (you do travel with a rangefinder, don’t you?) with a little youth model .22 rifle, zeroed at 20 yards, if you aim about 5 1/2 feet high.  You have enough time to bring the rifle down and listen/watch for the impact at that distance.

Ain’t freedom grand?

1000 yard shooting at Boomershoot 2008

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After getting the suggestion from Ry I have been exploring the possibility of doing a 1000 yard Boomershoot.

I did a few calculations with Modern Ballistics last night to see what would happen if people just overshot the target area. My cousin’s house is a mile away and pretty close to directly behind the proposed target area. The house is out of sight and I suspected the shots would over shoot the house and land in the fields behind his house. It turns out the answer depends on the caliber being shot:

  • A 7.62 x 39 (yeah right!) bullet would land in the field several hundred yards in front of the house.
  • A .50 BMG bullet would overshoot the house by a few feet.
  • A .300 Win Mag shooting Blackhills Match ammo with a 15 MPH wind from the West would put a bullet through his living room window.

I haven’t checked with my cousin yet but I suspect the safety margins are not acceptable.

It is very unlikely there be 1000 yard shooting at Boomershoot 2008. I need to find a different location before that becomes a reality.

That explains it

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When grabbing the link to the Berger VLD bullets to make the previous post something jumped out at me. The ballistic coefficient (BC) on my favorite bullet has been changed. It used to be listed as 0.640. They now list it as 0.631.

The first time I fired my rifle at 1000 yards I entered the temperature, air pressure, and wind speed/direction (I already had the scope height, muzzle velocity, BC, and inclination entered), into my little calculator. It reported back the sight angle for my scope, I tweaked my scope, and I happily aimed dead on and put my first three rounds into the bottom right of the X-Ring. I wasn’t surprised my wind estimation was a little off but why the bottom of the ring? Since then I’ve had the nagging suspicion that the algorithm used in the calculator and Modern Ballistics wasn’t quite right. Yes, it was close enough for all practical purposes. I couldn’t argue with a X-ring hit at 1000 yards on the first shot from the gun beyond 200 yards from a cold clean barrel. But as years went by it always seemed the gun and cartridge was shooting just a tad low from what I expected.

Running the numbers through Modern Ballistics tells me the lower BC gives the bullet another 2.5 inches of drop and an inch of windage to the right under those conditions. Not quite enough to fully explain my results but enough that it accounts for 50% or more of the error. That gets us into the 1/8th MOA range. This is well into the “noise” of shooter ability, bullet jacket uniformity, muzzle velocity variations, and to the point where you have to start worrying about the direction of crosswinds relative to the direction of the spin of your bullet and Coriolis effects–which requires you to know your latitude and the direction you are shooting.

So with the updated BC my little calculator and Modern Ballistics are, as they say, good enough for government work (back when I worked at PNNL I wrote a proposal and made a presentation to Special Forces about the calculator program for their snipers).

Guns are Magic Part II

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Earlier I wrote about the entertainment industry giving magical powers to firearms.  More recently, the Discovery channel, on their new program, Future Weapons, did a bit about an “actual” 1.5 mile, one shot hit from a cold bore using the new .416 Barrett.  The shooter was depicted as firing his first shot ever from that rifle and hitting his target (a circle of about 5 feet diameter) at 1.5 miles.  My skepticism lead me back to Joe’s exterior ballistics program.  Since Barrett had just sent us a write-up and the specs on his new cartridge, all I had to do was plug in his numbers.  I allowed, again, for the most amazing velocity standard deviation of 5 feet per second, with a 1/2 MOA accurate rifle/cartridge combination.  I reduced the effects of the atmosphere by raising the elevation to 3000 feet.  I enlarged the target to a 12 x 20 inch ellipse (roughly the one-shot kill area of the human body) and still I came up with a probability of a one shot hit (any hit) of about 8 percent at 1.5 miles.  The hit probability at that range on a 5-foot circle is about 58%.  Time if flight: 4.05 sec.  Extremely good, but you have to push the accuracy of the system to the edge of believability to get it, and with a perfect marksman.  It’s certainly not what we’re being led to believe by the TV producers.

Barrett’s specs for the .416:

 

      Muzzle velocity: 3250 fps

Ballistic Coefficient: 0.943

           Bullet Mass: 400 grains – solid copper

 

I want one!  I wonder if they’re going to come out with some light varmint bullets for it, or some frangible defense loads.  Heh.

 

Guns Are Magic, It Seems

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One of the many murder mystery shows on TV these days recently did an episode wherein an assassin shot his victim through the heart at a mile and a half with a single shot from a super-scary sniper rifle, complete with portable weather station, laser range finder and computer, etc. (sounds a bit like my setup).  It reminds me of Henry (nostrilitis) Waxman’s attempt to scare children over the magical capabilities of the .50 BMG cartridge.

