Much is made of the .50-caliber bullet’s ability to stop a vehicle when fired into a car’s engine block. That depends, of course, on hitting the engine block. Unlike the video above, most engine blocks are situated inside automobiles. Which are known for their ability to move fairly quickly. Not to mention the fact that cars/trucks generate a great deal of momentum. If the targeted a vehicle contains an explosive device, you have to shoot the engine block and be far enough way not to die when the bomb wagon goes boom. Better to shoot the driver. Sure, if you have the time, throw some random shots at the engine, gas tanks, etc. But shooting the brain of any system is always effective.

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21 COMMENTS

  1. When a VBIED (I hate Bongos) was approaching my truck/ECP at a high rate of giddyup, I followed a simple rule behind my M2; “When the going gets tough, the tough go cyclic.”… and put rounds through the block, driver, frame, axles, tires, gas tank, etc. Never had a sympathetic det, and he definitely stopped quick.

  2. I wonder when Schmidt & Bender started using Night Force windage caps on their scopes?
    Weird.

    I more than kinda miss my big Mac.

  3. I would actually be interested in seeing the results of smaller caliber hits on an engine. I work on them a lot and I know that sometimes just having one little vacuum line or wire disconnected is enough to keep one from working. It seems like a bullet splatter on the side of the block and fling lead out at high speed would almost certainly tear up a few of those soft rubber lines and wires and kill the engine without needed to actually penetrate anything.

    • A single 5.56 round through the timing-cover also works well on crappy toyota hi-luxes. But you’re right, there are a lot of vulnerable things in an engine compartment that don’t handle well bits of high-speed metal flying around.

    • I’ve used 30.06 AP ammo on blocks. It just zips right through.
      As one who has built engines, it would depend on just where the engine was hit.

        • On a modern engine, they are wrapped in sensors and vacuum lines I think a few shots with a .22 would stop one. Forget the mechanical parts, just mess up a little of the electrical.

          Not like the old engines at all, I have a VW that runs with only three wires to the engine, and two of those are optional.

    • I say we start marketing Assault Super Soakers (A-S-S for short) with the shoulder thing that goes up and fires 7.9×10^107 water molecules per second! With a high-capacity 2 liter clipazine tube! And fully automatic! And make them 3d printed ghost guns! And mount a pool noodle bayonet!

  5. Interesting. Had the water jacket been full, I suspect it would have been more dramatic. Judging from this, a pellet gun could total my Saturn.

  6. I thought it was going to be a running engine. Yawn. some guy shooting a big gun at a chunk of metal to melodramatic music.

    • Same. I thought we’d see a running engine and actually see it get turned off. Instead, it was a block of metal that was discolored enough that seeing the impacts and the damage wasn’t very dramatic at all.

      If they aren’t going to run it, at least spray paint it a goofy neon color so the impact actually is highly visible and the penetration/shrapnel/etc. is obvious

  8. Whoa, hold up guys.

    You’re telling me that it’s the car’s driver, rather than the car, that determines how it’s used and what it does?

    Huh. Why don’t we make guns like that? Because as we’re always hearing, it’s guns that are the problem, not that some people who use them are bad people.

  9. “Better to just shoot the driver.”

    I don’t know, it seems to me that the driver is actually a smaller target than an engine — especially the engine of a largish truck.

    If the truck is coming straight at you, aim for the driver’s side of the engine with sufficient lead. If you lead insufficiently, you might still end up hitting the driver and stopping the truck anyway, like the police officer did in a recent case.

  10. Shooting the tires with a handgun is really ineffective. Takes too long for the tires to deflate and even if they do the car still has mobility.

    If you take out the driver the car will stop. Eventually. Remember it’s a large mass already under way. It will continue for a while even with a dead operator. And if his foot is mashing the go pedal it may be lethal for quite a ways.

    Most of us have limited to no access to belt feds and big fiddy’s. When confronted by a bad guy in a car our best bet is to get out of the path of danger. Taking time to pop a couple of 9 mils or .45s at the driver or engine might be just enough to get us squashed like bugs.

  13. I have no training in shooting at moving vehicles for any reason, but if I had to guess I’d think the reason you’d want to shoot at the engine is the same reason you shoot center mass on a person: it’s largest target, and misses high/low are still potentially effective. Shooting the driver is like trying for a headshot; if you succeed it’s effective, but it’s more difficult to succeed. That, and if I were shooting a vehicle (with a sufficient caliber), the same rules would apply; aim for the middle and keep shooting until the threat stops (and move as much as possible).

  15. What would have been cool is if they had that engine running at high RPM. I did it with a Ford 302 before installing it in a Mustang. I didn’t want to do all that work and find out the engine was no good. Fuel supply, a radiator and some hoses, some electrical connections and I started thing up. They’d need something to keep the engine from tipping over from torque, so maybe an engine stand in that case. I had mine chained up to a support.
    It’s neat to see an engine sitting on the ground running. Shooting it with a 50 cal, even better.

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