AFTE Store - The Inter-Comparison of 1,000 Consecutively-Fired 9mm Luger Bullets and Cartridge Cases from a Ruger P89 Pistol Utilizing both Pattern Matching and Quantitative Consecutive Matching Striae as Criteria for Identification

Previous studies have investigated the effect of consecutive firing of firearms to determine how the wear on barrels and breechfaces would affect the identification of fired bullets and cartridge cases. This study was conducted to determine if the toolmarks on fired bullets and cartridge cases would change significantly after firing 1,000 cartridges through a Ruger P89 9mm Luger semiautomatic pistol, while using both pattern matching and quantitative consecutively matching striae (QCMS) as identification criteria during the comparison process. While there were some differences between the toolmarks on the bullets and cartridge cases throughout the firing sequence, each bullet and cartridge case was successfully identified to the first bullet or cartridge case.