 

Knowing this claimed feat to be beyond ridiculous, and for fun I decided to test it using Joe’s exterior ballistics program.  Using all the most generous figures:  Caliber .50 BMG (loaded with the slipperiest small arm bullet, with a Ballistic Coefficient of 1.05) which I gave an impressive standard velocity deviation of only 5 feet per second, and an inherent accuracy of 0.5 minutes of angle (super, ultra special, custom ammo) with a wind estimation error of only 2 MPH over that whole mile and a half, and perfect assessment of temperature, humidity and barometric pressure.  It turns out that the probability of a hit (any hit) on a 15 inch circle at that distance (2,640 yards) is from 1% to 8% (depending on which 100-shot simulation you go with– i.e. there were 100-shot strings in which only one bullet hit its target) assuming a perfect shooter with nerves of perfect steel, perfect optics and visual conditions that can resolve a 16-inch (a little over ½ MOA) wide target at 2,640 yards.

 

Using the more common, high powered, long-range 300 Winchester Magnum, with the same amazingly good velocity deviation and the same super 0.5 MOA accuracy, the hit probability went to about 0.6% on a 15-inch stationary circle.  Bullet’s time of flight: 7.37 seconds.

 

On the TV show, the shooter did another amazing trick by timing his shot (from a mile and a half away) to exactly coincide with some blanks fired in a movie set dual.  The time of flight for his (assumed) .50 BMG bullet at 2,640 yards is nearly 5 seconds, so the shooter would have to anticipate his victim’s actions with superb accuracy, five seconds in advance.  Furthermore, he took the shot from an urban area, where the intense muzzle report from a necessarily very powerful rifle would have gotten the attention of people in a wide radius.  The rifle was bolt action, and the ejected cartridge case was depicted as having melted into the outdoor carpet on the balcony that served as the shooting position– also preposterous, as the case sits in the chamber too long to leave it so hot upon ejection (the relatively cool barrel acts as a tremendous heat sink for the thin brass case).  Only autoloaders spit out hot cases because they extract the case within milliseconds of firing.  Oh and the target, being a human in the process of acting out a mock duel, was moving, making the probability of a hit even less (my simulations were done on a stationary target).

 

Now some would say, “Hey, its just a TV show.  Its entertainment, Dude, lighten up.”  I would agree if it were a science fiction series, or fantasy, but this stuff is put forth as serious, hard-hitting drama.  To me its like a serious W.W. II drama in which people fly like superman, battle tanks travel at 200 miles an hour, and animals talk.  It ceases being entertainment and becomes an insult.

Bigots in industry

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I’ve said it before but talking with Lyle at UltiMAK yesterday I obtained some more evidence that gun owners are in many ways treated like blacks in this country were 50 or 60 years ago. Actual lynching don’t occur. Ruby Ridge and Waco come close in many respects but no ropes and trees were involved. But what does happen is marginalization, shunning, firings (mine and I know of three other people that had similar problems), and signs such as this one (St. Louis Missouri August 13, 2006):

When I see a sign like that I can’t help but think of signs like this:

From http://www.cah.utexas.edu/ssspot/lesson_plans/lesson_10.php
From http://www.cah.utexas.edu/ssspot/lesson_plans/lesson_10.php

And read through this list and find how many similar restrictions apply to gun owners. A sample:

  • Parks: It shall be unlawful for colored people to frequent any park owned or maintained by the city for the benefit, use and enjoyment of white persons.
  • Education: Separate rooms [shall] be provided for the teaching of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are so provided, such pupils may not be admitted to the school rooms occupied and used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent.
  • Libraries: Any white person of such county may use the county free libraries under the rules and regulations prescribed by the commissioners court and may be entitled to all the privileges thereof. Said court shall make proper provision for the Negroes of said county to be served through a separate branch or branches of the county free library, which shall be administered by a custodian of the Negro race under the supervision of the county librarian.
  • Railroads: The conductors or managers on all such railroads shall have power, and are hereby required, to assign to each white or colored passenger his or her respective car, coach, or compartment. If the passenger fails to disclose his race, the conductor and managers, acting in good faith shall be the sole judges of his race.

Back to what Lyle told me–One of the limiting factors to growth in his business (gun accessories) is building stuff fast enough. For over a year he has been trying to find more machine shops to build his stuff. He has had something like seven or eight companies tell him they don’t want his business because it is gun related. He has been unable to find any new suppliers in the last 18 months. Legally I support their right to refuse to do business with someone. For example I wouldn’t do business with someone making “ovens” for Nazis. And I don’t want my Modern Ballistics program sold to certain organizations opposed to basic human rights. But that so many companies have this bigoted viewpoint tells us a great deal about the attitudes of this country.

