The AK-47 will give you a jolt, but with that kick you get a larger round capable, they say, of going through a car's engine block. May I respectfully suggest to the esteemed journalistic dufus that he borrow an AK from someone, go WAAAYY out in the boonies and attempt to penetrate an engine block with rifle fire. He'll penetrate the paint on the block, and that's about it. He can expect an unpredictable ricochet from each shot, as well- which is why he needs to really be in the middle of nowhere and damn well check to make sure that he is.
Nah, I don't even trust his judgement that far.
I had an interesting experience with an AK-47 the first time I fired one. I had cut some 4x4 blocks from a cedar post to use as targets, put them on the ground about 75' away, and emptied a full magazine one shot at a time. It didn't seem as if I had hit anything until I looked at the blocks and saw that they were riddled with holes. Apparently the slugs went so cleanly through the blocks they hardly moved them at all.