ON THE CRIMINALISTIC STUDY OF UNCONVENTIONAL FIREARMS

Abstract

The article deals with the peculiarities of the study into unconventional firearms as well as the accompanying problems and the ways to solve them. Insufficient availability of training and reference materials on this topic creates a number of obstacles for forensic experts in their practice. The situation is also complicated by the limited access of specialists to specialized publications, along with outdated sources or absence of any sources on the subject. Investigation and expert practice deal with many types offirearms that differ from standard issues by the way of production, construction properties, technical and ballistic specifications. Criminalistic and legal sources use various names that differ from the names officially assigned to those firearms and differ by constitutional properties peculiar to certain groups of weapons. Because of this terminological confusion criminalists do not have a unified position regarding the objects to be studied, i.e. they face difficulties in deciding the question of classifying an item with a particular type or subtype of firearms.