The advice I gave Lyle was, “Ask them if they have a similar policy about doing business with blacks.”

Modern Ballistics

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Long story made short: There is a new version of Modern Ballistics available here.

Long story made long:  As many of you know I wrote the exterior ballistics program Modern Ballistics.  I had the free demo require a license to be updated once a month by contacting server which kept track of how many computers were using the demo.  The user interface to the server had a limit of 100 computers using any copy of the software at a time.  It turned out that more than 100 people were using the demo in a month and new users couldn’t test out the software.  This happened just as I moved everything to a new computer and was in the middle of converting my code to use a new compiler.  I had deleted the old compiler off the old computer and I had no way to fix the problem people were having.  Last night (early this morning actually) I got the new build of the program tested.  To get things out quicker I just made the demo not require connecting to the server at all.  Then I had to update the installation process and test it.  Then I had to update the website.  I finished up about 0200 this morning.  Download the latest version here.

Let me know if you run into any bugs. The testing was rather “thin”.  In particular I am concerned about it working on various operating systems.  I only tested it on Windows XP and XP-x64.  I have a Win98 and Win95 available at home but I’m not home now.  Send an email to bugs@modernballistics.com if you notice something broken.  Thanks.

A short history of interesting email

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I get the most interesting email.

There have been the room temperature I.Q. cases wanting help building a bomb which I talk about frequently.  There are also cases where I don’t talk much, if any, but are just as interesting. 

There was a case where a public defender wanted help defending against federal bomb making charge.  I thought Ry and I were going to be doing some testing for them.  But the case was dropped after the public defender told the court they had an expert who didn’t think it would explode but wanted to test a duplicate of the device to make sure. My guess is the the prosecutor knew it wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t explode but figured putting a 15 year old girl in the slammer was just another way to get a few laughs and get more points toward their next promotion.  Don’t ever forget we have a legal system, not a justice system.

Due my Modern Ballistics program I have received lots of requests for ballistics help.  In one case (IIRC, it’s been several years now) someone was investigating the possibility of a wrongful death case against a police officer.  It wasn’t a problem my program was designed for and I couldn’t help.  One request was the defense in a murder case.  Using all the data I had at my disposal I still had a couple unknown variables that could push the answer either way.  And even if those numbers were tied down the answer depended on the skill and knowledge of the shooter as much as the physics involved.

This week I received my first request for help in defending against a first degree murder charge (three shots to the center of mass from a large caliber semi-auto pistol) where the defendant had a concealed weapons permit.  I’ll blog the details tomorrow.  The guy goes on trial Monday.

Beagle wreckage and rifle shooting on the moon

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It was given up for lost almost two years ago but it was a mystery what happened to it.  Now they believe they have found the wreckage:

SCIENTISTS believe they have finally found the wreckage of the stricken Beagle 2 Mars probe, almost two years after it crashed on landing.

A sophisticated analysis of grainy images from a Nasa spacecraft has convinced the Beagle 2 team that the lander met its end in a small crater, into which it touched down in the early hours of Christmas Day 2003 with little chance of survival.

The pictures from Mars Global Surveyor, which have been pored over by an expert who once interpreted spy satellite images for the RAF, show an impact point in the crater and several objects that appear to be Beagle 2’s protective gas bags and, perhaps, the lander itself.

They suggest that the probe was lost because of cruel luck as it touched down in one of the worst possible places for a soft and successful landing. Rather than dropping to the surface on a flat plain, it appears to have first struck the downslope of a small crater about 18.5m (60ft) in diameter, before crashing into its opposite wall, bouncing several times around the rim and eventually coming to rest at the bottom. Even if the gas bags that were meant to cushion its impact were fully inflated, and there is some evidence that they were not, their design would not have allowed them to protect the probe properly under these unlikely circumstances.

Bummer.

I’m a big proponent of space exploration.  Long term getting off this planet is one of the necessary conditions for the survival of our species.  And in the medium term it represents one of the higher likelihood events to restore our freedoms.  Mars represents a good target for colonization and every time we go there it helps us to understand the problems of the journey and the habitation a little bit better. 

Another motivation for getting into space is I would like to be the first person to shoot 1000 yard groups on the moon.  With no wind and 1/5 gravity the group sizes will be awesome!  And you wondered why I had shooting conditions for the moon built into Modern Ballistics.  And no, despite a certain science fiction story you can’t put bullets into orbit from the surface of the moon.  Shooting tangential to the surface I estimate you need to be about 550 970 miles above the surface to achieve a circular orbit with a .220 Swift. 

