There’s no denying there’s a lot of interest in G2 Research’s new R.I.P. Ammunition. Their marketing video has gone viral, with well over 1.5 million views as of the time of this writing. And even the mainstream press has picked up and run with the story of the new, amazing, superty-duper ammo that is “like no other projectile the world has ever seen.” The company has been making some very bold claims about the performance of this new round. And when we didn’t have any ammo to test, we were able to use some elementary deductive skills and basic logic (along with some junior-high-school math) to determine that some of their marketing claims were, to put it kindly, hogwash. No, we couldn’t say that the ammo did or didn’t perform well, as we hadn’t tested it. But we could at least determine that some of the marketing statements were unlikely or even impossible. Things are different now, though . . .
We got our hands on some of the G2’s uber ammo, courtesy of the fine people at www.ammotogo.com.
And now we’ve conducted the world’s first independent review of the ammo’s actual performance. That means that you, dear reader, are about to find out what really happens when you fire G2 R.I.P. ammo in the real world in controlled testing scenarios.
We conducted testing in two phases – basic gel testing and more advanced testing for claims on barrier penetration, and against conventional rounds. The results are still being compiled on the rest of the tests, but we can reveal the results from the first phase of testing.
Let’s consider our first impressions, though. Just looking at the box, it really does look like no other ammunition you’ve seen. The box uses a window like Barnes TAC-XP rounds do, but, unlike Barnes’s box, the G2 Research R.I.P. box is decorated with the letters “R.I.P.” in a design and color scheme that looks like something you might find on a tombstone, or on an album cover from an ’80’s metal band.
I could say a lot about this – such as that it’s irresponsible, or even offensive to the very essence of self defense (which is about stopping an attack, not about killing the attacker). If a prosecutor could prove that you intended and set about to kill an attacker, your claim of self defense might just go out the window. Will marketing like this help your case? Depending on your lawyers, the prosecutor, and whether it’s a criminal or civil suit, it may or may not matter. But I can certainly say that this over-the-top presentation makes me appreciate the restraint and more responsible branding of, oh, for example, Hornady’s Critical Defense.
Second, it’s a scary looking round. While we can contest the claim that it’s “like no other projectile the world has ever seen”, I won’t deny that it certainly looks like no other projectile the world has ever seen. It’s downright intimidating. Maybe a little scary. Vicious even. Of course, when it comes to bullets (as with everything else), looks aren’t everything. Or, well, really, anything. It’s performance that matters.
Third, it’s expen$ive. It will run you $50 for 20 rounds — that’s $2.50 per bullet. The performance better be magnificent to justify the price tag. You can buy four or five quality 9mm defensive rounds for the cost of each G2 R.I.P. round.
Fourth, you have to wonder if it will it feed. Sometimes guns have issues feeding hollowpoint rounds, and I personally have heard reports of the polymer tip in Hornadys causing problems. How will the sharpened, jagged edges of R.I.P.s affect reliable feeding?
With those impressions duly noted, I put the ammo back in its gaudy box and headed to the range to evaluate the round’s performance. Unlike G2 Research, I decided not to use raw chickens or paint-filled balloons for testing. Instead, I chose to use industry-standard VYSE professional ballistic gelatin from Gelatin Innovations. Ballistic gelatin is the most accurate human soft tissue simulant available, and it’s what professional bullet testers use to evaluate the penetration and damage potential of ammunition.
It needs to be prepared properly, mixed properly at proper temperatures and stored at four degrees celsius for the right amount of time to cure. It also needs to be transported in a refrigerated state and shot when it’s between four and five degrees celsius. Oh, and it needs to be calibrated prior to shooting it by firing a steel BB into it at 590 fps. If you’ve done everything right, that BB needs to penetrate approximately 8.5 cm +/- 10%. Ballistic gel is a pain in the patootie to work with, but it’s the worldwide standard, so that’s what I use for my evaluations.
Now, I know that some people get upset when testers use ballistic gel. They’ll refer to it derisively as “doing Jell-O shots” or some other pejorative term. There are a couple of reasons why I’m using ballistic gelatin for testing: first, because it’s the industry standard, used by all professional ammunition evaluation organizations. Second, because G2 Research has put their claims of gelatin penetration right on their box. I’ve never seen a company do that before, but G2 has printed a picture of a gelatin block right on the back of their box.
Of course, I could point out that there’s no definition of such a thing as “FBI ballistics gel,” and that the picture looks like it’s probably from a block of Clear Ballistics gel, Perma-Gel or some other synthetic clear gel. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with those products (I own and use Clear Ballistics gel frequently), but it’s not what the FBI uses. The FBI uses organic professional ballistic gel which is made from powdered pork skin. It’s actually dried-out ground-up flesh, rehydrated into a gelatin block. That’s the stuff the standards apply to, and that’s what I used in this test.
For the pistol, I chose a GLOCK 19. I’ve been conducting many tests on 9mm ammo from a shorter-barrel pistol, but shorter barrels compromise performance, and I figured it would only be fair to this ammo to use a more conventional-sized gun. The GLOCK 19 is almost the definition of a conventional-sized pistol. It’s not a full-sized duty pistol, but it’s a very common concealed-carry weapon with a 4.02” barrel.
You can review the gel block test, including the results and comparison, in this video:
For those who’d rather read than watch, here’s the gist: G2’s R.I.P. a bit of a mixed bag. In terms of velocity, I was surprised to see that R.I.P. actually exceeded the manufacturer’s rating. They list it at 1265 feet per second, but the observed performance from the GLOCK 19 was a little higher at 1313 fps. So that’s a good sign.
Next, I had an issue with feeding. I fired five rounds in this initial test and one of them refused to feed from the magazine. Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but you get the idea. The slide locked back, and the round hadn’t left the mag. That’s really not something you want to have happen with your self defense ammo.
Moving on, let’s get to the ballistic performance. I fired a round into gel and it expanded as designed. The thin “fingers” of the hollow point (“trocars”) all sheared off and the base penetrated deeply. In other words, it pretty much worked as designed. It did not, however, meet their listed specifications.
G2 claimed a 6” spread for the trocars, but in my test the spread was 4.5” wide x 3.5” tall, so – it missed that one by a mile. As for penetration, on the back of the box they claim 15” to 17”. It didn’t reach that level, in my test the base penetrated to 12.75” and came to a stop. Now, that’s not bad — the FBI minimum is 12”, so penetrating 12.75” means it demonstrates sufficient penetration to be able to reach vital organs, and with proper aim, potentially deliver an incapacitating wound. But 12.75” isn’t 15”… and it certainly isn’t the 17” they listed on the box.
Here’s a shot of it impacting the gel, at the point where the temporary stretch cavity was at its largest:
And, here’s a shot of the permanent damage left in the gel block by the G2 R.I.P. 9mm round:
Is that the impressive? The kind of performance that will (in the words of the company) “take out all the vital organs” or that will “change the ballistics industry”? How do you go about quantifying performance in terms that we can understand, when we’re talking about a bullet that the company trumpets as being such a revolutionary, game-changing projectile?
For me to put it in context, the best way to go would be to use conventional ammunition to simulate the damage that was done by the G2 R.I.P. projectile. I figured that if I could make a block of gel have the same type of damage, at the same penetration levels with a comparable initial damage cavity, then we’d probably be a lot closer to understanding the true destructive power of this new wonder-round.
Here’s how my experiment turned out:
Pretty close, right? It’s got a shallow damage cavity, a bunch of “trocars” peeling off and creating multiple wound paths, and a deep-penetrating base. Of course, my “fake” R.I.P. block actually has more penetration than the real one, so I may have used rounds that were slightly too powerful, but overall I think I came pretty close.
Now that we know that conventional ammo can create permanent damage that closely resembles the magnitude of permanent damage attainable by an R.I.P. 9mm round, we can figure out just how much destructive potential we’re looking at here. So what kind of devastating, ultra-powerful ammo did it take to make this comparable damage?
A few .22LR’s. From a handgun. A 3.5”-barrel Bersa Thunder .22, to be exact. Not even a rifle; it took a few shots from the most woefully inadequate defensive weapon on the market to recreate the damage profile of the new G2 R.I.P. ammo.
