Just picked up brand new in box m&p 45. No spent cartridge envelope?

R

rc1988

New member
Just picked up my brand new M&P 45. Everything looks perfect; however, I noticed their was no spent shell casing? Everything else was in the box. This was not a display model, it was pulled from the back. Has this happened to anyone else?

Thanks
 
Now that you mention it, I recently bought a new Glock 17 Gen 4 and a PPQ .45 and neither of them had the casings. Maybe the test fire casings simply aren't required anymore?
 
Not all states require them. Usually they include them just to cover their bases (it's easier to include it than have state specific models just for that I imagine). I remember reading an article that even in the states that do collect them, they just sit in piles uncatalogued. For that matter they've found that the ballistics aren't as easy to match as they once thought as the chambers and barrels deform over time and many of the firearms used in crimes are decades old.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-bullet-casings-20151107-story.html
 
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I believe that all the states that used to require them have dropped that requirement. I know for a fact that Maryland finally admitted that zero crimes had been solved with their collection of spent casings and they got rid of their law requiring it.

So if no states require a spent casing anymore it would make sense if manufacturers stopped including any.
 
Wow! So the purpose was really just to add cost to guns huh....amazing! I wonder when all guns will be required to have airbags and meet the new Bullets per hour mandates!
 
I believe that all the states that used to require them have dropped that requirement. I know for a fact that Maryland finally admitted that zero crimes had been solved with their collection of spent casings and they got rid of their law requiring it.

So if no states require a spent casing anymore it would make sense if manufacturers stopped including any
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+1. After millions were spent, and zero crimes solved, they finally threw in the towel on this silliness.
 
Wow! So the purpose was really just to add cost to guns huh....amazing!
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The "purpose" was supposedly to help investigate crimes with the magics of ballistics, like you see on tv. It made politicians look tough on crime and strong on gun control. The reality was even when it was implemented people knew it wouldn't work, but PR wins over practicality.
 
Of the three phases of firearms ballistics -- internal, external, and terminal -- internal is the phase I'm least familiar with. From watching crime dramas I thought internal ballistics focused on bullet striations imparted by passage through the barrel, and from what little I've read, the credibility of such assessments is questionable.

How can an empty casing be used forensically? If a traceable fingerprint or a unique chemical signature can be tied to it, that could be used, but these factors have nothing to do with internal ballistics. Was the idea to compare firing pin indentations on primers? Does case expansion upon ignition result in unique external markings imparted by a gun's chamber? Couldn't any such markings be degeated by using a different type case than that supplied by the manufacturer (eg, using steel-cased ammo to commit a crime when the test casing is brass)?

If microstamping is not feasible, why would have anyone thought that a spent casing in the absence of any attempt to uniquely encode a firing pin would cough up useful forensics information?
 
As I understand it, the idea was that the machining marks of the chamber, firing pin, extractor, and ejector was supposed to leave marks on the casing, so that an investigator who picked up a casing at a crime scene could consult a database and tell which gun fired it. Whether the marks were less distinctive than supposed, or wear changed them, or the database was too extensive for practical searching, I don't know, but it apparently never worked. Not once. With several million taxpayer dollars spent.
 
The last three or four new guns I've purchased haven't had them. One less thing to throw away.:rolleyes:
 
They were supposed to be entered into the state version of National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). In practice it rarely or never happened and the national database supplanted the state efforts. This is a computer image database of the "tool marks" left on a spent case after firing. It includes firing pin strikes, extractor and ejector marks, and chamber marks.

Brass is good medium for catching these marks b/c of the near plastic state it is in when fired. The matching is pretty exact (to a scientific certainty) as long as the comparison takes place close in time. If there's has been excessive time then normal wear begins to degrade the results.

Manufactures still submit spent cases to BATFE for entry into the database. Most if not all states have ceased the practice. However, it has proven time and again to be very successful piece of forensic evidence.
 
Regardless of the reasons behind having it and then dropping it, I have to say I miss the envelope. It served as a kind of "birth certificate".
 
One or two word makes the database useless. The first words are range brass and the second is reloading. Just here in this group we have people that collect range brass and ship it across the states. Then you can add in the mark degragation with the individual firearm's use and it add up to a good idea being highly impractical.
 
huh...

all the new guns around here have had their spent casing.