I sent in my application to NASA to be an astronaut 15 days before Challenger blew up which stymied that career path but I figure if my friend gets his immortality project working I still have a chance.  In addition to immortality he wants to carve his initials in the moon big enough to be seen from earth with the naked eye.  Since explosives are one of the best ways of carving rock he asked if I would do it for him.  If he figures out how to get us safely to the moon and back I’ll figure out a way to carve the 70 mile wide LINES of his initials.  With all the other gear going up I figure there would be room for my rifle and a thousand rounds of ammo (especially if he uses the Orion concept).

Update: I rethought my back of the envelope (literally) calculations this morning and realize I had made an error.  I did some more number crunching and came up with some different numbers.  And since orbital mechanics is not my specialty I’m not guaranteeing any of these numbers.  Useful web pages to figure it out for yourself are here and here.  I’m assuming a muzzle velocity of 4000 fps out of the .220 Swift which has one of the highest muzzle velocities in a commerical load.

How to game The Black Death

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Now that Analog Kid has posted the results I’ll explain how I was going to “game” the October postal rifle match Analog Kid called “The Black Death”.  Because you can shoot the target as many times as you want what I was going to do was put up ten targets at 200 yards.  Then:

  1. Take one shot at each of the smallest, 0.5″, squares.  With no wind I can connect with a 0.5″ square at 200 yards about 48% of the time as predicted by Modern Ballistics.  With 10 shots I should hit five of them.
  2. On the five targets I hit the 0.5″ square on I would shoot at the 0.75″ inch square.  The odds of touching a 0.75″ square is predicted to be 63%.  With five shots I should hit three of them.
  3. On the three targets I hit the 0.75″ square I would shoot at the 1.0″ target.  The odds of touching a 1.0″ square is predicted to be 75%.  With three shots I should hit two of them.
  4. On the two targets I hit the 1.0 target I would shoot at the 1.25″ target.  The odds of touching a 1.25″ square is predicted to be 83%.  With two shots I should hit one of them.
  5. On that target I would shoot the rest of the squares with the odds of 90%, 96%, 99%, 99.8%, and 99.99% of hitting the 1.5″, 2.0″, 2.5″, 3.0″, and 3.5″ targets.  The odds of connecting on all of them is predicted to be 85%.

So…with 25 shots I have an 85% chance of creating a clean target at 200 yards.  With 50 shots I have a 98% chance of doing it.

Unfortunately I procrastinated too much and didn’t make time to get out to the range until it was raining and almost dark.

The white-tailed deer in my van

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This morning I finished cleaning my heavy barreled AR-15 and then cleaned my .300 Win Mag. It was raining but was supposed to stop by midday where I was headed (they were wrong). I packed up my rain gear (a poncho), gun gear, hunting knife, computer, some food, and water. I had to mail some stuff to one of my lawyers and finally got out of town a little after noon. I arrived at the Boomershoot site a little after 13:00. I walked from near the 380 yard line to the Taj Mahal about a quarter mile away taking about 1.5 hours going slowly around the area, nearly twice, in opposite directions. I expected to find a deer in the tall grass or under a tree where I had seen two deer before. Lyle and his son and I had seen three deer about two weeks ago. No such luck today. I got soaking wet from the knees down. I did a little work at the Taj Mahal and dried out a little bit. I didn’t warm up any though. After an hour or so I left and as I drove south over the hill toward South Road on Meridian Road I saw two deer. One was stopped looking at me from about 100 yards away. I stopped and watched as the first one ran away and the other just stared at me. It was on land I didn’t have permission to hunt on. On the other side of the road was more land I didn’t have permission to hunt on. If it crossed the road I couldn’t shoot it while it was on the road. It was safe from me for over 400 yards in any direction. I drove on and it ran away as I got closer.

I was cold and damp and was enjoying the warmth of the van. I decided to do some “road hunting.” I would drive around for a while and see if I could see anything from the roads on any of the land I had permission to hunt on. I drove slowly north into a field we call “The 120”. Nothing. I turned around and slowly drove back out to the main road. I drove west on South Road and then north on Newman Road. I turned west into another field where Lyle, his son, and I waited for dusk and deer to appear before. Last time dusk and then darkness had arrived without any deer.

About 16:00 I parked and set up to wait for dusk and the hoped for deer. An aerial image of the location is here. The top strip of green is trees and brush. Just to the south (down) is my parents land. In the middle of the picture, going north-south, is a strip of grass in a draw. It is called a grass waterway. I had parked my van just south of where the grass waterway bends to the east. Using the van for shelter from the breeze and the rain I setup and waited. I fired up my computer and used the hot air from the fan to dry the ocular lens that had water drops on it. I checked temperature, 46 F, and the barometric indicated altitude–3000 feet above sea level. I put the information into Modern Ballistics and used the laser range finder to get distances to the nearest trees and various landmarks in the grass waterway. I set the scope angle to an indicated 5.75 MOA. Using the 180 grain Federal Power-Shok cartridges for my .300 Win Mag that would give me a zero of 234 yards and a point blank range of 273 yards with a point blank size of 4.8 inches. The nearest trees were about 270 yards. Anything my side of the trees could be hit within 2.4 inches of my point of aim without adjusting for elevation–assuming perfect ammo, gun, and shooter. None of those were perfect but from 200 to 260 yards the point of impact should be +/- 1.4 inches assuming everything is perfect. The deer, almost for certain, would be within that range if it appeared.