Specifically, I used a couple of shots of CCI Segmented Hollow Point 32-grain varmint rounds to make the initial large damage cavity and the “trocars”. The CCI segmented hollow point splits into three pieces. Each piece weighs a little under 11 grains and they each go on their own path, just like the G2 R.I.P. trocars do. However, the R.I.P. trocars only weigh about six grains each, so the heavier chunks of .22LR bullet actually penetrated quite a bit further (and therefore did more damage) than G2’s trocars do. Since each CCI segmented hollowpoint splits into three pieces, I used two shots to get six “trocars” in the block.
Then, to simulate the deep-penetrating FBI requirement-meeting base, I used a 60-grain Aguila Sniper Subsonic round, traveling at a paltry 747 feet per second. I chose that round because I figured the G2 R.I.P.’s base would probably be about half its bullet weight (and I was right, it weighs in at 48.4 grains) and so a 60-grain .22LR would probably come close to matching it for penetration, and I was spot on. Unfortunately for us, the Aguila SSS round yawed halfway through the block, which made its damage path much bigger than the G2 R.I.P.’s, so it doesn’t look quite identical. But it looks close.
Now, to be fair to G2, even though the .22LR did penetrate deeper, the R.I.P. round is bigger in diameter – it’s about .36”, versus the .22 of the 22LR. And .36” will destroy more tissue than .22” will. But that’s a two-edged sword, because if bigger is better, then why would you want to use the G2 R.I.P.’s tiny little 48-grain .36” projectile, when you could use a Federal HST instead and get a much-larger, 124-grain, .52” projectile? And if the only answer is “the trocars”, let me remind you that the trocars aren’t delivering any more damage to the target than a couple of squirrel-hunting varmint rounds, and only penetrate to a bit more than half as far as the varmint rounds do.
To me, that’s a lousy tradeoff. I would hate to give up penetration depth and having a larger bullet striking deep in the body, in exchange for some superficial flesh wounding at 4” deep (and note, that’s 4” in gel, not 4” in a body – it’d be shallower in a body, and may not even get past the ribcage.) That’s not a choice I’m comfortable making, and I think most, if not all ballistics experts would agree with me.
I’m not going to say that the G2 R.I.P. is junk. It does have the capability to penetrate deep enough to cause an incapacitating hit if your aim is good enough to put it on target. It’s not like some of the other gimmick rounds that woefully underpenetrate. But that said, the only thing it really brings to the table that’s new (a big shallow surface wound) is done at the expense of delivering destruction where you want and need it – by putting the biggest possible bullet deep within the body. That’s a poor tradeoff. But the decision’s yours – decide and use whatever you’re comfortable with. Just consider making your decisions based on knowledge and results, rather than on over-the-top claims and marketing hype.
R.I.P. Ammo generously provided by Texas’ own Ammo To Go (ammunitiontogo.com)
Not at all surprised…
+1 Not surprised either. But I appreciate the details and thorough review. It just reaffirmed my staying with the Elite T6B rounds for carry.
I’m glad that I get my legal advice from real lawyers and not ol’ Dan Zimmerman. The idea that one would be required to swear, for example, that one didn’t intend to kill an attacker is absurd. It’s sophomoric and amateurish…sounds like something that emanated from between the ears of a certain narcissistic, Napoleonic, non-legally-trained gunrag-writer/seminar giver.
The law that permits the use of deadly force permits just that…deadly force. To try to quantify the “lethality” of rounds from a legal standpoint displays the height of ignorance.
When one is attacked, one does, of course, try to “stop the threat.” So, how do we stop the threat? We have two choices: shoot to kill or shoot to wound. What do you think you’re doing when you doubletap c.o.m.? You think it’s just an accident that the attacker died?
I was taught to shoot to kill by one of my State’s most eminent Superior Court Judges. Two of my progeny are excellent attorneys, as are many of my close friends, including a plethora of district attorneys, Superior Court, Court of Appeals and State Supreme Court judges.
I’ll stick to lawyers; you guys take your legal advice from anyone you please.
You might want to check with your lawyer or get a better one. If you shoot and kill someone, you have to be able to prove that you did so because you believed your life was in danger. Otherwise, you could be charged with manslaughter, murder, etc. Its like this so that people dont get away with murder.
If someone gets mad and hits me in the face, thats legally not ground to kill them. Can I protect myself, yes. But if I shoot them, I could get assault with a deadly weapon and if they die, murder or man slaughter. Dont believe me, look up cases that deal with bar fights.
Now if someone forces their way into your home, thats entirely different.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Reasonable+Force
Its called reasonable force Walter. Oh,and if you do a double tap and the prosecutor can prove that the sole intent of said double tap was to kill them, you lose. Especially if it was determined that the first bullet would have stopped them. Like I said, talk to your lawyer or find a better one.
You know when I first read your comments Luke, I really tried to stay away from this. I mean what business of it is mine, But I can’t seem to help it.
Your comments are and knowledge of law are lacking ( Not trying to insult anyone, just not good with tact). Deadly force means deadly force. Contrary to the misinformation that you have sourced, You have more chances of criminal charges and civil law suits in the chance that you “shoot to wound”. That is the hidden dangers in less than lethal technology. Deadly force isn’t just to knock down your attacker it is to eliminate the threat. Your shot to wound theory hurts the victim in the long run and opens any defense up to broader scope of vulnerabilities. One of the first things that they will attack you on is this : ” If you were not threaten enough that it warranted lethal force, why did you equip and use lethal force?”. So it is not that you are completely wrong when you talk about possible consequences, but your shoot to wound theory you got running there is dead wrong. Fact is that you should not pull your weapon period, unless you feel that your life( or in some cases law providing . property) is threatened. So eminent danger = Deadly force. Your comments on Double Tapping….. You shoot until the threat is eliminated ( no longer a threat). If the attacker is still moving he is a threat. otherwise what training do you have that qualifies you with threat assessment. Remember we are talking about Joe Public here. 90% shooters are not qualified to make such an argument, you aim center mass , because with all the stress, and fear that you have that is the largest target area. And even if you hit him once or twice, 3 times in some cases many more doesn’t mean they are going to stop or that they won’t shot you after they have hit the ground. So if you fear eminent bodily harm you shot to kill, your not a trained professional that knows how to react under fire. ( obviously that is a general statement covering all the Joe Publics) Once point you have is dead on, that is of course if you are involved with any kind of scenario like this, the first thing you do is get a lawyer. I am half a sleep so half of this or all of it may or may not make any sense.
What state are you in that you can bring a firearm to a bar? First, any attorney will tell you self defense is just that self defense. When you are being attacked you cannot stop and take notes on whether the attack is intended to just rattle you or kill you. If someone comes up and smacks you then yes you cannot just shoot someone. You can defend yourself but you cannot attempt to use lethal force for a smack. Now someone smack you and continues and attack with punches, garbage cans and whatever they can find to inflict great bodily harm and even death seems imminent then using deadly force is justifiable. Now, as mentioned previously an invasion in your home brings different set of rules. Someone comes in my home and deadly force will be used to protect my family!
I agree with WalterGA. If a perp breaks into my house, he started it. If he winds up in the obituaries, he ended it too. He made a choice to wind up deceased when he chose not to turn and run. The laws in my state are very clear and there will be no consequences legally to the defender. I believe that if someone breaks into your house at zero dark thirty, they mean you and your family bodily harm and it is an inalienable right to self defense.
Based on the obvious bias from author of that review, who bashed it before he even had any, I don’t give it merit. Further, he spews on some crap about not wanting to “kill and intruder, just stop them” for lawyer’s sake. I call B.S. on him there. I want to KILL an intruder if I have to shoot him or her. Everyone knows that you do not point a gun at anything unless you intend to destroy it. So this guy is an armchair lawyer who wants to get his opinion out there before even trying the product. So, when he finally got the product… I couldn’t read on because he had already pegged out on the BS meter.
I don’t know where this myth came from that people seem to have that you’re going to be scrutinized and the results of the courtroom will vary depending on what type of ammo you choose to load into your weapon.