No offense, but I actually like proof that my guns have been test fired at the factory and I have an example of the primer strike.
 
However, it has proven time and again to be very successful piece of forensic evidence.
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In the article I link to above, in the state of MD in the 15 years the program existed it didn't solve a single case, no pun intended. Can you point to examples of when it has been "time and again" successful?

From a MD state senator:
"If there was any evidence whatsoever — any evidence — that this was helpful in solving crimes, we wouldn't have touched it," Zirkin said. "The police came in and said it was useless. No one contradicted that."
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As can be read in other articles, as the pistol wears with time the markings change. You could accelerate this natural process by abrading the parts directly. For that matter barrels, extractors, and firing pins are not serialized parts. You can swap them with ease and not a lot of money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marylands-long-overdue-goodbye-to-ballistic-fingerprinting/2015/11/13/a277d02a-87db-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html
 
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Manufactures still submit spent cases to BATFE for entry into the database
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No they don't. Cases from crime scenes are entered into the database.

National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN)
In 1999, ATF established the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) to provide federal, state, and local partner agencies with an automated ballistic imaging system. NIBIN partners can discover formerly impossible-to-identify links between firearms-related violent crimes to identify firearm users or “trigger pullers.”

Partners must use NIBIN to a reasonable degree, share information with other partners, enter as much ballistic information from shooting scenes as possible, provide adequate staffing, fund new user travel to a one-week training course, possess a casing/bullet recovery system for firearms test firing, and have access to a certified firearms examiner. NIBIN success requires four critical steps:


Comprehensive Collection and Entry. Integrated Ballistic Identification Systems (IBIS) technology takes digital images of cartridge cases from crime scenes or a crime gun test fires. Multiple casings/bullets may be part of the same case record. In 2001, the Departments of Justice and the Treasury directed their law enforcement components to enter ballistic information into NIBIN.
Timely NIBIN Hit Dissemination. In hours, IBIS compares those images against previous NIBIN entries. If a high-confidence candidate emerges, firearms examiners compare the original physical evidence microscopically to confirm the match. This is a NIBIN “hit,” or the linking of two different investigations.
Investigative Follow-Up and Prosecution. Linking otherwise unassociated crimes gives investigators a better chance to identify and arrest shooters.
Feedback Loop. Without feedback, NIBIN partners cannot know how their efforts are making the community safer, which is necessary for sustained success.
A NIBIN Executive Board and the NIBIN Users Congress advises ATF on NIBIN operations, rules, regulations, and procedures and ballistic imaging technology, standards, applications, and networking.

NIBIN acquisitions are expressly limited to ballistic information from firearms test fires and fired ammunition components pursuant to a criminal investigation. Therefore, NIBIN cannot capture or store ballistic information acquired at the point of manufacture, importation, or sale; nor purchaser or date of manufacture or sale information.

Since the program’s inception in 1999, NIBIN partners have confirmed more than 68,000 NIBIN hits, but the true performance metric of NIBIN is the successful arrest and prosecution of shooters.
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No offense, but I actually like proof that my guns have been test fired at the factory and I have an example of the primer strike.
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No offense taken. However, please do consider a few things as your position may or may not evolve over time.

The known and respected manufacturers simply do proof-test their firearms. On any new S&W revolver, inspect the front end of the cylinder and almost worth a chuckle when you see scorch marks around just two of the chambers.

We hope they test fire them... but that envelope with the fired case is no certain proof that it was fired, unless you watched them do it. Reference Jim K's recent post of his Colt revolver that arrived with a factory test target in the box even though the revolver had no hole in the barrel. :eek:

As for the 'example of a primer strike', I will admit that I enjoy looking at them also. Please know however that the same firearm can (and absolutely will) produce for you a nice wide array of different looking primer strikes on difference cartridge cases. When you handload and you work with different headstamps, different bullets and different powders AND different primers, you will see the United Nations of different appearances of primers on fired brass.

Otherwise, the "born on" date (or rather, "the date we printed up this test label") is definitely a neat thing for us gun owners. The reasoning behind it is typical bureaucratic red-tape idiocy at it's finest and that makes me both sad and angry, but those are emotions we enjoy quite a bit as gun enthusiasts I suppose. ;)
 
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