At 16:40 my daughter Kim called to discuss snow tires for her car. I chatted for a while then saw two deer walk out of the woods and stroll slowly to the east. I told Kim, “I’m out hunting and I just saw two deer come out of the woods. I want to shoot them now.” We said good-bye and I turned my attention to the deer. The deer were together in the center of the grass waterway having just come out of the woods. My laser range finder said I was 255 yards from the lead deer which was broadside to me and a better target. I was aiming just ahead of the shoulder as it was walking into the shot. The gun went off without a conscious thought from me–IPSC does that to you. In IPSC when I’m doing things right I find that as the sights are aligned on the target the gun goes boom without me knowing it was going to happen–even when it’s happening three times a second. Just as I pulled the trigger the deer stopped and put it’s head down to eat. In the 0.3 seconds the bullet took to reach it’s target the deer would have put it’s heart into the path of the bullet. But because it was stopped the bullet got it’s spine instead of the heart and lungs–we both got lucky. It would be hard to get a cleaner, quicker death than a completely severed spine between it’s head and heart. I got an easier job of cleaning the chest cavity and have more eatable meat.


The untouched deer after being shot. Click for a larger image, then click again for still larger.

Another example for doubters of Myth Busters. The deer fell toward the shooter (actually it turned 90 degrees toward me then fell over so the long axis of it’s body was aligned with me). You are looking at the exit wound side of the deer. It did not get pushed or knocked down by the bullet impact. It’s spine was severed and whatever muscle twitches remained caused it’s only motion as it crumpled to the ground.

The other deer jumped and ran a few steps before stopping and looking in my direction. I wondered at first if I had missed and this was the deer I had shot at. I looked closely through the scope and could see the white from the belly of the deer I had shot. It was motionless. I quickly packed up enough to drive to the downed deer. The still standing deer didn’t run away until I had started up and was moving toward it.

I parked the van next to the deer and started cutting on it. I then called Doug to tell him and hoped he would volunteer to come help. He did. When he and his son Brad arrived about 10 minutes later it was getting dark and it was still raining. I was doing this for the first time and progress was slow for me before Doug arrived. Doug brought a hatchet that we used to break open the pelvis and the sternum. After tagging it and emptying the body cavity we put it on the tarp in my van and drove back to his place to skin it while hanging up in the machine shed.

I called Kim back after the gutted deer was in the van and on the way to the shed for skinning. She asked if she was still going to get some of the meat. I told her, “Of course”. After talking to Kim I called Xenia and told her I would be home a little late because I had got my deer.

In the shed we had artificial lights, a roof over our heads, and equipment to hoist the deer up to chest height for easy skinning. 1.5 hours after I took the shot it was gutted, skinned, and wrapped in a tarp in my van.

I went inside to visit with my parents and clean up a little. I wore plastic gloves and my poncho while working with the deer so I didn’t get much blood on me. I just had to clean my knives and a little bit blood from one sleeve of my shirt. Mom fixed me a peanut butter, jelly, and lettuce sandwich and gave me a glass of milk for my supper. I left my parents place at 18:30 and was home, parked in the driveway with the carcass of a white-tailed deer in my van by 19:30. Tomorrow it will go to the meat cutter who will age it, then cut, and wrap the meat.

Interesting coincidences–I have harvested (using Barb’s Jeep rather than my rifle) only one other deer before. It also was on Halloween and just seconds prior to downing it I got a call on my cell phone. That time I was on the phone talking to Barb when the deer jumped out in front of me and the impact caused compound fractures in both its hind legs. I killed it with my pistol and again Doug came to field dress it.

Doug asked me if I got sick to my stomach as I pulled the trigger. He still does sometimes. Other people get very excited and can’t shoot worth a darn when a deer gets into their sights. I didn’t feel any excitement or sickness–just the recoil of the rifle on my shoulder. There was no particular joy or sadness either. Just another four legged, crop eating pest was dead and I would have some meat to share with my children over the next few months.

More pictures from my first hunting season are here. Tomorrow, after the light is better, I plan to update the photo album with pictures of the entrance and exit wounds.

Update: I took the deer to the meat processor Tuesday morning. While on the scales with head and legs still attached it weighed 79 pounds. The photo album has been updated with pictures of the entrance and exit wounds.

