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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

additional elements, compositional analysis of bullet lead, CABL

College

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

Bullets often mutate or fragment upon impact. This can erase physical markings such as rifling. Until the development in the mid 1900s of techniques for precisely analyzing elemental compositions of materials such as lead, forensics scientists could do nothing to compare bullets obtained from a suspect to mutated or fragmented bullets from a crime scene. Around 1960 forensic scientists began performing the compositional analysis of bullet lead (CABL). The compositions of the bullets from a suspect were compared to the composition of the mutated bullet or fragment from a crime scene in an attempt to identify the guilty suspect [1]. Since the 1980’s CABL has been used in approximately 2,500 investigations, and in 500 of these cases the analyses were presented as evidence in court [2].

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