It’s absolute nonsense and is perhaps the byproduct of too much television. As a former officer, I can assure you the only thing that really matters when it comes to self defense is being able to articulate that you were in real fear for your life or the life of another when defending your actions.
This whole idea that because of the type of ammunition you chose to load into your weapon somehow is going to “prove” your intent or whether or not you wanted to kill your attacker versus stopping your attacker in a defensive situation is absolute pure nonsense.
I Appreciate the technical info in this article, but the fact that the writer decided to start getting into fantasy television legal mumbo jumbo really hurts the credibility overall.
It would be best for writers to just stay away from legal matters and stick to the topic that they are in fact knowledgeable in.
This dude said he knows a plethora of district attorney’s lol. Quit trying to show-out for the Internet, big guy.
Good comment. Sometimes we tend to over kill the opinions with law.
I do not understand how shooting 2 different types of bullets into the same block of gel and getting the same result from shooting 1 bullet into a block of gel makes makes for a fair test.
I remain duly unimpressed.
As well you should…
Thank you for giving this am honest test ( as I expected this site to do). Hopefully I’ll stop seeing people sending me emails about this ammo now that it’s been exposed as essentially a marketing ploy, which I suspected it would be from the get go
No reason to test. Bullshit is bullshit no matter the flavor.
No, you test because then you can prove exactly what kinda bullshit it is, and how deep they shoveled it.
Gallileo says to hug a cactus.
Thanks to TTAG for an unbiased, unhyped review that tells me something useful. That you do this is only one of the reasons you guys top the list of my go-to daily check blogs.
You mean thanks to Shooting the Bull 410, I think.
Yep. Thanks Shootingthebull for becoming the go-to source for the truth about ammo and TTAG for helping get out the word. Great review looking forward to more snd bookmarked ” save for reference”
I quit reading at the part where it jammed in a Glock 19. Anything that will choke a G19 is novelty range stuff, and should never be loaded in a semi auto thats carried for self defence.
For the price you can buy 2.5 boxes of Zombie Max, that you can show off at the range, and still zap a zombie meth head carjacker without choking your Glock.
Glocks tend to be highly reliable. Not feeding 100% in a Glock is a major deal breaker.
I usually recommend that new guns feed 500 rounds of FMJ and at least 100 rounds of carry ammo 100% reliably before depending your life on the gun/ammo combo. That’s a hefty testing price at $2.50 a round.
That’s a good chunk of change, even with regular priced ammo. With a wheel gun, one box maybe, and your good to go.
I agree. That funky hollow point cavity could very well catch on the slightest feed ramp imperfection or gunk and ruin your whole DGU. I see standard Federal HST or Winchester PDX working much better, and for a whole lot less money.
Some folks may hate Glocks, but the Glock 19 has a well-deserved reputation for reliability. I’m glad I didn’t waste any money on this ammo.
I don’t know glocks that well, but aren’t those things feed ramped to the point that the unsupported case web makes people nervous?
Yeah, even so, it’s possible to get any firearm to jam, even with quality ammo of your choice… who knows why, necessarily? It is why there is such a thing as an immediate action drill.
“we managed to create similar messes with .22LR” was about the kiss of death on this stuff.
That’s my problem too. Even if it were reliable ammo I can’t know that unless I test a good chunk of it in my specific carry gun… and at 2.50$ a round it’s just not reasonable when I’ve got proven rounds that go for less than half of that.
My Glock 19 is 100 percent with a large variety of ammo through it, an ammo with known feed issues in a 19 is something I would absolutely avoid.
But at today’s prices, wouldn’t it be cheaper to practice with 100 rounds of this stuff than the 7×100 equivalent rounds of .22LR?
No.
700 .22s, at $0.10 per round comes out to $70.
100 G2 RIPs at $2.50 per round comes out to $250.
Flashy rounds tend to be expensive.
I had WWB and Federal FMJs choke a Glock 36 last weekend….
You better send it back to Glock, if they determine everything is in spec (including the magazines) you are limp wristing it. No other reason for a Glock to malfunction on 2 different types of brand name FMJ. In my experience out of thousands and thousands of rds of 40SW thru 3 different Glocks I have had about 3 FTFs over quite a long span of time. Glock rebuilt a G22 with around 5K on it and it wasnt malfunctioning, it was just weakly extracting. If I had multiple failures in one shooting session I would be concerned.
do you guys think that 1 failure out of 600ish rounds through a xd is enough to be concerned over? it was a reload that failed.
Crock, what type of failure? Circumstances?
@SCrock,
I’d give reloads a lot more leeway in terms of failure.
circumstances were it had only been dirtied up by 50 res (9mm). hasn’t done it again though.
it was a wired failure. i can’t describe it. it was like a failure to load but almost like a stovepipe with a non spent round. i loaded it back up and it worked.
i think it is the ammo, because reloads from the same place had a ftf in the 38. it did have a solid hit on the primer.
I would watch the reloads, same company etc. And I would take a piece of masking tape(Keep some in your range gear) and mark the mag that round got wonky from. If any more trouble with that comapnies reload or that mag I would not use them again.
S.Crock, If that one in six hundred failed round was the one that would have saved your life!
Yes I would be concerned.
Not my gun or I might. But I’ve seen Glocks have FTF issues a couple of times; I’m not bagging them (and honestly, it failed one time out of a 100 pack from each ammo–just straight failure to feeds). But I probably wouldn’t freak out of a single fail to feed out of a large box of ammo (now, the OTHER problems with this ammo…)
Tomy Ironmane, I have around 6K rds thru a 2nd gen G23 with the original unsupported barrel with no problems and no appreciable wear. The whole myth that Glocks are hand grenades is a myth. When a Glock does KB it just blows the mag out the bottom and cracks the frame anyway, they do not have a lethal blast radius or any of that crap. I would rather have a catastrophic failure with a Glock than a 1911 as far as minimising damage to my hands. This all came about because LE agencies and LE officers ignored Glocks clearly written warnings not to use lead bullets and reloads. Lead buildup in the barrels over time leads to KBs. Use factory ammo and plated bullets as instructed and Glocks are almost idiot proof. Almost. Still dont follow what Paul W is saying. Guess he better stick with revolvers.
The problem was with the magazine. Looks like a case of dirty box or worn out spring. The last round did not advance before the slide locked so the pistol functioned properly as if the mag was empty. This was not a feed issue. Nobody cleans or checks their mags when they clean the pistol. You have to take the base plate off and wipe the mags out. I keep 4 mags loaded with defense ammo and train with 5 other mags. I am not defending the G2 ammo but I don’t believe it had anything to do with the mag failure.
“The last round did not advance before the slide locked so the pistol functioned properly as if the mag was empty”
It’s the follower in the magazine that pushes up on and activates the slide lock. There is no such thing as functioning properly and locking the slide back “as if the mag was empty” when the mag was not empty. Some bullet shapes will push up on the slide lock when they should not, as it is often the front, left corner of the follower that activates the slide lock and a fat bullet can occupy that same real estate. This is a bullet design failure or an improperly-loaded round (bullet not seated deep enough). Or, it’s possible that the round was not pushed back in the magazine far enough and if it was against the front it could have contacted the slide lock. This could be operator error or ammo error if the case overall length is too short and it slides forward during shooting. But still, it shouldn’t contact the slide lock unless the bullet is wider than normal at the front.
BTW, I hate taking Glock mag baseplates off. I’m much more inclined to clean my other magazines that don’t suck to take apart.
If it chokes a semi-auto, what’s wrong with using a nice reliable revolver to begin with? If a round fails to fire, instead of the stupid time consuming option of clearing the action of a semi-auto, with a revolver, simply pull the trigger again. It’s much faster and in a situation where the perp is rushing you from 10 to 15 feet away, you’re not going to have time before he’s up close and personal to fire more than 4 or 5 shots anyway. Ever see a video of a big game hunter taking out a charging lion with a bolt rifle? Lions run way faster than any perp on two legs. Or a charging grizzly?
Or buy something better than a block.
Under performed just as expected.