Update2: Information on whitetailed deer. Also of interest is that in Clearwater county, where this deer was harvested, a collision with a deer is the most common form of car accident.

Bullet Penetration

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The second printing of this book is coming out next month.  For gun geeks this is a great book.  Lots of math and experimental results to back up the theory.  I have a copy of the first printing someplace.  I got it probably 7 or 8 years ago and immediately went out and did some of my own experiments to verify things.  The results looked good.  From the web page:

Bullet Penetration describes the analysis and testing of a model of bullet penetration dynamics; this model  is a significant technical advance over what has been heretofore available.  This penetration model is directly related to understanding the production of an incapacitating wound by the bullet parameters (velocity, weight, shape, diameter).  Incapacitation from wound trauma is a complex subject that has been controversial for many decades, and all aspects of this subject are discussed in detail in Bullet Penetration.  The new results in this book are described in a style and vocabulary that make the basic principles and results understandable to the layman.  This outstanding book should be read by everyone who is critically dependent on handgun bullet performance as well as all those with an interest in any aspect of wound ballistics.

The topics covered in Bullet Penetration include physiological and psychological effects in incapacitation from wound trauma, modeling of bullet penetration, and modeling of bullet expansion.  The realities associated with the desired “one shot stop” and the ignorance and/or fraud in “combat data” claims are discussed in detail.  The primary focus is on handgun ammunition, but the principles and many of the results are also applicable to rifle ammunition.  The book has 303 pages, including 69 pages of bullet photographs and graphs of test results.

When “Ballistic Fingerprinting” fails

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This is an even more blatant example of When Prophecy Fails related to the ballistic fingerprinting debacle.

Leah Barrett, executive director of CeaseFire Maryland, said police are not using the database enough, instead relying on a national ballistics database that only has ballistics images from crime scenes. As a result, she said, the national database can’t lead investigators directly to the specific firearm that produced a recovered ballistic image unless the gun is eventually recovered.

She said scrapping the state program could deal a setback to better ballistics imaging.

“I think it’s a real tragedy because other states are looking at New York and Maryland to see how we succeed with this,” she said.

“To see how we succeed with this.”????  The possibility it has failed is apparently not in her domain of thought processes.

“Ballistic Fingerprinting” fails

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If you are even the slightest bit ‘connected’ in the gun rights movement you will already know about what happened in Maryland.  They implemented a database of fired bullets and shell casings from all new handguns sold in the state.. This was an attempt to track down the owner if a bullet or shell casing were found at the scene of a crime.  Gun owners and manufactures told them it wouldn’t work.  They did it anyway.  Now they find out it didn’t work for all the reasons they were told it wouldn’t work plus some at least one new reason.  That reason is that different materials take on the markings differently.  Some bullets are made primarily of lead, some have copper jackets, and some even have steel jackets.  There are numerous alloys of lead too, some even use silver.  Shell casings are made of brass, aluminum, and steel.  If the manufacture supplied a bullet and shell casing made of one material and the criminal used another then the chance of a match is greatly reduced.

What amuses me the most about this is that the system failed and they suggest an alternate scheme that I am certain will also fail.  I have posted on it here:

This qualifies Maryland for a When Prophecy Fails mention.

Others have commented extensively on the report from Maryland:

I have included the entire Maryland report below for those interested in the details.

 

2. Integrated Ballistics Information System Remains under Scrutiny

 

Background

 

The Maryland Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), operational since October 1, 2000, provides police investigators with a tool to focus an investigation around a firearm. Chapter 2,

Acts of 2000 (Responsible Gun Safety Act of 2000), required that manufacturers submit a test-fired shell casing with each handgun shipped for resale in the State.

The dealer then sends the casing to the State Police after the gun has been sold. The IBIS system receives the casing from the dealer, and firearms investigators and technicians perform a full analysis of the casing. The investigator uses microscopic technology to identify striations and other markings

that are unique to each individual gun. The striations are formed when the gun is fired, as the firing pin strikes the back of the casing, creating a unique series of identifying marks. The aim of the system is to create a massive database of identifying marks, so that any spent shell casings recovered at a crime scene can be compared against the IBIS database, to try to identify the gun used in the commission of the crime. Based on then-current handgun sales statistics, the State Police anticipated that 30,000 cartridge casings would be received annually for input into the IBIS system. As such, the system was designed to hold around 300,000 casings over a 10-year period.

The system has thus far received around 35,000 cartridge casings for input, including around 2,000 from trooper-issued semi-automatic 40-caliber Beretta firearms. There have been 160 requests to match crime-scene casings with the IBIS system, resulting in four “hits” or matches.

