CAN A STANDARD CAR BATTERY STOP AN AK47 ROUND?
SVI Engineering, leading specialist manufacturer of armoured products, has released the eighth episode in its innovative Shoot Through series of videos, this time investigating whether a standard car battery is capable of stopping an AK47 round (see Episode 8 here).
“At SVI, our armouring kits include protection for critical under-bonnet components such as the battery. Still, we wanted to demonstrate exactly what happens when a standard lead-acid car battery takes a direct hit from an AK47 round,” explained Nicol Louw, SVI Business Development Director.
So, SVI placed such an item at the far end of its dedicated underground shooting range, before unleashing a round from an AK47 mounted in a test rig. As shown in the footage captured by a Photron Fastcam SA4 high-speed camera – generously supplied by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and set at 30 000 frames per second – the battery ends up containing the 7.62x39 mm conventional steel-core round.
“While the lead-acid battery managed to stop the round, the resulting pressure build-up broke the casing – quite dramatically, as you can see in the slow-motion footage – rendering the battery inoperable. There’s a reason we make sure to protect this critical component, after all,” said Jaco de Kock, CEO of SVI.
‘SHOOT THROUGH’ SERIES BACKGROUND
Conceived to both inform and entertain, the full 14-episode Shoot Through video series – an episode is published on SVI’s YouTube channel approximately every two weeks – sets out to answer whether various (mostly standard) automotive components can stop a round discharged by a firearm.
The subject of the first episode in SVI’s Shoot Through series was a ventilated steel brake disc from a Toyota Land Cruiser 79 bakkie, while the second episode featured a Volkswagen Polo engine block, the third a shock absorber, the fourth a Polo cylinder head, the fifth a seatbelt mechanism, the sixth a window lifter motor and the seventh a Ford Everest owner’s manual.
THE COMPANY
SVI is an original equipment manufacturer that has specialised in armoured vehicles since 2004. The company is a market leader in Africa, serving the private, corporate, security, mining and governmental segments. SVI holds a Level 2 B-BBEE certification and its quality management system is certified to ISO 9001:2015 by TÜV Rheinland.