ShootingTheBull410, thanks so much for the review, I appreciate the time effort you take with your ammo reviews. Your video reviews have become the deciding factor with my self defense ammo purchases, based on this one, I’ll be sticking to federal premium HST in 9mm. Keep up the good work.
I echo this comment. Thanks much to ShootingTheBull410.
Can’t wait for 40 S&W results!
First 5 rounds in a g19 gives one failure to feed? No thanks.
So stick with critical defense in my full size 9mm and hst if I buy a short barrel 9mm. Thanks STB420.
If you’ve got HSTs, use HSTs. The Critical Defense’s claim to fame is “reliable expansion”, but like the non-plastic-pellet XTPs, they don’t expand nearly as much as their competition when they do. Meanwhile the HST and competing Ranger-T series will expand hugely and, building off of lessons from the Gold Dot design, expand reliably even when “fabric plugged” or through a barrier. So they do what a Critical Defense will, without any plastic pellet insert, but with even better performance.
No, I only have critical defense, but I watched most of the ammo quest videos and the hst video was using short barreled pistol.
It’s going to work also (better actually) in 4-5 inch barreled gun. HST or Ranger-Ts are the current kings of the hill.
The Critical Defense is alright but if given a choice I would always take the HST, PDX1, Ranger T series, Gold Dot and a few others to it any day. That Critical Defense would actually probably be better off in a smaller pistol then full sized if you truly want to stick with Hornady I would probably buy some Critical Duty for your full sized pistol.
Very nice, informative review. I’m sure the marketing folks at G2 will have all sorts of rebuttals to this. Seems gimmicky to me, I am still convinced a good quality bonded jacket HP is the way to go.
The trocars are interesting, but is the point to do belly shots? How does this round work when the first thing it hits is sternum or rib?
Looks lethal.
It’s close to what I expected as well. But I had hope for the round. And I still do, in some iteration. Everything we take for granted as ‘the best’ started out as an underperforming idea. Perhaps G2 is onto something that further refinement will revolutionize things. Not there yet, but the path they’re on may not be a deadend. So lets not bash them for trying something new, just for their snake oil salesman approach. And wish them luck and continued improvement!
No one’s done this before because mathematically it’s a bad idea to begin with. With a pistol bullet you want to *keep* your mass, not shed it. That’s why we don’t all carry some variation of fragmenting rounds already.
^ exactly. After decades and decades of bullet testing and refinement, the #1 one thing that all serious manufacturers agree on when speaking of hunting or self defense ammo is weight retention. Losing pieces of the projectile is considered bullet failure in all of these rounds. The only time it isn’t a failure is in frangible ammo made to reduce ricochet (primarily for shooting steel targets) or in “exotic” ammo where the boutique manufacturer makes exaggerated marketing claims of various sorts. It doesn’t work in real life and that’s why NO legit manufacturers make it for legit purposes and NO law enforcement agencies carry it. Think about how much real world testing is done in deer and hog hunting — how easy it is to test various bullet designs for efficacy, which would mean instantaneous incapacitation and death with the largest margin for error. If real life testing showed these sorts of projectiles to be effective, that’s what people would use and that’s what manufacturers would make. They don’t. They all advertise the same features: weight retention, penetration, expansion. As soon as you design some sort of ‘exploding’ projectile, those things go right out the window.
Except for varmint rounds, because you want a bullet that expends all of its energy immediately since the varmint is so small. Bad guys aren’t varmints. Deer and pigs are much better proxies.
Can we have tungsten pistol rounds, or depleted uranium?
Check your local laws. Some places will consider a tungsten-containing anything “armor piercing” and restrict it. There were tungsten-cored Dangerous Game loads a while back but got taken off the market in part because of that.
I expect you were being facetious in the first place, but uranium, depleted or otherwise, is going to give you some nasty metal poisoning.
If it sounds to good to be true it usually is.
The FBI minimum penetration test includes layers of denim over the gel. “Where’s the denim?” Did I miss something in the text?
As for the trocars splitting off and the base continuing: That’s a bug, not a feature. The permanent wound channel is much too small. And yet the trocars are also too small and penetrate little. The penetration, in the absence of the denim layers, is very inadequate.
This is the P.T.Barnum of 9mm bullets.
In the beginning of the article, he tells you this is just the first part of the testing that is to be done. Don’t worry. STB410’s reviews are of the best you’ll find. This is just a peek into this craptastic round.
Yep, you missed something in the text. He clearly stated, at least twice, that these were the results from the very early stages of his tests. Denim and other barriers will come later.
I enjoyed his review, and found his comparison test (against the 3-part 22LR) creative and amusing. He does not, however, state that the gel tests will be repeated with the denim covering. What he says is “We conducted testing in two phases – basic gel testing and more advanced testing for claims on barrier penetration, and against conventional rounds.” Barrier Penetration is, in the trade, dry wall and such.
The reason I bring it up is that the design of this bullet screams “vulnerable to clogging.” It’s penetration was so weak that the denim’s resistance, if not its clogging effect, should diminish the penetration even more. -but yes, I’ll read the next installment. The comparison tests are always key, aren’t they?
It does occur to me that since the first part of the testing proves the round a joke, unsatisfactory for self-defense, there is no reason to read further parts of the test. It would simply be wasted time.
It’s entertaining…like watching idiot politicians (is that redundant?) talk about 30 caliber ghost assault clips that fire 30 rounds in half a second.
Denim results are coming in Part II. Part II has penetration through 4 layers of denim, through plywood, and through 12 layers of denim.
Stick with the HST’s, gold dots or ranger T’s. Gimmicks will get you killed.
This. HST, Gold Dot, Ranger T are my top three JHP. And they all cost roughly 1/5 the price of this garbage.
147 grain HST has very impressive expansion and solid performance otherwise (penetration, feeding etc).
http://www.reoiv.com/images/random/Samples_UpRight2.jpg
What else could you possibly want?
So what this tells me is that their bullet should have no more than three trocars, and that they should not necessarily separate from the base. Once they break off, they lack the mass needed for penetration. Like that nasty piece of business for the Judge that was tested recently. Now THAT was a RIP(ping) round!
Agreed. Expanding petals is fine. They should stay attached to the bullet.
Lehigh Defense does make a 9mm version. Assuming it feeds reliably, it’d keep me happy.
Everyone has called them petals for a decade…but now I have to call them “trocars”?
Call them “fragments” if you like, and be content you labeled them properly. They’re only calling the things “trocars” here since they’re triangular in profile and “because Marketing”.
You are correct.
“Trocar” only refers to the shape of the fragment point. Not to the fragment its self.
I call shenanigans on this test! Your methodology is entirely wrong here. If you look at the marketing information released by G2 en toto, it’s obvious that before being fired RIP rounds must first be lubricated with Snake Oil.
More seriously, good lord it actually sheds *half* its mass with the trocars? That’s even worse than my most pessimistic guess. Any kind of internal, solid impact (bone) – however light – is going to send the base off on a different vector. From just what you’ve shown so far, it’s clear that an XTP .380 round is going to be a better terminal-performer than the 9mm RIP
Would I trust these rounds to preform as hyped? No. Would I carry these in my gun? Definitely not after this test. Do I want a box or two? Absolutely. Just because the anti’s are probably shatting themselves just looking at them, and they’ll want them banned.
This. I wouldn’t carry them but they are cool looking.
Thank you, ShootingTheBull420. Excellent info. You’ve established yourself as a reliable source and I appreciate it.
Gimmick. Gimmicks tend to fail at the worst possible instant. Protip: avoid gimmicks like you avoid doing stupid things with stupid people in stupid places. Unintended consequence is that his type of gimmick just gives the antis another data point to confirm their view that we people of the gun are only out for a kill.
Don’t worry what the antis say. They say you should fire a warning shot and if that doesn’t work, aim for a leg. They need to understand that a more lethal round requires fewer shots to stop a threat therefore it is safer for bystanders.
Thanks for the review. I must admit I was a little curious about the ‘performance’ of this round. One slight correction, though. The most woefully inadequate self defense round is actually the .25 ACP.
