Engraving On Bullet Casing

**GeneralWashington** · July 8th, 2012, 04:53 PM

God I never have any normal questions...Anyway, question. If a gun was taken into evidence but later released, and the police released the ammunition with it, is there any reason that someone would have carved some weird code onto the bullet casing, by hand? It's weirding me out because of the circumstances. This would have been in the mid 90's. And if not, can anyone think of any reason that this would be on there?

Anyone have any idea on this one?

**Brick** · July 8th, 2012, 06:10 PM

How does the possibility of identifying the cartridge case for use in a legal proceding? The markings could be a code indicating case number, date found, or any other combination of data.

How else would anyone be able to identify a particular ".45 ACP Speer brass case" from any of many hundreds of thousands that might exist?

FWIW, I make dummy cartridges for all the bullet types I use in my handloads and mark them with a permanent marker. That way I can identify each by bullet manufacturer, profile and weight.

**rmagill** · July 8th, 2012, 07:44 PM

Was that the only case with markings or were all of the cases marked that way? My thought is that the case was marked as part of the filing/identification system that the property/evidence room people used.

**twency** · July 8th, 2012, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by AK47sForAll

God I never have any normal questions...Anyway, question. If a gun was taken into evidence but later released, and the police released the ammunition with it, is there any reason that someone would have carved some weird code onto the bullet casing, by hand? It's weirding me out because of the circumstances. This would have been in the mid 90's. And if not, can anyone think of any reason that this would be on there?

Anyone have any idea on this one?

In the crime lab where I used to work we just used fine-tip Sharpies to mark casings with the case & item #, but I supposed some lab with too much time on their hands might choose to engrave casings entered into evidence.