Help, I'm doing a big project on ballistics. One of my paragraph consists on detecting GSR. We were planning to ddo the sodium rhodizonate test but the laboratry doesn't have it and doesn't want to get it. I know there is also the morine test or the modified Griess test, but I don't think you could do them on a campus laboratry...Does anyone have any ideas on how to detect GSR using easy to find substances.... Please...I'm really desperate....
Hmm. Where to test for specific chemicals usually varies depending on where you're testing and how far away the gun was. If you're testing an actual bullet hole, a good thing to test for is lead and carbon. When bullets go through things, they leave behind something termed "bullet wipe," which is a residue of lead, carbon, oil, and dirt that gets all over the bullet during manufacture and especially firing. If you're talking about the residue left on hands and clothes when a person fires the gun, then I can't help you much. However, you could test for cordite, which is a chemical often used as a propellant. I'm afraid I don't know what one would use to test for its presence. Cordite's Wikipedia article (because I can't remember how to link in UBB code): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite You could also manually use a microscope to look for particles of microscopic gunpowder, but I understand this requires a very powerful microscope to see it with any great magnification. That's impractical anyway since it's probably impossible to tell that what you're seeing is really gunshot residue. Sorry I can't help more. Ballistics is not my area of specialty. I don't like guns, they're too loud.
cheers. i was testing for lead and barium on a window seal, but the tests are just not practicable in a university laboratry (or so they say anyway...) so I'm kind of growing desperate....