Thanks for the test. I knew TTAG would give an honest review. You’ve saved me some money.
Much appreciated! While I won’t stoke this ammo up in any of my edc’s, I will be buying a box or two for the collection.
Thanks again to ShootingTheBull410 for his testing that removes the hype and presents the facts clearly, without bias or waffling.
This performs about as I expected. From what I’ve seen in big game bullets on big game, when a bullet sheds mass early in the wound channel, penetration is compromised, and the wound track after the mass shedding is reduced in permanent size. In short, it doesn’t make sense.
Fun trivia: I think the most useless gun marketed as a self-defense pistol was the 2.7mm Kolibri, which produces something like 2 to 3 ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle. The .25 ACP is a bear-stopper by comparison.
That has got to be one of the more asinine things I have ever seen.
http://www.horstheld.com/0-Kolibri.htm
The refined young lady was likely better off sticking an attacker with her hat pin.
More Fun Trivia: Colibri means ‘hummingbird’, which seems appropriate.
Pinguns will often stop an attacker – as long as you fire in direct contact with an eyeball or an eardrum.
Of course you could just jam a Bic pen in either to the same effect…
Got a box on the way.
Even with the test results, I still plan to use these for my preferred defense rounds when I plan to be around hostile chickens, pumpkins, and watermelons.
That’s about what I expected.
LOLZ
Kind of what I expected, thanks. Seeing the promo vid I was thinking “needler”.
Need some other sites to check this stuff out. Is the box o’ truth guy still doing testing? Would want to send some his way.
G2 Research lawyers will be meeting on monday to talk about this. But before they do it would be wise to watch STB410 reviews to see how fair they are tested and compared.
When a round hits a target weight retention is important since there is only kinetic energy to move it. Any loss of weight adversely affects performance and that is why the Lehigh rounds work so well, they stay together and turn into a ,75 inch projectile.
G2R went to a lot of trouble to engineer produce these rounds. They would be better served by making solid copper rounds with 3 or 4 leaves instead of so many smaller ones. the round would probably retain the metal and be more effective.
I can’t wait to see the barrier tests coming up next.
It’s really a joke round. You’re right, if one is designing pre-frang rounds it is best of they maintain some sort of cohesion when they expand. Provides a much more impactful shockwave which is what will do the damage.Those sort of rounds have been around for decades.
It’s like flechettes. I can build a system to deliver sub-millimeter needles through soft armor anytime. It will calc out to an impressive muzzle-energy with it’s 4000+FPS velocity. Sadly, it won’t transfer much shockwave even as it passes through your soft armor and the entirety of your trunk.
The solution to your above problem comes straight from every video game ever: more bullets. With sub-millimeter rounds, as long as the propulsion system isn’t on an entirely different scale than the projectile (or if you’ve separated them entirely), you can carry so many of them that you’ll be able to eat chunks from your target with short but sustained bursts as long as the projectile deforms somewhat during transit, and a +1.25km/s projectile will still have a decent range (but possibly less than ideal accuracy) due to the sheer kinetic energy involved. Your flechettes have fins?
Yeah, it’s gonna be an NFA item, but if you want to build something like that – sell it to the Army. Or more likely the Israelis.
True, true. Deliver enough sewing needles in a short enough time span and one can drop a Cape Buffalo…
I guess my point was that there is a tipping point vis-a-vis “stopping power” and transferred energy. Even a few sub-mil projectiles will eventually kill the target, it’s just that it takes a long while for the effects to be relevant.
Indeed. In that case, the solution might be more and faster. I mean, maybe a .5sec burst could essentially unstitch whatever part of what it is you’re shooting at, but go too crazy and pesky physics get in the way. That and it’s not very, well, elegant.
I think it’s something we might see in the future, but who knows?
Exactly as I thought from the get-go.
Gimmick garbage. Even if humans were just balls of flesh with no bones these would be a sub par performer, humans being what they actually are (bones everywhere) these are basically useless unless a belly shot.
Ill stick with HST, Gold Dots or Ranger T. Thanks though
I think it’s a very valid point about what your local DA will make of a ‘self defense’ shooting by someone using such a ‘deadly’ round. Sure it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6, but if the round doesn’t perform some sort of magic trick, is it worth the risk of spending the rest of your life in prison?
Second, you’ll need to drop a few HUNDRED dollars worth of this ammo, just to see if it cycles in your weapon reliably and hits to point of aim.
Third, the bottom line is that it takes energy to damage tissue and a round has only as much potential for tissue damage as it has energy. A 9mm with 350 or 400 ft/lbs. of energy simply cannot inflict the damage of a .308 rifle with 2500 ft/lbs. of energy. Sure bullet performance is a significant part of the equation, but that mostly comes down to under or over-penetration. If the projectile doesn’t penetrate deep enough it might not reach the vital organs, especially if it enters the body from an angle. If it penetrates too deeply it will carry some of that energy on to damage other non-targets. These rounds seem to cause more of the damage in shallow tissue and less in deep tissue, which is counterproductive. And with a 9mm (or .40S&W or .45acp) you need all the energy you can get to the vital organs.
I HAVE SEEN THAT WOUNDING PATTERN BEFORE!
That’s what happens when you cast a hollow point with a too hard too brittle alloy. It’s not new, it’s just a mistake that nobody has made in a long time.
I always enjoy the ShootingTheBull videos and checked em before I went to get new carry ammo. Magic bullet not so magical eh? Must be cause you didnt use a 93r 🙂
No mention of accuracy?
At bad breath distances accuracy is a moot point.
So, I guess its not the last bullet I’ll ever need.
I think the R.I.P. round began as a marketing idea and then went from there.
Bad decision.
It may be the “Last round you’ll ever use” since it is unlikely to stop the bad guy from killing you.
Thanks for the testing, but if a Glock 19 won’t feast on it reliably…it’s going to be a whole lot worse in other firearms. This stuff looks dangerous, to the shooter. People, if you should insist on carrying this crap, please go shoot 50 rounds of it first. Then decide.
And once again TTAG and STB410 have missed the point completely. Morons.
Look at the be-yoo-ti-ful pattern the point of impact makes. It looks like a shuriken or a spider. Nothing scares assailants as much as shuriken or spiders.
They automatically stop in their tracks when the look down and see the entry wound.
Last thought to enter their mind would be “Thas a purty.”
And once again TTAG and STB410 have missed the point completely. Morons.
Look at the be-yoo-ti-ful pattern the point of impact makes. It looks like a shuriken or a spider. Nothing scares assailants as much as shuriken or spiders.
They automatically stop in their tracks when the look down and see the entry wound.
Last thought to enter their mind would be “Thas a purty.”
That alone is worth the money.
The test results are what I expected from an initial release and
only one person testing it so far.
Now if this company listens to users critiques and goes back
and modifies the round to perform as expected I would say
it will be a winner.
What company does not over-hype their product to sell it?
This car can do that but really does this. Next years model
will do that for real and so on.
Which basic mechanic of physics are they going to suspend to make this idea work? It was going to fail predictably and the test here just bears that out in exactly the way modeled.
Wow! One whole test.
Ya I would scrap a product based on one persons results. Not!
The laws of physics can be bent. Lets see if the company tweaks
the round and then retest it.
Willful ignorance. No, actually, the laws of physics can’t be bent -that’s why they’re referred to as *laws*. You can test as many more times as you like and you’ll get the same result. That’s why it’s called “science”, actually; controlled-condition examples that show reliably repeatable results.
No matter how they “tweak” the design, it’s still going to be a 45 grain, fmj projectile along with some very-low-mass fragments. If it *doesn’t* fragment, it’s not going to be the RIP-concept anymore and be just another low-mass 9mm. This was an idea that was doomed to inadequacy from the word “go”.
I didn’t expect it to preform as claimed (what products ever do?). But they did bring something new to the table, I think with some work(added mass and trocar thickness?) this company might have something worth using, also if they don’t try so hard for the “badass” look on everything. But as with all hyped products someone else will soon pick up the idea and develop a similar product to compete.
Thank you for the unbiased review as always Mr. Shooting the Bull!
