AK-47 Underwater at 27,450 Frames Per Second!

There are few things we at Speed Society like as much as cars, but guns and slow-motion footage are certainly on the list of things we are really into. When one of our favorite YouTubers, Destin from Smarter Every Day, decided to take the always-fun AK-47 underwater and fire off a few rounds with the high-speed cameras rolling, it certainly got our attention.

Destin built a periscope to allow him a great view of the gun underwater without having to deal with the hassle of putting the camera in some kind of waterproof housing. He called up one of our other favorite channels, The Slow Mo Guys, to bring out their Phantom high-speed camera to capture this amazing footage. Just watching this footage over and over is fascinating, seeing the bubbles expand and contract as the gasses and bullets exert their forces on the water and the fluid reacts in some captivating ways.

In the way only he can, Destin explains the scientific principles at play in ways that are easy to understand and truly helps understand what is going on inside the bubbles and why they expand and contract, only to expand again. It’s a highly technical principle that requires computers to perform, but once Destin breaks it down into digestible terms and diagrams, it all begins to make sense. He’s also able to capture something pretty spectacular that I personally hadn’t thought about; when the gun is fired under water, the barrel is full of water, and that water has to go somewhere before the bullet can exit the barrel.

The water makes its own spectacular exit ahead of the bullet and forms a bubble of it’s own that the bullet passes through after exiting the barrel and creating a bubble of it’s own. Thanks as always to Destin and the Slow Mo Guys for creating some of the most awesome content on YouTube and helping us understand the world around us.