Special thanks to American Shooters Clarksville for making special range accommodations at their first-class facility.  And thanks to Clear Ballistics for providing a ballistics gel block for me to use.

G2 Research is an American company that produces a range of ammunition for handguns, rifles and shotguns.  They precision machine each round using copper instead of lead.  Copper bullets generally hold their profile better than lead upon impact, have better penetration and don’t have the toxicity of lead.  Their R.I.P. and Telos ammunition is designed with “trocars” that fragment upon impact to inflict shallow tissue damage while the solid base of the round penetrates further.  Their Civic Duty ammunition is similarly designed, but instead of fragmenting will simply peel back to increase the size of the wound channel.

After reading a few skeptical reviews of G2 Research ammunition over the past few years, I decided it was time to take a look for myself.  Most of the negative reviews seemed to focus on what I perceive as nitpicking over small variances in ballistic data provided by G2R compared to stats from those doing the reviews.  Virtually all concluded by begrudgingly admitting that G2R ammunition met or exceeded FBI (or some other organizations’) standards—the only legitimate gripe being about the high cost ($40+) for a 20-round box compared to other hollow points on the market, along with a few feed issues.

For my no-frills testing I took three types of G2R ammunition and two different pistols to the range.  I focused on three things—does it feed, does it fire and is it accurate.  I also did some basic ballistics testing which I will cover below.  If in-depth ballistics data is something you crave, there is footage of many independent tests for G2R ammunition.

Here are my results with G2 Research’s Civic Duty, R.I.P. and Telos (+P) ammunition.  My pistols for testing were a Sig P320 RX Compact (9mm) for ballistics testing and grouping and a Ruger American (9mm) for grouping only.  I used a 10% FBI ballistic gel block from Clear Ballistics (16x6x6).  I also fired one Federal HST round into the gel block to compare performance to the G2 Research rounds.

Civic Duty 9mm (94 grain)

Sig P320 (3.9″ barrel):  8″ penetration

·        1 round did not eject properly in my Sig P320

·        No failure to fire

Advertised Features:

·     Extreme Expansion

·     9-10″ Penetration

·     Solid Copper / Lead Free projectile

R.I.P. 9mm (92 grain)

Sig P320 (3.9″ barrel): 13 1/2″ penetration for base of round; 4-6″ penetration for trocars

·        No feed issues

·        No failures to fire

Advertised Features:

·     14-16″ Penetration

·     Up to 6″ diameter spread

·     2″ grouping at 25 yds.

·     9 Separate Wound Channels

·     Precision Machined

·     Solid Copper / Lead Free

Telos +P 9mm (92 grain)

Sig P320 (3.9″ barrel):  11 1/2″ penetration for base of round; 4-6″ penetration for trocars

·        No feed issues

·        No failure to fire

Advertised Features:

·     Solid Copper/Lead-free projectile

·     10″+ of Penetration

·     7 Separate Wound Channels

·     3″+ Diameter Spread

·     Precision Machined

·     Controlled Fragmentation

·     Patent Pending

Conclusion

For personal defense ammunition, things like over-penetration or under-penetration matter, but when you’re dealing with a variance of an inch or so I couldn’t care less.  That being said, I did feel the Civic Duty fell a bit short with the failure to eject I experienced and less than optimal penetration.  I think the real winner from the G2 Research options were R.I.P. followed closely by Telos due to penetration results.  I must also add that the advertised 6″ diameter spread of the trocars for those rounds were right on the money.  As for the Federal HST round, it had 15 1/2″ of penetration while costing half the price of the rounds from G2 Research.

While I certainly wouldn’t say that G2 Research has the best performance on the market compared to the HST and others, it certainly is an effective round.  Bottom line—if you’re willing to pay the premium price for a box of G2R ammo, then do it.  Make sure you try it in a small quantity first to ensure that you won’t encounter feed issues, but I fully trust this ammunition to get the job done when you need it.

Pictures provided by the author.