You only need one of these rounds… put it in the top of your spare mag and show it to a would-be attacker, he’ll be really scared and run away. Similar concept to pumping a 12-gauge or putting a bayonet on your HD rifle.
Jamming a G19 is a deal-breaker for me as well, but the comparison to .22 seems unnecessarily pejorative. It’s like describing a truck’s towing capacity in Priuses.
A useful follow-up would be to describe how many shots from your .22 it would take to duplicate the damage from an established defense round. At least we’d have a useful standard to compare to.
Am I reading the test correctly – a comparison was made between a single round of 9x19mm vs. multiple (2+) rounds of .22LR?
The failure to feed was a little disheartening, but how many times did this happen, and in how many rounds total? Did they provide 1000 rounds to test, or 20? I’ve personally had firearms have a failure to feed in the first box I fire, then never see issues again for 100’s of rounds…
Yeah, I don’t get the point of that comparison either. Saying that 3 rounds of one bullet is better than 1 round of another bullet isn’t particularly informative.
Anther great ammo review. Thanks, STB!
I guess about as we expected… It seems the current understanding in terminal ballistics is that optimal performance is achieved by the most mass possible penetrating the deepest (within the 12-18″ range) – with the most possible expansion. That means it’s better for the bullet to retain it’s mass rather than shed it’s mass through ‘frangibles’ (ie -trocars) which then create separate mini-wound channels instead and (in this case) do not seem have enough mass in themselves to consistently penetrate sufficiently to make up for losing that mass (and expansion) along the main wound channel, (presumably towards vitals). (This concept also applies to a bullet/jacket separation, hence bonding).
In addition, other barrier dynamics such as oh, leather and denim and buttons and bones bring in to play other variables that are often best mitigated by bullet mass/composition/force that allows for ample penetration that can overcome such barriers and still expand and penetrate 12″+
And if they don’t cycle reliably, well, then you’re not too worried about the wound path that your bullet is or isn’t going to cause are you — but the one that theirs is instead. So the aforementioned data are irrelevant to YOUR personal bullet selection.
It also appears they could potentially bring certain ‘litigious vulnerabilities’ and are 5x the cost of a regular good defensive round, with none of these limitations/concerns.
If you want an exotic round, go with Lehigh Defense Max Expansion. Or don’t – and just get a proven JHP.
Anyway, love your reviews. Thanks again.
The lack of projectile diameter and mass on the deeply penetrating part undid this round for me. No wonder there initial video used full auto pistols, the gel certainly looks like burger after being saturated with these ‘trocars’ (nice term but inaccurate at best), but then again 32 rapid hits from any sort of 9mm would make a mess. It’s like a bird shot hit from a shotgun, terrifying damage to the surface and near surface tissues, insufficient penetration to force a stop. You’re basically relying on the tissue damage to convince your attacker to stop and that’s not the best plan. I’m completely with shooting the bull, 12-15 inches of penetration from the heaviest, broadest bullet you can deliver to that depth from your weapon is the way to go.
A couple of thoughts:
Birdshot that has been encapsulated in epoxy basically creates a massive frangible round that is absolutely devastating in terms of tissue disruption and wounding potential, still penetrates unreliably beyond very close range.
All else being equal the larger diameter, heavier bullet always wins, however more bullets on target are always better than less. It’s something I struggle with in carrying a 1911. First mag has 9 tries to stop the fight but they are 9 big, heavy, relatively fast moving rounds. Black Hills Lawman 200gr hollow points moving off at about 1050 fps in my 5″ barrel. I shoot the 1911 better than any other handgun bar none and at defensive ranges (or in a calm state with deliberate fire to 50 yards) I have absolutely no doubt in my ability to rapidly empty it to slide lock with all rounds impacting the torso. Expanded diameter on those can exceed .85″ in soft tissue and at that velocity expansion is reliable while penetration still uniformly exceeds 12 inches. Even with failure to expand the rounds are .45 and simply penetrate 15-17 inches in soft tissue which I find acceptable.
I said all that to say this, I stared out carrying a 4inch .38 and generally feeling under gunned. I’m not even sure I’d mind that same weapon now though, given the extremity of my practice and accuracy at speed. I have an acquaintance who is a firearms instructor. Before we’d ever shot together he insisted that my choice of the 1911 was a mistake and that higher capacity count would trump the power/wounding advantage of the .45. At the range and after I’d performed sub 2 second 100% hit mag dumps into silhouette targets at 7 yards he recanted. He still recommends higher capacity lighter recoiling pistols to his students, but now he admits that if you’ve practiced to the point that missing isn’t an option and can deliver follow ups at such speeds from a .45 you are in no way disadvantaged by it’s capacity since no sane person could dispute 9 center of mass hits from a .45 is a decisive game changer in a fight.
The take away: Capacity matters, shot placement matters, rapidity of follow up shots matters (incorporating reliability) and terminal ballistics matter. Balance these effectively and you have a fight stopping combination. This round does not appropriately balance these factors.
The shallow penetration of those “trocars” can be put into perspective if you note the analysis of real world shooting victims. It was determined that the skin itself is so tough on a live human that it equals the resistance of 3″-4″ of ballistics gelatin.
I found this review enligtening as heck. Thanks for the work you put into it!
For self-defense, I use the Hornady Zombie rounds, and thta’s cuz I trust the Hornady name.
However, even though I’ve been told the polymer tip aids in leather/denim penetration, I just don’t know about that feature very much. But, the actual metal part of the bullet looks like it would do the necessary damage to save my arse in a “situation.”
Even before this review, I wouldn’t have used the R.I.P. ammo simply because of the way it looks and is advertised…this would NOT look good in a Court of Law! Heck, I’d rather use a regular old FNFMJ 180gr round from my G27 than take chances in court with R.I.P. and a tenacious prosecuting attorney.
As for now, I’ll stick with my “Zombie” rounds!
Again, thank you for the thorough and informative review!
~Sean~
The Zombie Max ammo (I got a couple boxes when it was the ONLY 9mm hollow point at cabelas during gunpocalypse and only shot about 5 rounds) has almost the exact same polymer insert inside the JHP that the Hornady Critical Defense ammo does.
Except that the zombie one is green of course 🙂
I recently started carrying some of the Critical Defense ammo got a got good laugh from that.
Zombie Max is functionally Critical Defense with a different, cheaper propellant.
The whole “critical defense” product line came about because the XTP projectile design woefully underperformed its competitors. It expanded much less than they did and had less-reliable expansion because not enough hydraulic pressure got into the small-mouth of the XTP when it was “plugged” by fabric or the mouth was dented. The plastic pellet was used as a remedy to the latter weakness. It expands more reliably….but the Critical Defense/Duty rounds still don’t expand as much as the real premium brands do.
Federal HST or Winchester Ranger-T rounds produce massive expansion and reliably expand -even when their cavity is “plugged” or there’s some deformation of the cavity mouth. Ranger-T does this by having the unusually thick lips of the copper jacket readily peel open and take the pre-incised core with it. HSTs manage it by complicated pre-incision, jacket bonding, and formation of the core.
Speer Gold Dots give excellent expansion, but do have a small tendency to “plug” and fail to open properly. This isn’t nearly as bad as the old Hydra-shocks would plug, but still happens on rare occasions. The above Federal and Winchester designs were developed with lessons learned from the Gold Dot. Remington Golden Sabers actually have a hard brass jacket rather than copper and rely more on coherent jacket expansion without separation rather than core pre-formation. They’re good, reliable performers, but don’t expand quite as well as God Dots, HSTs, or Ranger-Ts.
In 9mm, .40, or .45, I’d take any of the four (HST, Ranger-T, Gold Dot, or Golden Sabre) over any of the Hornady XTP designs.
In .380 though, the XTP weakness turns into a strength. The low energy of a .380 means that the breaking-effect of bullet expansion will stop any of the “excellent performers” short of penetrating deep enough for a reliably-debilitating wound. They end up opening “too well”. XTP on the other hand, opens slowly and moderately enough that it will reach the FBI standard 12-18 inches depth while still opening for greater-than-caliber wound channel and has some “cutting” effect from the jacket petals. Note though that the Critical Defense version of the .380 ends up opening too fast again and stopping the round too early.
