Impact Damage

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Damaged bullet with wood trace evidence

Courtesy of Ronnie Freels

Most evidence bullets received in the forensic laboratory have sustained some type of damage associated with impacting the target or object. This damage can range from minimal to mutilated beyond use.

When only a core is recovered (with the jacket separated and/or missing), the core may carry vague suggestions of the rifling impressions from the jacket. Although there will be no measurable dimensional data, the number of land and groove impressions may be observed.

Extreme Damage

Extremely fragmented, distorted, deformed, and mutilated bullets are processed as follows:

Trace evidence of value is recovered.
All debris is removed.
Rifling impressions in undamaged areas are evaluated.

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