"Accelerator" ammo & forensics?

[mundaire]

While reading up on reloading info on the .30-06 (renewed interest due to the new IOFB .30-06 hitting the market), got a chance to revisit a few pages dealing with the "Accelerator" bullet concept. For those who haven't heard of this before see http://www.eabco.com/reload02.html

Got me thinking, if someone is shooting a .224 cal bullet out of a .30 cal barrel ( or for that matter any larger than bullet dia barrel) using these sabots, then clearly the bullet itself will not pick up any of those tell tale rifling marks which can tie in a bullet to a barrel. Also, if you own a .30 cal rifle but are shooting .224 cal bullets through it, how do the forensics chappies tie you in to a situation? Is this not a bit of a grey zone for forensic scientists? Or is there some other way for them to link the gun to the bullet? Tried thinking this one through from all angles but cannot come up with any reasonable solution.... Opinions? Ideas?

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[TenX]

Good point.. worth some brain food

[penpusher]

The sabot,if it can be fond,would have the rifling impresed on it.If the cartridge case is found from the scene of the crime,the indentation on the primer can tie the recovered firearm to the shooting. The recovery of similar type of ammo. from the accused along with motive and intention to commit the crime backed by other direct/circumstantial evidence.

[TenX]

Mundaire... I was just thinking that if the lesser calibre bullet does pass thru the barrel, and if it is not in a perfectly parallel line, it would surely hit/touch/glaze the sides of the inner barrel. If this happens, probability being high, it could pick up some traces... or would it?

[Mark]

It wouldn't even have to be a standard accelerator round, anything 25-28 caliber (6mm-7mm) and be "paper patched", loaded and fired through a 30 caliber rifle. The paper will come off while the bullet is in flight. Just make sure the slug is small enough in diameter there is no rifling imprint on it.

This is nothing new, paper patching is over 100 years old.

[TwoRivers]

Think this question is mostly academic, as you are not likely to find a bullet in the body. The "Accellerator" bullet, being designed to blow up in a small varmint, would completely go to pieces in a human; you'd only find small shreds of jacket and lead core. Cheers.

[to_saptarshi]

Abhijeet,

Striation marking is not the only thing that is getting verified during identification of murder weapon, they also verifies firing pin marking, sheer marking, cartridge case marking, ejection marking (if avaialble), Ballistic Gelatin test and trajectory path etc, also other than rifling marks there are other marks getting created during firing of a bullet, again which can be used for verifying striation mark in comparison microscope. Consider Desi katta's or any smooth barrel weapons, like 12ga shells which dont produce any rifling marks at all. In most of the cases bullet found from murder victims body are deformed and has very little or no rifling marks on them so forensic experts has to depend on other parameters to identifying the murder weapon properly. Long back I worked on a project with Central Forensic Science Lab kolkata for firearms identification, Some Scientist there reveals me those data and shows me some methods by how the actually identifies them, There is also a software called IBIS (Intelligent Ballistic Identification System, Not used by Indian Forensic Department) for doing this types of work. you can also visit http://www.firearmsid.com/ for more information on this.

Hope this helps

Regards
Saptarshi

[TenX]

Good Info Saptarshi ...

[to_saptarshi]

A Small Correction ..IBIS is Integrated Ballistic Identification System

Regards
Saptarshi