Indians For Guns

IFG Gurus

A forensic expert can prove that a bullet was fired from a certain rifle by comapring it with another bullet fired from the same rifle under test conditions. This is also admissable in law courts the world over.

An article in Outlook however states and I quote
Post-mortem examinations of the birds showed they had died due to gunshot wounds and forensic tests showed that the pellets recovered from the carcasses had been fired from Goyal's rifle. Despite such strong evidence against him for killing the national bird, this relatively junior official has had a friendly government....... Unquote

My question : Is it ever possible to trace which gun fired certain pellets which were later recovered from a bird ? I do'nt see how any forensic expert could prove that recovered pellets were most certainly fired from a particular gun. The journalist writes of pellets coming out of a rifle. The statement is paradoxical
Even the H&H Paradox won't pass this one -
Your comments awaited !
Spacetraveller

Journalists, writers, authorities, the general public all have very poor knowledge of shooting sports in India.

It was not the anti gun lobby that had a sucessful run, but a few vested interests who made huge profits with a curb on imports of arms / ammunition and restrictions of licenced firarms on the pretext of preventing crime.

It is a very long story, a book can be written about it.

Ballistics experts examine a number of things to trace which weapon fire a particular bullet in question.

Empty cardrige shell, firing pin of the gun in question, strike pattern, groove turns, powder burn pattern and burn marks from the powder and the bullet, composition of bullet, all go into the examination before a correct diagnosis.

Guns / rifles / rimfire / air rifle, bullets, shots / pellets are often confused for each other in India due to lack of widespread knowledge on SHooting Sports.

In theory it may be possible to identify a particular air rifle from which a pellet has been fired. But it is very very unlikely and low probability proposition. The extremest of experts may have a methodology to unlock such a case. I do not think such an expertise exists commonly.

are you sure the "rifle" is not actually a shotgun.. could be the "pellets" under discussion might actually be a bird shot 12 gauge..

i don't think shotgun pellets can be traced back. Logically there is no way. Only rifle and handgun bullets can be matched to their firing source....

However if a fired shell is recovered then a shotgun can be identified in most cases. Firing pin marks are unique in most guns.

i have to say i agree with shahid. this is just one of the many examples of scatter brained reporters who pick up bits and pieces to string what they term sensational, headline grabbing news.

i've never held newspaper/magazine/ newschannel reports seriously. if salman khan can bring down deer with break barreled air rifles, beluga is the fish that is cooked to derive caviar, carmina burana was composed by jim morrison, what's wrong with tracing pellets to the accused's shotgun.

remember, often the only reference our fiery fourth estate uses to cross check their facts is the malayalam manorma yearbook , and maybe (rarely) wikipedia. so what do you expect?

air Rifles - YES or else i think not. (airguns)

Shotgun and other spent cartridge casings can be traced back to a particular gun BUT this is NEVER 100% accurate. Unlike fingerprints and other biometric measurements such markings have a substantially higher chance of having identical "twins".

What can be done, and what these markings are usually used for is to tie in a suspected gun with a crime. IIRC there were proposals in some countries to maintain "ballistic databases" of all firearms, however the idea was dropped due to the fact that mining such databases on a countrywide basis would end up giving the police several false positives and entail their wasting time on these red herrings, besides the harassment and invasion of privacy of many innocent gun owners - also the cost involved in creating and maintaining such a database would be huge. All guns would need to be tested once, and then again at regular intervals - BECAUSE unlike human biometric measurements, ballistic fingerprints of all guns keep changing, with use, age, repairs etc. not to mention if someone switches a major part like a barrel, firing pin, ejector etc.... THEREFORE keep in mind the term "ballistic fingerprint" is itself a bit of a misnomer....

In terms of the projectiles - ONLY RIFLED guns (pistols, rifles, etc.) produce identifiable and repeatable ballistic fingerprints on projectiles fired from them. Smooth bore guns (a.k.a shotguns) DO not produce such marks on the pellets fired through them, simply because they have no rifling in their barrels which is required to produce a unique (well almost unique) fingerprint on a projectile/ projectiles fired through them...

I guess paradox shotguns firing paradox slugs may be an exception, since they do have rifling at the end part of their barrels, but since paradox shotguns are not exactly dime a dozen, I very much doubt that one of them would have been involved in this particular incident. Also, a 12 gauge slug would hardly be the cartridge of choice with which to poach such small sized game... and if all the person was using was birdshot, then they would not be identifiable/ traceable back to a particular shotgun.

What the authorities could have established in terms of circumstantial evidence would seem to be -

a) He had a shotgun AND dead animals/ birds in his possession

b) The cause of death of the animals/ birds was due to gunshot wounds

c) The gun(s) found in his possession had been recently fired

d) He had powder residue on his hands - strongly suggesting that it was indeed him who had recently fired the gun(s) in question

e) Spent shells found in his possession could be traced back to having been (strong likelihood but NOT with certainty, unless seen together with other evidence as mentioned above) fired the guns in his possession

f) HOWEVER, IF HE HAD USED A .22 rifle (a common choice for such escapades) - then they could indeed have traced back the projectile(s) recovered from the carcasses back to the rifle in his possession - this with a good deal of certainty BUT NOT 100% certainty.

It seems to me from the Journos specific reference to the word "rifle" and also the fact that a .22 LR bullet is small enough to seem almost "pellet like" that this may indeed be the case here...

Just keep in mind, even where possible ballistic fingerprinting is NOT 100% accurate...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

E & OE

1.The birds were recovered from the officers jeep.

2.The officer was carrying his licensed 12 ga shotgun with him.

3.The postmortem report of the birds showed that they had been shot

4.The forensic lab gave a report that the pellets recovered from the birds had indeed been fired from the officers shotgun.How it gave that report is beyond me.

5.There was another person( a known poacher) in the jeep at that time and the officer claimed that he had merely given a lift to this fellow and that the birds (which were in a sack) belonged to this fellow and he had no knowledge about them( the birds)

penpusher

There seems to be no mention of a shot gun.

Re Goyal Pellets/Rifle could it be a AR.

While it would be extremely difficult to link projectiles fired from smooth bore guns to the source,in this case

I guess he just got pronged,hats off to the two honorary wardens.

Sanjay

Thanks all
That was a lot of info
Spacetraveller