“Just consider making your decisions based on knowledge and results, rather than on over-the-top claims and marketing hype.”
Too bad America did not apply that principle to the 2012 Presidential election.
That was out of nowhere. Saving that one up for a year+?
Nice video and write up. I wish you had a block of gel shot with a HST to compare to the RIP round. I bet it’d show the huge difference in damage done by the round. Maybe the old triton quik-shok (similar idea, but lead base and heavier bullet weight) too.
Reposted today I see, cause I noticed the comments at the top start from Feb 1st. While this is a good article, I always enjoy ShootingTheBull410 cause of dat science, I had a big WTF thinking that this was a new different article.
…yeah, me too. I was “oh goodie! More STB410”.
This is my sad face: *8(
I totally called this. . . feed ramps like smooth surfaces. A round with FTF issues would never ever ever go in my defensive pistol. 7 Glaser safety slugs stacked on top of Ranger Talons
I just had an interesting read on Glaser safety slugs, thanks 🙂
Never really thought about using something different than a traditional hollow point, but now that Im hoping to start a family, it is definitely an interesting topic.
+1
Interestingly enough, back in the 80s Glaser rounds had about the same sort of “so deadly a target will fall dead from a mere scratch” over-the-top marketing buzz that the RIP did. You should still only use frangible ammunition if you absotively, posilutely, on-your-life can’t have a round go through the immediate walls -like on an airplane. Frangible rounds, whether Glaser or RIPs, suck at wounding things for all the reasons stated in comments above.
The effects of pistol bullets on airplanes are drastically exaggerated by Hollywood. In reality, it’s not a big deal. Now, if you want to shoot somebody while inside a spaceship, I can see why you’d want a frangible round.
Actually I think it has more to do with not wanting to accidentally penetrate one of the control mechanisms of the aircraft, or say an engine, rather than just putting a hole in the skin of the craft.
If this ammo was really any good for self defense, the Democrats would try to ban it as it might be responsible for a net loss of their voters.
Don’t worry. CA and NY are probably already working on it.
San Francisco has tried to ban all HPs–but the Chief of Police, recognizing the invalidity of the statute, has said that it is enforceable only against he original Black Talon. At the same time, SF is trying to ban 10+ round magazines for anyone but active LEO [yes, California has a 10 round limit, but it does not apply to mags owned prior to a certain date, or to LEOs, who can buy any handgun, and until the ordinance was passed, didn’t apply to retired LEO who lawfully obtained 10+ mags while they were on active duty and exempt from the mag limits.]
Ok…
So, I can use one of these rounds and inflict the same blood letting damage and pain as several 22lr rounds?
I don’t know if comparing this round to some gel that got shot several times through the same hole with a 22 is a fair comparison that tells us anything. I choose to suspend judgement on this until I see more testing.
I think most of you folks were in the jury, you would be a nightmare to the defendant.
I actually think you are shooting a fair amount of bull yourself. The jam is not the bullets fault. Also you completely disreguard the the damage the trocars inflict. It also seems that the depth actually is better for hitting organs. I do bethink these guys are probably some smart guys that love to shoot and actually came up with a facinatingly new bullet. They probably didn’t properly fund the marketing and they got something g they shouldn’t have let get out there. I hope they learn from it and refine the bullet. I am buying some when I can get my hands on them. I think you were passed about the marketing and your review is clearly biased by that.
I disregard the damage the trocars inflict because they only penetrate to 4″ of ballistic gel. Note, that’s not the same as 4″ in a body, it’s 4″ in gel. To put that in perspective — when we calibrate ballistic gel we do so by firing a BB from a BB gun into it. For proper calibration, that BB should penetrate approximately 3.5″. Does that mean that the trocars are doing about the same amount of damage as a BB does? Maybe, maybe not, but the entire established body of science in terminal ballistics shows that terminal effectiveness in handguns comes from bullets that penetrate deeply, in excess of 12″ in ballistic gel.
I believe the trocars would create a horrific flesh wound. I don’t think they add anything to the terminal performance.
As for their motivation — sure, I believe they thought they were on to something. It’s not actually something new though, as this same design has been seen before — with the Lehigh Defense Controlled Fracturing bullet, and the Cutting Edge PHD bullet, and the D Dupleks Hexolit 32 shotgun slug. Not to mention that the damage profile looks basically exactly like that as delivered by Liberty’s Civil Defense handgun ammo.
The shallow-penetrating fragmenting idea has been tried over and over. It always enters with a big splash, and it always goes away quickly.
Was I affected by their marketing? Yes, I will admit I probably was. It was so over the top, that they set the bar very high — and when their ammo came nowhere near that performance parameter, I probably took that bar and beat them with it. But think about this for a minute — don’t you think it’s highly irresponsible for them to go making exaggerated claims about their product’s performance, when people are literally betting their life on the product? Wouldn’t you rather see some realistic claims, and some accurate testing? Because, whether you liked the tone of my presentation or not, the fact remains that the testing is absolutely accurate, and has been replicated by others. Look at the gel block results I got, and compare them to RatedRR’s tests… they look identical.
RIP – Yet another marketing gimmick round. As soon as I saw that bullet face the first thing that popped into my head was feeding problems. Sure enough, the author had one fail to feed in his Glock. I’ll stick with HST, Gold Dots, Golden Sabers, and Ranger T’s, save money, and feel confident that my self defense ammo will feed properly, and expand – penetrate consistently and sufficiently.
Sounds like someone with a marketing degree is hawking bullets. Just another of the latest gimmick rounds, I’ll stick with Hornady Critical Defense.
If they make a .45 version of this spiky ammo I would have serious reservations using it in a 1911, or a Browning Hi Power for that matter.
Yeah I’ll just stick with the talons.
What concerns me is how likely it is to have a catastrophic failure. Grooved flexible rounds just cant be good for a longer barreled pistol or varmint carbine.
From what my concealed carry teacher told me (also a 20 yr. vet with the police department), you DO NOT ever pull your gun to scare or deter. You pull to KILL plain and simple. Dead men don’t talk, and all you have to do is yell “Get out m************, or I’ll blow your head off”, then do it. Oh, you will go to jail, and the family might try to sue, but dead men don’t talk. I believe my life was in danger, so I acted in self defense. I’ve already talked to several lawyers about it, I will go free and they can never illegally enter another’s home. They cannot say they weren’t warned. Also, being a female, any age person, whether it be a child, teen, adult, or old person, that comes into my house uninvited…………..will not be leaving. I’ll also, stick with what I was taught.
I’ve got a bersa 380 that I’ve shot over 1k rounds through and no ftf, or misfires, does that mean it magically turned into a glock? Or is it the same quality as the glock? Imo it looks better.
Given the packaging and even just the name “RIP” I will not waste that sort of money for “carry” ammo when I can use Zombie Max at a fraction of the cost, and not have to worry about it jamming.
Personally feel the company is irresponsible at many levels for producing this round, and for their presentation of it. Further, I’d be very worried about a self-defense claim in court if I managed to get it to feed to start with.
Why in the heck would a responsible CHL holder carry a round who’s design is obviously to kill vs stopping a threat?
Stuff like this will inevitably shed a negative light on us….
I’d rather carry cowboy loads than this crap.
Just my opinion tho-people will do as they will regardless.
Ya all have a great day, and by the way, thanks for the review 🙂
I’m a remy golden man myself, until last bow season I had my khar cw 9 with because I have been seeing one of those big kitties running around my farm. One morning I was sitting in my cedar tree ground blind when I had five coyotes come up the draw towards me. I had a buddy give me some HST rounds to try through the gun. So I decided to shoot the last dog coming up the draw. I shot him at 8 yards in his chest cavity. So I wanted to see what the HST did, so I cut open the coyote to see his inards. The HST round jelled his lungs and stayed in the body cavity. And boy did that round peel and mushroom and so what it was supposed to. I still love my goldens and have 1000+ of them but I did buy some HSTs for the wife’s carry rig. The ones that claim to be the best usually can’t hang with the rest. (Somthing my grandpa used to say about farm equipment and used it were applicable).