 

Costs

 

DSP anticipates continued maintenance supplies and personnel costs of $435,269 for fiscal 2005 to continue to operate the IBIS system. Initial start-up costs of $1.4 million were absorbed in fiscal 2001. IBIS requires one full-time equivalent position to maintain the system. DSP’s Forensic Unit currently assigns three forensic examiners to this program, each devoting one-third of their time to the IBIS system.

 

Problems

 

The State Police are concerned about the lack of hits yielded by the IBIS system, and there have been problems with the system. Some of these problems are the result of operational failings and others simply the result of circumstance.

 

Number of Cartridges Stored – No Link to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN): Chapter 2 of 2000 included ‘external safety lock’ requirements and the shell casing identification provision. Gun manufacturers were required to add ‘integrated mechanical safety devices’ to firearms, as well as external safety locks to any firearm sold in Maryland.

 

These two provisions made up an effort by the General Assembly to make the prospects of accidental shootings less likely. These two mechanical requirements, coupled with the requirement to test-fire the gun and submit the cartridge casings, has effectively reduced the number of firearms sold in the State. While DSP had anticipated 30,000 casings submitted annually from 215 qualifying manufacturers, the number of casings received since October 2001 stands at around 34,000 from only 49 manufacturers.

In essence, the guns most often recovered from crime scenes are not sold in Maryland, and therefore, not linked (via cartridge casing) to the IBIS system. DSP has also indicated that .38 mm revolvers are often used in crimes, and these guns are less likely to leave spent shell casings.

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) division of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have a system in place, similar to the Maryland IBIS system. The NIBIN is a system that uses identical technology to IBIS, to create a national database of crime scene shell casings and bullets. However, a memorandum of understanding between the ATF and State and local law enforcement agencies prohibits the linking of NIBIN to any State or local system, such as IBIS. In that the guns used in Maryland crimes are less likely to be sold in Maryland, the inability to link IBIS to NIBIN prevents the largest field of possible matches from being searched.

 

Time to Crime: The Maryland IBIS system has been in place since October 2000. Criminology research suggests that if a legally obtained firearm is going to enter the stream of criminal activity, it takes between three and six years for this to occur. This ‘time to crime’ statistic indicates that the guns and cartridge casings inventoried in IBIS since 2001 will start to match firearms used in crimes from 2004 to 2007. The statewide deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) inventory saw a similar preliminary waiting period until the number of matches increased dramatically. The DNA database began in 1994, had its first hit in 1998, and has had 72 hits to date. Of these 72 hits, 39 have come in 2003.

 

Glock Casings Unreliable: It has been learned that cartridge casings submitted by Glock firearms did not match the casings recovered from the same gun at crime scenes. As a result, all cartridge casings submitted by Glock were flagged in the IBIS system, and a list of the guns affected by the problem has been generated. Any firearm sold in Maryland from the list was also flagged. The Glock Company indicated that this problem has since been resolved.

 

Change in Striations As Firearms Age and Break-in: Research suggests that as firearms age and are broken-in the internal characteristics of the firing pin may change which will result in different striations being left on the spent casings. This makes the casings submitted by the manufacturer less reliable. The more the gun is fired, the more the striations will change.

 

Modification of Firing Pin by User: Gun users with working knowledge of the assembly process can alter the firing pin of the weapon, which would significantly change the striations left on the cartridge casing.

 

Different Cartridge Casing Materials Used: There is no standard material used to make cartridge casings. These different materials absorb the striations differently. Additionally, if a different material is used in the manufacture process and by the user, it is possible that a spent cartridge casing will not match the casing stored in IBIS.

 

Increase in Database Size Decreased Likelihood of “Hit”: As the number of similar guns stored in the database increase, the likelihood of a match decreases. As an example, there are approximately 2,000 cartridge casings from Trooper-issued firearms. Tests have been run, using spent casings from these guns, and the system has not yielded a match in the top 15. However, the more experienced the examiner who inputs the casing, the more likely that the input will be accurate and reflect the unique characteristics of the gun.

 

Remote IBIS System Failure: DSP purchased a remote IBIS unit to run a search of the found cartridge casings and to submit the findings to the IBIS database to be tested for a match. This device has not worked due to overheating and data transmission problems. The manufacturer has since stopped producing these units. Not only can these casings found at crime scenes not be compared to IBIS while on-site, but DSP cannot link to any other State forensic facility.

 

Future and Alternatives

 

A new technology exists to perform a similar task as the IBIS system. This version of nanotechnology creates a ballistic ID or fingerprint on cartridge casings. The technology would create a number or symbol on the firing pin of the weapon, and this marking would be transferred to the cartridge casing each time the gun was fired. However, this technology would have to be done at the manufacturer level and would lead to resistance from the industry. Research suggests, however, that this ballistic fingerprinting method would be less expensive and more accurate than the IBIS, as the “serial number” imprinting removes the subjectivity inherit in digitizing a visual set of striations. DLS recommends that DSP comment on whether, in light of circumstantial difficulties, this program has justified continued operation.

