This revolutionary new forensic tool has since been refined and improved through feedback provided by the firearm examiners using the system. DRUGFIRE is designed to increase the effectiveness of forensic firearms examiners in maintaining, sharing, and searching unsolved firearms case evidence files. The system has been used to link apparently unrelated shooting incidents and/or recovered firearms in scores of cases, proving that firearms are being retained by criminals and used in the commission of multiple crimes. The deployment of DRUGFIRE allows firearms examiners to centrally store, search, and share forensic firearms data and to conduct remote, side-by-side microscopic comparisons of ammunition components. The FBI plans to form a national computer network of firearms laboratories, clustered together by region, which will exchange information via DRUGFIRE with other clusters. 3 figures