AFTE Store - The Identification of Bullets Fired from 10 Consecutively Rifled 9mm Ruger Pistol Barrels: A Research Project Involving 507 Participants from 20 Countries

Ten consecutively rifled RUGER P-85 pistol barrels were obtained from the manufacturer and then test fired to produce known test bullets and ‘unknown’ bullets for comparison by firearms examiners from around the world. This study is a continuation of one originally designed and reported on by David Brundage [1]. The original study was primarily limited to examiners from nationally accredited laboratories in the United States. For this study, the sets were provided to firearms examiners around the world. The RUGER P-85 pistol and the 10 consecutively rifled barrels used for the original study were borrowed from the Illinois State Police. Ammunition was obtained from the Winchester Ammunition Company (A Division of Olin) and 240 tests sets were produced and distributed to forensic scientists and researchers worldwide. A thesis which involved a total of 201 participants including the original 67 reported on by Brundage was published by Hamby and Thorpe in 2001 [2]. This paper reports the final conclusions of the research conducted by Brundage, Hamby and Thorpe over a 10 year period [3, 4].