Has anyone actually seen where and how all the little shell casing envelopes are stored, organized and tracked?

I work in a gun shop and I just have to wonder how it's all sorted and organized.

By date received?
By Make?
By Caliber?

Are they all on computer record?

Just wondering.

Knowing the state of New York,  they're either in a warehouse all dumped disorganized in a giant pile on the floor..

OR...

They have a multi million dollar computer system to track and catalog them all, and they're in a big giant pile on the floor.


 

(speaking as a state employee)

However they are organized and stored it's all a big waste of money. Not one crime has been solved using the information collected by COBIS.

The program was requested to be discontinued as a cost saving measure but then Senate Majority Leader Malcomb Smith said no.

Did anyone realize that swapping out the barrel would change the handguns "fingerprint" anyway?  This is what happens when non gun users make gun laws.

Oh and its defenately the second one....they have a multimillion dollar system to track it all but all the casings are just in a pile on some warehouse floor.

and over time and use the signature would change as well

It's funny, I have had one gun COBIS tested...  the very first thing I did when I got it home was change the firing pin.

(not for any COBIS related reason, I would have done it anyway, it was a competition gun and I exchanged it for a lighter extended pin, but there is still a sweet irony in the whole thing.)

they are stored in Albany at the NYSP Forensic Investigation Center (FIC). I believe they are stored by case number not caliber. They are entered into a system that looks like the NIBIN system (the national criminal ballistic imagining database). The kicker is they hired people to enter the test fires, but no firearms examiners to compare the COBIS stuff to criminal casework. Firearms examiners in the state are almost all in agreement that this has been a huge waste of money that could have been much better spent getting more people trained to work criminal cases. After millions spent still no cases solved. If you get a chance to take a tour they will likely show you the COBIS section. At least they did when I still worked at the FIC.