I appreciate the information once you started actually started talking about just the facts pertaining to the performance of the RIP ammunition. I have to agree with some of the other readers please keep your legal advice to your self, considering it was wrong. If put in a situation where you have to shoot someone to defend your life or your family’s life you are not going g to be asked did you mean to kill the person. Or was you just trying to hurt the person. After all when you are pushed in to a situation where you must defend your life it becomes a matter of who is going g to walk a way and who getsplaced in a body bag. For the dumb ass who confuses protecting your life with defending your self from an old-fashioned ass kicking shouldn’t be carrying a firearm in the first place.
I bet not one of you who claims this round wont get the job done will stand there and take on in the chest. so till somebody is brave enough to put this matter to rest dont say this round wont work. remember you only need a bullet to stop a threat not kill them. skin,bones,muscle,and fat is not the same as gel. It may be a good for testing but it is not a human body.
This is the most biased poorly thought out example of confirmation bias I’ve ever seen. If one really can’t understand that 9 wounds have a great chance of hitting a vital organ than a single path, then you have no business testing ammunition. You should look at the multiple test’s that place ribs at he front of their ballistics media and show the wound paths continue into the body. Your rib test placed the ribs 3 to 4 inches back in your gel so that the round expanded / fractured before it hit the rib cage, so of course the fractured parts weren’t going to go far after already travelling 4 or 5 inches to reach the back of the ribs.
But if you have half a brain, and I think you might, you knew that would give that biased result that test. And the fact of the matter is this ammo meets your requirements for your overzealous belief that you need 12+ inches of penetration.
You analysis using the total surface area is not accurate. I could shove a 2 inch diameter spear through you and it would be less likely to hit a vital organ than 9 arrows though you, even though the 9 arrows would definitely have less surface area at their impact points….even if 8 of those 9 arrows only penetrated through half your torso’s diameter.
You don’t like the idea of multiple bullet wound paths out-wounding and out-stopping your traditional hollow-point. And this coming from someone who would never purchase this ammo, because there are far better and more effective fracturing/fragmenting rounds available.
You set out to prove how bad this ammo is, but all the results you obtained actually point the opposite direction.
Ok listen to this guys… this guy made a “lookalike” ballistic gel using how many .22s? so he shot nine bullets into a gel to make it look like ONE bullet that not only had deep penetration but also had pedals literally explode out on impact? It may be a little more expensive but isnt your life worth it? If i were to put somebody’s life in danger and they were to shoot me…i would NOT want to be shot by ONE round that does that much damage… even if it doesnt go all the way through you, you are going to have several fragments left inside you, imagine how much worse it would be to be shot by that compared to a lead point or fmj that MOST people carry with them? look at several reviews and videos of this ammo before you listen to some guy who thinks he is a genius…use common sense and think for yourself instead of this idiot… look at all the details and go watch this guys video and think of how much sense he makes 1 bullet vs 9 bullets yeah thats a real comparison!
Give up on reason or anatomy…he believes in penetration…and im not going to make the easy joke about it.
so i see that you duplicated the same damage but it took you three rounds and 2 different types of rounds to do it. as far as it being revolutionary it is. its completely cnc machined. That means the actual projectile is pretty much match grade every one will be the same. Now with that being said no it does not act like a hole saw. are there other rounds that get the job done, yes. DRT makes an excellent frangible round that does the same damage but here is a thought the price tag is almost identical.
All in all I think the fragmentation and energy dump will stop someone, But I would double tap just to make sure now. Its not a super bullet but it does fragment nicely.
If you desire fragments use a shotgun, that’s what they are for. They make .410 handguns. If you shoot .22LR into the heart of a threat, there is a great chance they will expire. Keep it simple stupid.
“which is about stopping an attack, not about killing the attacker”
Don’t force your liberal morality on others. A wounded attacker can still pose a danger to your family. The number one rule of self defense, if you attack me or my family, I WILL kill you. Bullets are never designed to wound. Bullets kill, period. You need to be more concern about your life and your family’s lives than some thug’s life.
Not only did you set out to find specific results, nullifying your scientific credibility, your bias against the RIP ammo is clear not only in your writing but in your sarcastic tone. The feigned neutrality you put on is contrived and phony.
I have no interest in or care about these rounds, but you used what is possibly the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard against them when you opined:
“it’s irresponsible, or even offensive to the very essence of self defense (which is about stopping an attack, not about killing the attacker).”
People use guns EXACTLY because they kill the attacker. They use guns BECAUSE they are likely to kill an offender, or if it better suits your delicate constitution, “guns do enough soft tissue damage to an attacker that the blood loss generally renders them incapable of continuing an attack”. BECAUSE said blood loss generally renders them DEAD. Your false assertion about the nature of self defense is not only laughable, it is almost criminally naive. I have never read a more ridiculous statement.
But you didn’t stop there:
“If a prosecutor could prove that you intended and set about to kill an attacker, your claim of self defense might just go out the window.”
Lawyers everywhere are laughing at you. If your use of a gun is justified, nobody in the United States will question your choice of Ammo. Thats just insane, or in your case, filler for an argument you are trying to make about a product you disdain and are seeking to damage by way of an “impartial” review.
After being told that you faked the first Gel for dramatic effect, instead of remaining scientifically true to the experiment, why should I believe that you did anything else impartially? You have no credibility.
“…I can certainly say that this over-the-top presentation makes me appreciate the restraint and more responsible branding of, oh, for example, Hornady’s Critical Defense.”
Can you now? I wonder if Hornady gave you any freebies for that plug?
Such a waste of webspace. Completely biased from the first paragraph.
The BS comment of it being questionable to use deadly force to defend ones self is obviously gratified by slighted liberalistic data and is varyingly ambiguous at best. Most of the cases that people note for the sake of quoting court room statistics are true, but only when the attacker and the victim engage in willful combat with one another, not in self defense. Under this assumption …yes, lethality would be a determining question of guilt or innocence and can greatly affect the outcome. If anyone on here has taken a hand gun carry course, they would know that intentional wounding during self defense (though a seemingly moralistic response) is actually illegal. It stagnates a “defense motive” by showing that an alleged victim had time to think about what they were doing and make a moral decision rather than rely on training which clearly is devised to terminate a threat rather than wound it. We would otherwise be shooting at practice targets that would clearly be bullseyed to brachial nerves and pressure points rather than those that we currently test out with that clearly train us to go for the head and chest cavities in the most lethal areas of the body. This definitely proves true the argument that in a self defense situation, we are trained to and “must” shoot to kill the aggressor using lethal methodologies and tactics. If the situation is evaluated and proves our claim that the aggressor had intent to kill or inflict mortal harm upon us, we are of course justified in killing them.
Why not try the ammo out hunting in a real scenario? I hit a 50lb young sow with a 230 grain hollowpoint. When dead after a head shot, found my first round in shoulder didn’t penetrate past the skin. Stopped dead after less than 2mm penetration. Got a larger pig tonight, nit in shoulder while moving, dropped dead in it’s tracks. One round. Don”t know about 9mm, but the .45 did a job on that pig. Get what you want, shoot what you want, but until you use it on live animals in a hunting situation, you don’t know a damn thing. Gel????? What the hell is that??? Shoot something with ribs and bone and super muscle, then tell me what the round does or doesn’t do.
If you are civilian not shooting through things and aiming for the center of chest or the head, there are to facts about the target that greatly reduce the need for big penetration. The lungs have about1/4 the density of other body tissue. that means once you through the 1 to 2 inches needed get to inside on the chest 8″ of the lungs would be the same effect as only 2″ of ballistic gelatin. The brain is mainly fluid and the shock wave going through it courses neuron damage.
Good article, but… Republicans only believe what their soviet over-lords tell them to believe.
Completely individual, right.
I completely disagree with your analysis, i’ve never misfired one of these rounds through my XD
But hey, I could also click below your entry to become a marijuana millionaire or take brain pills
give me a break. this ammo is excellent
Great article, now I can make an informed decision of not buying it!
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