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The National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material (SRM) 2460/2461 standard bullets and casings project will provide support to firearms examiners and to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) in the United States. The SRM bullet is designed as both a virtual and a physical bullet profile signature standard. The virtual standard is a set of six digitized bullet profile signatures originally traced from six master bullets fired at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). By using the virtual signature standard to control the tool path on a numerically controlled diamond turning machine, 40 SRM bullets were pro-duced. A profile signature measurement system was established for the SRM bul-lets. The profile signature differences are quantified by the maximum of the cross correlation function and by the signature difference between pairs of compared profile signatures measured on different SRM bullets. Initial measurement results showed high reproducibility for both the measurement system and production process of the SRM bullets. A traceability scheme has been proposed to establish the measurement traceability for nationwide bullet signature measurements to NIST, ATF and FBI. Prototype SRM casings have also been developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study that presented comparisons between high and low density cases for a number of ballistic parameters. Overview of the approach used to increase kinetic energy in the electrothermal-chemical guns in the United States; Description of gun system; Sensitivity to parameter changes; Conclusions.