This 16-hour course provides forensic practitioners with foundational knowledge and supervised practical experience in the examination and restoration of obliterated serial numbers on firearms. Through lecture, instructor demonstrations, and hands-on exercises, students learn how manufacturing processes create subsurface deformation, how obliteration affects that deformation, and how a systematic sequence of optical, magnetic, chemical, and electrolytic techniques may reveal original identifying characters.
Emphasis is placed on firearm safety, evidence integrity, nondestructive examination first, appropriate method selection for the substrate, controlled application of restoration techniques, contemporaneous documentation, image capture, interpretation of partial restorations, and clear reporting. Practical exercises use rendered-safe training specimens or agency-approved evidence substitutes under instructor supervision.