 

 

More info on bullet serial number scheme

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The San Diego Tribune has more details.  The highlights I am interested in follow:

“Most of the guns used in crime – 80 percent – are handguns,” said Randy Rossi, director of the firearms division at the state Department of Justice. “We want to see how well this works and give it a sunset. If it doesn’t work, abandon it. But there is no reason in the world to believe it won’t work.”

The plan would require putting serial numbers on all handgun ammunition possessed in public, sold or imported into the state. To accommodate law-abiding sport shooters and those who reload their own cartridges, anyone on their way to or from a shooting range or hunting trip would be exempt. It’s unclear how this provision would work, with supporters acknowledging that details on many aspects of the system need to be worked out.

This would require it be legal to have unmarked ammo in your home.  I love the part about “details… need to be worked out.“  Sort of like, “And then angels flew out of my ass and saved the day.“  These people live in a fantasy world.  They don’t seem to understand that security is like a chain and when the weakest link breaks you have complete failure.

The microstamping system under study was developed by a Washington state company, Ravensforge. The company engraves shell casings and bullets with a matching serial number. All of the cartridges in a box packaged for retail sale would have the same serial number, which could be scanned and linked to a purchaser’s driver license number, Rossi said.

This would help the serial number management problem some.  Instead of a billion numbers it would probably be 50 million or so.

The state’s more than 1,600 licensed firearms dealers already have the electronic equipment to record the information – scanning the code on the ammunition box and electronically swiping the driver license – in the same way they collect required personal information for gun transactions.

Rossi initially was skeptical that a bullet’s number would be legible after it was fired.

A test of 200 rounds fired from close range into walls, car doors, bulletproof vests, rubber matting and a gel designed to simulate a human target convinced him the technology is sound.

Of 181 slugs recovered – including soft lead bullets that largely flattened out – the tiny code could be read on 180 of them with a simple electronic magnifying scope.

“We tried to prove this doesn’t work,” he said. “To have it work virtually every time, I was very surprised.”

Lockyer seized on the system as an alternative to ballistics fingerprinting, which relies on unique, microscopic imperfections in shell casings and slugs. The attorney general angered gun-control advocates last year when his office concluded that ballistics imaging required a massive database and would prove ineffective unless launched as part of national system.

By tracking ammunition, which Rossi said has a relatively short shelf life, the state could develop a much broader database than an alternative that applies only to new handguns.

Hmmm… in practice ammo may not sit on the shelf for very long but if stored in a cool dry place it can easily last for 50 to 100 years.  I suspect Rossi was just making things up as he went along on this particular point.

The attorney general’s aides concede the microstamping proposal faces daunting political and financial obstacles. Manufacturers, gun-control and gun-rights activists – none of whom were involved in the initial study – are raising questions.

Gary Mehalik of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for manufacturers of ammunition and firearms, said the caliber of guns used in any test could have been a critical factor in the results.

The state tested 9 millimeter, .38, .40 and .45 caliber handguns. No .22 caliber weapons were used and microstamping has not yet been applied to .22 caliber ammunition, the most common used by sport shooters.

Rossi and Paul Curry, a lobbyist for Ravensforge, said the serial numbers could be applied for a penny or less per cartridge. But Mehalik predicted it would be expensive to add a manufacturing process that matches casings and bullets, and then packages them in a box with the same code number.

“We’d have to analyze the costs, but I can tell you that it would create a logistical nightmare inside the current production systems,” Mehalik said.

It’s been a while (35+ years) but I have receive a tour through an ammo manufacturing plant but from what I remember Mehalik is right on with this point.

A leading gun-rights group dismissed the proposal as an ill-conceived, high-tech version of gun registration.

“The technology is certainly there, but all of the technology can be defeated by anyone who wants to defeat it,” said Sam Paredes of the 30,000-member Gun Owners of California.

Many gun owners make their own ammunition and reuse lead and shell casings, Paredes said.

“Gang members in South Central or East Los Angeles, they’re going to know this ammunition is tainted,” Paredes said. “So they’re going to pay somebody a little bit of money to load some ammunition for them and they’re clean.”

But they won’t be legal if caught with unmarked ammo in public, Rossi said.

And almost for certain they won’t be legal if they are caught with a gun in public either.  Carrying a loaded gun in public is already illegal in CA except for the politically connected and certain celebrities.  And if they have a felony conviction they are illegally in possession as well.  So how would this help?  It’s just one more way to demonize and increase the expense for people exercising their inalienable rights.  In that regard it will probably succeed.