Microstamping/Microetching Firing Pin

[viperdark]

Hey, I am new to the community but everything I've seen seems to show great interest and knowledge about lasers. I am currently a graduate student in Economics doing research on the costs of a process of etching an identification code onto a firing pin of a firearm which would then stamp the casing of the bullet. While it might sound like an incredibly smart idea and a good way to solve crimes involving firearms being fired, it only creates a false sense of security. The firing pin's code etching is easily scratched off with less than 5 minutes of relatively painless work on a standard file. So, the costs of going through legislature and having both sides of the issue debating back and forth will eventually be taken from the our taxpayer's pockets. I was running an analysis of what it would cost to set up a facility specifically to etch firing pins. This cost would then be weighed with the benefits (if any) of implementing such a technology on all firearms sold to the public (law enforcement agencies will not be subject to this requirement for some strange reason). If someone could help me out with the equipment required, maintenance costs, optics, etc., I would really appreciate it. The only information I actually have are the following:
1.5-W diode-pumped solid-state ultraviolet laser (the manuf. used was Coherent) at 266 and 355 nm coupled with a holographic-mask technology.

The pin to be etched had characters with a high of approximately 0.008 inch, width of approximately 0.005 inch, and raised approximately 25 microns.
The area to be engraved has a diameter of approximately 0.037 inch.

Thanks a lot in advance.
Vic

[mixedgas]

that laser is upwards of 30,000 used, more like 70,000 new.

The lab it is in is another expense, but having built other holo labs doing holographic masters, your looking at a 100,000$ a year employee to run it and a 100+ dollar a hour laser operations cost, not counting the acid etch bath, photoresist, and the machinery to cycle the pins through. The table this would sit on is 20,000$ and the troughput would be low, it takes 30-60 seconds to do a exposure, but 5 minutes to settle the table down. And thats with a active table. You might shoot 10 pins at once if you had good tooling.

Oh, and you need a stable building in the middle of nowhere to do this quickly, with almost no airflow and no vibration. And I mean NO vibration.
So now your looking at 100K in property and 100K in building costs unless you find a suitably heavy floored alternative out in the country.
Plasma tubes/lamps/diodes are the means of pumping the laser, and they cost 17,000-250$- and 7000$ respectively. UV plasma tubes for ion lasers are good for about 1000 hours. Lamps are good for about 400 hours for lamp pumped frequency trippled lasers, and diodes for DPSS UV lasers are good for 2000-4000 hours. Laser tech time for factory repairs in the field is 1000$ a day plus travel costs + materials and materials are standardized cards, the cheapest of which is usually 1500$ for a repair, and you typically hit 2 repairs or more a year on this critical a system.


nothing you do short of shaping the whole pin and its reciver pin in wierd ways is defeat proof, and pins are about 10$ and can be made in any machine shop, or with a home lathe that costs 350$ from the chinese.



I'd hate to suggest this, but tag the bullets, its cheaper and harder to defeat. OPPS. most folks home load, and home loading defeats tagging but gangbangers generally dont load their own, but can easily trade or steal other ammo, lab made short DNA might survive the flight, but custom dna strings are not cheap either, and can easily be cooked up in a lab in Bogata. One neat thing about crime, the bad guys always have it easier then the good guys.
........


explosives tagging with microtagents was tried in the us, only it was found the city areas were quickly flooded with tags, and only a limited number of codes possible for a given tag size, it was a dismal failure.


And for the laser hobbyists here who buy used lasers oon ebay for 1000$ and that are going to doubt those prices, the building I worked in at the university was 33 million in 1990s dollars by the time the safety systems for a 10 story lab were installed, and a Innova Sabre F.R.E.D. with frequency stabilization is like 100K to 220K new depending on options and power levels.


Steve

[Laserman532]

Bad Idea! Near Impossible to implement, easy to defeat, and another way to limit the rights of law abiding citizens, bury this idea with the RFID Chip idea.

Spend your time and talent trying to cure illness not destroy personal liberties.

[ElektroFreak]

I don't know if he's suggesting that this is a good idea or (being that he's an economics student) that he's trying to prove that it's a bad idea. He didn't say in the original post, but I suspect he might be on the anti side of things, perhaps trying to prove that it is both easily defeatable and economically unsound..

[Laserman532]

It is a bad idea if it cost .50 cents for the entire project or 1 trillion dollars for the entire project. We are already way too close to a police state as it is.

I'll edit for just another thought...take a 38 cal revolver...how many different serial numbers would you actually need even if you marked them like social security numbers it is a technical nightmare to implement setting aside the personal liberties side of the issue.

Stand in line for the 666 on your forehead if you consider this idea. Oh Shit, politics, religion and the only thing we are missing on this thread is sexual orientation...

[soforene]

Sounds like another student getting others to do the research for him .........

[ElektroFreak]

Could be, or he could be utilizing the resources at his disposal.. depends on how you look at it, I think.

[buffo]

He did post quite a detailed summary of his efforts thus far. I'd be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and at least point him in the right direction (as MixedGas has done).

As for his personal feelings on the subject, I think he made that quite clear when he stated that he didn't think it was feasible because it was easily defeated. However, given that he is an economics student, his instructor probably wants him to build a case around the *cost* of the project, hmmm?

Adam

[T0mmm]

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research

[Laserman532]

He did post quite a detailed summary of his efforts thus far. I'd be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and at least point him in the right direction (as MixedGas has done).

As for his personal feelings on the subject, I think he made that quite clear when he stated that he didn't think it was feasible because it was easily defeated. However, given that he is an economics student, his instructor probably wants him to build a case around the *cost* of the project, hmmm?

Adam

as usual you are right on the money, and so was elektrofreak, and as usual i wanted to jump in and pinch his head off...

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