Corroded Firearms: The Non-Destructive Approach

Recovery of corroded and damaged firearms can pose a problem to a range of professionals including law enforcement, border control, firearms examiners and archaeologists. Depending on the nature of damage and extent of corrosion the firearms can be completely seized and potentially unidentifiable using traditional visual examination alone. This difficulty impacts upon the ability to undertake legal classification and ensure safe recovery and transportation of the artefacts.

This paper details the use of rapid, non-destructive x-ray systems for the internal examination of a range of corroded weapons. Research has shown that weapons can be identified using visual comparison of firearm’s internal components and can determine whether fired or live ammunition is still housed inside.

Such methods of examination could also be applied to the identification of ammunition, converted and concealed weapons as well as illustrate the potential for intelligence gathering at border control points to further detect smuggling of firearms and/or firearm components.