Testing Firearms

With the new year, we will now study another branch of firearms tech. Before we start, I would like to thank all the readers of this blog for their continued support and kind comments and wish you a very happy and productive year ahead.

With that said, we will now deal with the subject of testing. There are several tests that can be done on firearms, which we will study in the following series of posts. Broadly speaking, there are a few different categories of tests that are done with firearms:

1. Strength and pressure tests: These test the strength of the weapon to resist heavy pressures, test the pressures at the chamber of the weapon, test the pressures generated by different types of propellants, how much force is needed to pull the trigger etc.
2. Shooting properties tests: These test accuracy of a weapon over various distances, speed of the bullets, depth of penetration of the bullet, behavior of bullets upon hitting the target, force transferred upon impact, how many pellets hit a target per square inch for shotguns etc.
3. Reliability tests: These test the weapon against various usage conditions, e.g. under cold weather, humid conditions, dirty and muddy conditions, user who doesn't clean his weapon often etc.

We will look into various testing methods in the following days.