Foiled again!
Somewhat related, the plot of the movie Shooter is that a sniper is framed by the bad guys taking his real bullet that he fired at a soup can, packing it in paper and shooting someone with it. The paper protected it from being marked by the real assassin’s barrel so once it was recovered, it appeared to have been fired by the sniper rifle.
That’s probably just hollywood, but i wonder what ballistics would show if you packed a shotgun shell with a bullet or two.
Load a round, say a .45 ACP with a subcaliber bullet such as a 9mm using a sabot. No marks at all on the bullet. The sabot engages the rifling, but the bullet never touches the barrel. For onetime use wrapping the bullet in heavy paper might work, though commercially available sabots are made of plastic these days.
I have seen in several crime novels, both filing the barrel to alter the bullet pattern, and firing a significant number of bullets 9100 or more) which also alters the pattern. I suppose that firing a large number of bullets after filing the barrel would help destry the obvious marks of recent file activity?
For rifles and handguns that have easily replaced barrels and firing pins, aftermarket parts can be purchased for cash at a gun show and used during the crime. AR-15’s and Glocks are good choices. Might as well buy the AR a bolt and the Glock a slide while you are at it to avoid the cops matching marks on the case head to your gun’s breechface.
For revolvers and rifles that do not permit easy replacement, a really vigorous cleaning of the bore and chamber with a patch impregnated with valve lapping compound will do. Be sure to take dremel and polish up the breechface and tip of the firing pin.
Shotguns still leave marks on caseheads and primers that can be matched, and require polishing.
On the whole, wearing gloves and ditching the gun and gloves separately is a much better proposition. Using a stolen gun that you can just drop right where you used it is ideal. There are millions of pre-GCA 1968 guns out there that don’t even have serial numbers, as well as war souveniers, etc. Use one of them bought off the black market and drop it at the scene.
Read this in a novel – sounds like it might work. But it might be bullshit. Fire some bullets into a pool of water. Collect them and reload them into new casings. Use these bullets in a different gun for the murder.
Some of the markings will be the same. But some won’t, so there won’t be a match. Can it be scientifically determined if a bullet has been fired twice?
I doubt this would feed or reliably cycle the action of an autoloading pistol; the top end of mass of a 9mmP is 147 grain bullet, while the .45 ACP starts at 185 grain for the lightest load. The pressure peak and recoil would be substantially different. This could work in a single shot or revolver.
Yes. Even if you cannot distinguish characteristic scratches from a particular barrel, you would certainly be able to distinguish two separate sets of rifling marks on the bullet, not to mention that after being fired once the bullet will have enough deformation that it will no longer be stable in flight.
However, this is all unnecessary. If all you want is to eliminate tracability, you can use a fragmenting round. (Even though such rounds do typically have a metallic base on the bullet jacket, it will be so deformed that it will be practically useless for forensics.) If you want to frame someone else, fire a round nose bullet through-and-through the target into a soft backstop and then replace the killing bullet with your plant. Now, sit back while Quincy and Columbo team up to shred the other forensic evidence and your alibi respectively. Special guest detective is Adrian Monk, with Tom Selleck narrating his “little voice”. You might as well just give up and plead for mercy from Angela Landsbury, because you are going down.
Stranger
With the saboted bullet it doesn’t have to work the action. Don’t tell me you think you’d need more than one?
I often fire CB caps from my Baretta 21a. Doesn’t work the action but shoots just fine.
Might be time for some experimentation this weekend.
If changing barrels, don’t forget to pick up your brass. The breech can leave marks on it that can be used to match the casing to the weapon. If the bullet is mangled and they can’t get good “no match” ballistics from it, the casing can be all that much more damning.