PS: Thanks for your .02 worth jthhapkido, much appreciated as always.
Indeed. Like jthhapkido, I saw that article last January, and there was a short discussion here about it, but I didn't search for it.
First off, they are not cheap.
Secondly, Copper is 27% less dense than Lead (8.96 vs 11.36) so for the same momentum Copper has to travel 1.27 times faster. Because it is less dense, drag will slow it down more quickly and its affective range. They allow for even more velocity by shooting a lighter bullet, but that makes the drag problem worse because drag is a function of the square of velocity ... double the velocity and you quadruple the drag.
Third, I suspect that because of negative publicity (making gun owners look blood thirsty) they'll withdraw the round just as Winchester did with the Black Talon, but continues to market a round which is essentially identical, but not advertised as the Talon was.
The first INDEPENDENT testing I read about was here:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/02/daniel-zimmerman/g2-researchs-rip-ammo-ballistic-testing-phase-one/#more-293429I 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.
Besides issues with feeding, the article went on to report its ballistic gel results.
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.
The lab went on to replicate the ballistic results reported by R.I.P, by using ...
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.
So, with your trusty .22LR shooting segmented hollow points just double tap the perp.
The trocars spread out to a 3.5” diameter, and penetrated to about 4” of depth. Again, neither of those results meet the claims on the back of the box (where they say it’ll achieve a 6” spread on the trocars, and 15 to 17” of penetration)...
The article goes on with a lot more testing and data, but the results are devastating to the R.I.P. round.
