Corrosion behaviour of four handguns in aqueous environments: corrosion product characterization and effects on estimating the time since deposition.

When a firearm has been disposed of in a body of water and becomes corroded, its appearance is altered and determining a time-since-immersion may be of import to the investigation. Therefore, in this study, the corrosion and mass loss of four handgun slides over a period of 180days were examined. Solid-state characterization of the metals and their corrosion products via SEM/EDX and powder X-ray Diffraction (pXRD) was performed.