A small impact pendulum was developed to measure the shatter resistance of seed pods. While clamped by their stems, the pods are hit by the rigid pendulum; the rupture energy is derived from the measured angles of swing. The consistency of the pendulum was confirmed by tests on a sample of fine spring wire. The pendulum was then used in a series of trials on 13 rapeseed varieties and rupture energy results were compared with earlier bending moment and bending energy results obtained from tests using a quasi‐static cantilever arrangement. Rupture energy values were much less variable than bending energy. However, the ranking of varieties by all three strength measures was generally similar.