Abstract
In any handgun, the force of the trigger pull and the distance traveled by the hammer during the trigger pull, produce the energy required to ignite the primer on the cartridge. Reducing either of these characteristics can lead to insufficient firing pin energy, while increasing either of these can result in a punctured primer that will result in malfunctioning of the firearm. The reliability and dependability of a handgun are extremely important to a Law Enforcement Officer since his life may be on the line. To this end, the development of a computer driven device that is capable of measuring these characteristics is necessary for firearms manufacturers to control both the feel and lock work function of the firearm detection. Test results are archived for performing statistical process control and report preparation.
A PC-based monitoring system for evaluating the performance characteristics of the trigger-pull of pistols has been designed and developed. This system uses an in-house developed load cell along with external clock pulses derived from a shaft encoder to collect approximately 27000 equally spaced load data points. The acquired data points which are 0.0002 inches apart are plotted for visual inspection and analyzed on real time to detect any possible fault associated with the trigger pull mechanism. Digital signal processing is extensively used for filtering, integration and triggerroughness.
Visual Basic for Windows® Programming environment has been employed to create the user interface and perform data acquisition, servomotor control, Statistical Process Control, data base management and report preparation.
