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Round Counter

How many rounds are put through your gun?
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A small open valve on the barrel on the inside of course has a small pressure switch of some sort. That only activates when that certain amount of pressure is put through the barrel. The pressure switch then is rigged to a simple computer chip that logs a stroke or a tick or something. Anywho the chip logs that a round has been sent though the barrel. The chip can then be scanned or or taken out before purchase to see how many rounds have been put through the weapon. So when that guy trys to sell you that rifle that looks like 800,000 thousand rounds have been through it. But he claims a 1000 or so. You can know the truth. Also determining a guns real value will be helpful.
OriDea, Feb 02 2007

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       funny, I always imagined that guns improved with use much like wines with age. I never would have imagined that they deteriorate like cars do with mileage.
po, Feb 02 2007
  

       Enjoy your innocence while it lasts, [po]. Within a generation, us Islanders will be au fait with these tools also.
jtp, Feb 02 2007
  

       my innocence <grasps breast> my innocence, god, preserve us!
po, Feb 02 2007
  

       po, let us delve into this. A unopened bottle of wine will improve as you put with age yes. A opened bottle of wine will not improve in most cases. A weapon barely shot or not fired will age much like the wine. But a weapon that is used too much or excessively needs repairs. Parts need to be replaced and maintained. This feature will allow you to judge the guns worth based on the amount of usage. Comparing a bottle of wine and a gun is ludacris. However comparing a gun and a car is very well put. In a sense recording the amount of shots is much like tracking the mileage on a car.
OriDea, Feb 03 2007
  

       a car's engine is, I believe, enhanced by a jolly good run every so often.   

       leave it to stagnate in a garage and it will fall to pieces much like a neglected and unloved teddy bear.   

       :)
po, Feb 03 2007
  

       I am so desperately glad that I do not live in a place where people routinely put 800,000 rounds through a gun.
m_Al_com, Feb 03 2007
  

       a cars engine is enhanced by a run every so often---true to a point. But much like any car once driven off the lot it will lose value.   

       Unless the weapon is a limited edition and barely fired it wont gain value with age. It will decrease in value.   

       Well in the military any weapon you get to shoot can have that much or more(800k)....you just never know...unless you get a brand new weapon.
OriDea, Feb 03 2007
  

       the pen is mightier that the er, rifle.
po, Feb 03 2007
  

       Admin: Please move to caegory Product:Weapon:gun   

       I was expecting some inane statements about the benefits of circular work surfaces in the kitchen. This is much better.   

       Living in a society where guns are... legal... I can see many useful applications to this. I suspect the NRA will have a hissy fit, and I would prefer some form of mechanical counter, all the same, if we are to have guns, then gun counters seem reasonable. After all, if it's a federal crime to fiddle with an odometer, why should guns be allowed to fire again and again without some accounting for their uses?   

       Admittedly, you'll have a way to go before a round counter like this can be used in a court of law, and I can already hear a roaring whoosh of posters ready to say "But guns without counters already exist, so what's the point?"   

       Whatever, you've got my bun. Not like counting rounds is going to hurt any law abiding citizen.
ye_river_xiv, Feb 03 2007
  

       //800,000 thousand rounds//   

       Eight hundred million rounds? They grow some TOUGH deer where you come from pardner. I think the fact that the "rifle" you are looking at has become a smoothbore might be a clue.
Galbinus_Caeli, Feb 05 2007
  

       I have no problems with gun control, don't get me wrong. I live in Australia and think our laws are, more or less, reasonably fair, what with licensing requirements and permits to acquire, etc.   

       I just want to know how an odometer of sorts for how many times a firearm has been used could possibly be used in a court of law, as [yrx] has suggested. No really, how is that information useful?
Custardguts, Feb 06 2007
  

       "1000 rounds, eh?"
"Yep. Decided to sell it when I got to 1000".
"Looks like a pretty new Round Counter"
"No, no, same one she came with".
"Didn't know they were making Round Counters in 1974."
"Yep, yep, one of the first ones, there."
"Trigger's pretty much worn through, I see"
"Well, I pull pretty hard."
bungston, Feb 06 2007
  

       Johnny is being charged with murder. There's traces of powder on his hands, and a few bullet casings in his car, but he says this is because he was at the gun range the other day.   

       An aquaintance of his is in the woods, with a hole in her head. The bullet was one of those soft hollow point kinds that turns to mush after it hits something. Ballistic testing may not be able to find proof that it was fired from Johnny's gun, but the surveilance camera at the gun range counter shows his round counter, marked as having fired 75 rounds. The police find the gun, and the round counter is marked as having fired 76 rounds.   

       Circumstantial evidence, yes, but pretty powerful when added to all the other details that would likely come out in a court of law.   

       Susan shouts "I'm gonna kill you!" at her boyfriend for the tenth time in a month. The next day, she goes shopping for a gun, and once she can take it home, her boyfriend dies. Police don't believe her story until she shows them her round counter, still set at zero. Then they can move on, and investigate her man's drug dealing roommates...   

       Flimsy reason to aquit her? Maybe so, but OJ Simpson just had to say his glove was a little tight.
ye_river_xiv, Feb 06 2007
  

       aha. I was somewhat red-herring'ded by the whole //why should guns be allowed to fire again and again without some accounting for their uses// bit. OK if you only had a permit to fire your gun at the range, well then it would be logical to sign your gun in/out of the range with a counter reading. cool.   

       Otherwise this just sounds like another way to keep track of firearms.   

       "Apparently you have fired your rifle 56 times this month"   

       "but I was sighting it in"   

       "Ah, but our court appointed psychiatrist assessor beleives that 50 is the maximum healthy number of rounds that a citizen would want to fire a weapon in a month. These continued over-quota figures don't bode well, my comrad... I mean friend"..   

       uuuggh. I have no point to make here.
Custardguts, Feb 06 2007
  

       In most populated areas, a gun range is the only legal place to fire a weapon (and rightly so, I think!)   

       Even in wilderness preserves, it would seem worthwhile, if possible for wardens to inspect round counters, if they existed.   

       My concern is not with the number of rounds fired, although excessive shooting may signal unusual habits. If someone is capable of routinely firing 800,000 rounds in a safe fashion, then more power to them. But once the gun gets into my neighborhood, I'm rather concerned about whether it might fire again in an unsafe manner.   

       Say, when a gun fires, I understand that the pin hammers out the gun's serial number on the back of the casing. Do you suppose a round counter could be made to pound out the round number on the back of the casing?   

       That would require a lot of delicate moving parts on a small hammer in the gun, but it might be worth it.   

       Suppose Bobby's been charged with three murders. He owns a lot of guns, but all of these murders involve the use of the same gun. The first victim was shot by round #1 to pass though that gun. The second was shot wih round #2. The third was shot with round #3. The gun is currently displaying #6. Astute detectives suspect a ritual kiling pattern, and look for murders that resemble the first three...   

       Uh, I see that I have nothing to say here either.
ye_river_xiv, Feb 15 2007
  

       This would only be useful for those of us interested in how many rounds got fired down the range that night, for the log. It would also be fairly interesting, in the same way you look at your car's milage and think "Wow, I've done nearly 2000 miles this month!" but, just like a car's milage, these counters could be trivially changed around.   

       Use in a court of law? No chance. The counter would have no chance of telling if the gun was dry-fired or not, without some fairly neat electronics.   

       I'd love the "Alien 2" pulse rifle round counter, though! That would rock. You could build it into a Ruger 10/22 magazine... :-)
Soapy, Jun 01 2007
  
      
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