Digital Force Gauge

What you need is an analog load cell, not one that's sampled.

http://www.transducertechniques.com/MDB-Load-Cell.cfm

You can run the output of this to an oscilloscope and capture the event with no sample loss.

Or you can use something like this:

http://www.transducertechniques.com/DAQ-16122-PCM.cfm

which has a sample rate of 200Khz, which might also do the job.

You should look at Kistler quartz piezoelectric load cells for this type of dynamic loading

http://www.intertechnology.com/Kistler/indexForce.htm

Brgds

The analog comment is correct. You are asking for the digital force equivalent of a high speed camera likely both at the same time. Pick the frequency for camera and load cell system and assemble that happy team. If your guess is way too much info then good, if not then use the first attempt to project the one you need. 1000hz or records of data and pictures per second sounds right. The people on the Discovery channel that do the hi speed camera show might be a good source of details. Once you have this set up you can review anyones similar product for money to replace what you spent putting this little monster together. Allways include the dynamic force of the fall wieght calc in your yielded data.

Does the 300mm accurately represent the conditions which the failures occur?

Look at this link :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equations_for_a_falling_body

Plot out the velocity curve for the event.

Add an overlay which represents the sample times of your gauge.

Test, Test, Test...

Are your results consistent?

I agree the Analog method is likely better, but it doesn't rule out digital methods as totally adequate. Many real-time systems I have worked with use significantly slower sample times and work great.

If you want to have a good result the acquisition/sampling frequency should be x4 the maximal frequency of the event you analyse. Then you get data which are near enough to each other to avoid a too important loss of the peak value.