Ballistic Fingerprinting will be a joke soon, or why the Moose can't admit the shooter has a AK-74

The fetid mind of TC Rider ^ | 10-16-02 | TC Rider

[TC Rider]

Ballistic Fingerprinting will be a joke soon, or why the Moose can't admit the shooter has a AK-74

Chief Moose and others involved with the investigation into the sniper shootings can't lend any credence to the witness who claims he saw a AK-74, because it would point out the ineptness of all of the ballistic testing to date.

After Moose, the ATF and others trotted out all of the Mini-14's and AR-15 variants that used .223 ammo, they know they are in trouble if it turns out to be a AK-74.

While the tests that show all of the rounds to have been fired from the same weapon may be accurate, they produced the wrong weapon.

Additionally, Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, the VPC, Sarah Brady, Governor Glendingaling and others calling for ballistic fingerprinting will have to eat a lot of crow.

The problem for them is, that while all the US made weapons and the AK-74 fire a nearly identical .223 diameter projectile, or bullet, the actual complete round is slightly different in length and uses a different brass casing.

Does anyone else recall some of the early reports that the sniper was using some kind of special 'military' bullet? Chances are the sniper is using Wolf or some surplus Russian ammo.

I knew when they produced the .223 casing from the schoolyard shooting they were in trouble. It looked like it had laid in the woods for ages, or was a steel casing from Russian ammo . If it turns out the sniper is using a AK-74, that cartridge can't have come from it. It is actually possible to fire AR-15 ammo in the AK-74, but not recommended. The case is a tad longer, does not completely seat in a AK-74 chamber and will make a very tell-tale bulge in the base of the case, provided it doesn't explode out of the ejection port. So if the US AR-15 casing had been fired, the geniuses at ATF should have picked up on the tell-tale bulge at the base, where the round does not fully seat.

What the shooter is probably firing is 5.45X39 Russian hollow point ammo.

I've noticed that in the last day or two, a lot of the calls for ballistic fingerprinting are focusing more on bullets and less on casings. I suspect the powers that be, know that they are now dealing with a AK-74 and haven't quite figured out how to cover their asses.

Bottom line, even if nationwide ballistic fingerprinting had been in place for all firearms in America, it would not have helped in the least in this case. It might have led to the arrest and harassment of some poor SOB who had hunted in that area 12 years ago, provided the technology was good enough to trace the casing back to his own hunting rifle.

[ozzymandus]

What about a Thompson Contender? They make .223 barrels.

[donozark]

Some may wish to see article posted earlier entitled "MSNBC says AK-74..." Good discussion over there.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Could this be a "throw down" casing that they "found" near the school? Just wondering...

[billyhill]

I thought I had written something i hadn't! Pretty wild.

[skip2myloo]

The discarded brass allegedly found at the site of the school shooting easily could've been a piece of "throw-down" brass left by the sniper as a red-herring to confuse the police. Just some random piece of brass he picked up at a shooting range somewhere.

[skip2myloo]

Hate to disagree TC, but it's been proved repeatedly that Glocks, and other "poly" guns do not pass airport security. Another claim of the Brady bunch that we want to be careful not to buy into.

[valleygal]

Barbara Milkuski on Senate floor (just shown on FOX) saying we have to pass Senator Kohls ballistic fingerprinting bill now. Someone said on another thread that Mark Fuhrman thinks it's a waste of time.

[Jaxter]

I've been looking all over the web trying to find that stock picture of Osama with his AK-74 leaning up against the wall beside him. If this turns out to be the rifle used in the snipings, it could be huge.

[skip2myloo]

"Hate to disagree TC, but it's been proved repeatedly that Glocks, and other "poly" guns do not pass airport security."

Let me correct myself before somebody else does. I meant to say "....do not pass airport security undetected.

Sorry for my haste.

[Sender]

OOH, dat's de ticket!

[Guna]

On one of today's earlier threads on this topic, one Freeper posted that photo of bin Laden sitting, with a nasty looking rifle next to him, on his right side. I suppose it was meant to be a AK-74(?)

[billhilly]

Sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing.Please read the following sentence again. Does it matter whever it is one or the ovver? A joke, though possibly a bad one. If you need another clue, it is the way Chief Moose talks.

[MrB]

the way Chief Moose talks

He doesn't sound very intelligent.
Especially about "releasing the rapport."

[BADROTOFINGER]

This is exactly why FR is the best site on the web, the best site in the world. Excellent article TC...JFK

[browardchad]

The reddish-brown or orange color of the plastic magazine does not lend itself to camouflage.

Is this true for every AK-74?

[wjcsux]

Modern firearms, as well as almost all manufactured goods, are assembled by machine, and their components are machine made. The so called "fingerprinting" comes from slight manufacturing intolerences that come from guns being machined and assembled by hand. CNC technology virtually eliminates these intolerences.
Take automobiles for example. My 67 GTO is full of minute flaws that came from the factory. Look at a 2002 Pontiac, and you are hard pressed to find any! Furthermore, a Pontiac that came off a modern assemmbly line is going to be identical to the 10,000th car made before, and the 10,000th made after! If there is a flaw in the assembly and fabrication, it will show up in all of the articles until it is corrected.
Besides, if you don't want your new gun "fingerprinted", have the barrel changed.

[Dead Dog]

AK-74s use a different colored magazine. They are reddish brown not black. There are no exceptions to this as far as I know. The color coding was probably done intentionally so that the two are not confused in the field.

Since these weapons are now pretty common in the US, I would guess 5-10% of the population know of this off hand, and would easily be able to identify it as either AK-74 type weapon from several hundred yards. Either that or someone not knowing jack did notice the funny colored box protruding from the under side of the weapon.

[snarkpup]

Something I've been wondering - if you could capture a round that's been fired from one gun (in a water tank, for instance), reload it, and fire it from another gun, would you end up with a pattern that didn't match either one?

Probably wouldn't work. No "gas seal".

The first firing will swage rifling grooves into the bullet. On the second firing, high-pressure gas from the propellant would leak around the bullet through the grooves while it is travelling down the barrel. Depending on the extent to which the rifling on the second shot lines up with the rifling from the first shot, I would expect wild variance in gas seal, with wildly-varying velocities and wild inaccuracy. White-hot, high-pressure gas leaking by the bullet may also damage the sides (and this can be significant even on the first shot with cast lead bullets).

[TC Rider]

Hate to disagree TC, but it's been proved repeatedly that Glocks, and other "poly" guns do not pass airport security. Another claim of the Brady bunch that we want to be careful not to buy into.

Sorry, I didn't close my 'sarcasm' tag. As a Glock owner, I know there's enough metal in there to set that thing off from 20 feet away.

[Vinnie]

The gun grabbers are making the case, and the media is parroting it with a megaphone, that if we only had ballistic fingerprints of every weapon in America, the sniper would be in jail by now.

I read an article yesterday (probably on FR) that Sarah Brady was in Maryland trying to ban semi-automatics.

These murders could have been done with a single shot rifle.
She seems to think, or at least is trying to 'educate' the public, that firearms have gotten more deadly.
Big News Ms. Brady, the Mauser semi-auto pistol, aka Broomhandle was developed circa 1898.

The minds of these killers have gotten more deadly, not the weapons.

Great analysis TC.
I believe the police had difficulty determining the caliber of a few of the bullets, let alone 'fingerprinting' them.