Reviews The Benelli M2-G1 Tactical Shotgun: First Place At Second Best David Lane October 27, 2026 1 Comments, Join the Conversation At RECOIL, we review every product fairly and without bias. Making a purchase through one of our links may earn us a small commission, and helps support independent gun reviews. Read our affiliate policy. Find out more about how we test products. If the Benelli M4 is the no-doubt, crushed to the upper deck, home run of tactical shotguns, the new Benelli M2-G1 is an inside-the-park home run. Same result, less flair, and a surprise we didn’t expect. Bottom line: the M2-G1 has an MSRP under $2K and uses a gas-operated semi-auto action with a new rear-mounted piston system with dual pistons for ultra-reliability. What they call Rear Piston Operated (RPO) technology is the major design change in this version of the M2, making it much closer to the M4’s ARGO system than anything else. It’s a major departure from the classic M2 design that uses inertia. With four models out and more planned, Benelli offers the M2-G1 with a 5-position stock and pistol grip in plain synthetic or dressed in multi-cam or FDE. Or you can get it with a traditional stock and no pistol grip. All models of the M2-G1 come with ghost ring iron sights, an 18.5-inch barrel, a Picatinny rail for optics mounting, enlarged controls (bolt handle and bolt release), a beveled and enlarged loading port, M-LOK handguard, 7+1 tube, and a parkerized bolt. Right-hand only, for Mobile-Benelli chokes, it’ll accept up to 3-inch shells. What does that all amount to? In short: One hell of a tactical shotgun, built to land between the standard M2 and the M4 in terms of durability, features, and design. SPECS: BENELLI M2-G1 Chamber: 12-gauge, up to 3-inch shells Barrel Length: 18.5 inches Overall Length: 39.5 inches Average Weight: 7.6 pounds (pistol grip model: 8 pounds) Length of Pull: 13 inches standard, Adjustable 9-14 inches w/ telescoping stock Grip: Pistol or standard Chokes: Mobile-Bennelli Capacity: 7+1 MSRP: Starting at $1,949 (pistol grip/telescoping stock model starting at $2,049) Benelli M2-G1 18.5" 12GA 5rd Semi Automatic Shotgun w/ Fixed Stock, Gray $1,599.00 Palmetto State Armory $1,599.00 Prices accurate at time of publishing. Affiliate disclosure. BUILT TO BLAST Benelli shotguns are some of the best on the market, and that’s not up for debate. The M4 serves agencies and militaries around the world and has for decades. It’s still the first choice for a top-tier duty shotgun. Even by Benelli’s own admission, the M4 is built to be better than the M2-G1. But that comes at a major upcharge that a lot of us, especially those who aren’t funded by taxpayers, are unwilling to spend. If you want an M4 but don’t want to spend the pile of cash required, and you won’t settle for a clone, the M2-G1 gets you really, really close at several hundred dollars less. Picatinny rail, ghost ring sight, sling mounts, M-LOK slots up front for lights and an M-LOK slot near the ejection port for a shell quiver, the M2-G1 is packed from end to end. The traditional stock is the less expensive model, but the five-position telescoping stock is worth the upcharge. Rock solid, easy to adjust, and puts you perfectly in line with the rest of the shotgun to absorb recoil. Standard ghost ring sights are fine, but a micro red dot like the Trijicon RMR makes getting on target faster and easier. Getting the sight picture over the suppressor helps as well. ON THE RANGE From defensive buck to slugs, the M2-G1 doesn’t feel like it’s hammering through the heavy stuff. While your shoulder will feel a difference between a few tubes of slugs and a few tubes of birdshot, putting in training time with slugs and defensive loads didn’t leave us feeling battered and bruised. Something to love about a gas shotgun is the amount of recoil it can soak just from the operating system. The RPO taking cleaner gas from the rear of the barrel also means the system runs better for longer. Using standard Benelli/Mobile chokes, mounting a suppressor to the M2-G1 was easy. Adding the full-size Yankee Hill Machine Victra-12 made the Benelli much more front-heavy, but making this beast a little more polite to shoot in the backyard made for some great training sessions. Changing the Victra-12 from the longest configuration (12.4 inches) to the shortest (6.4 inches) kept the weight down and helped make the M2-G1 a lot more balanced, but still kept the neighbors happy. Reliability was 100 percent before the suppressor and 100 percent after the suppressor. If you’ve never suppressed a shotgun, it’s entirely worth it. For a tactical shotgun, the downside is turning an 18.5-inch barrel into one that’s effectively 2 feet long — not ideal for CQB. But if this is a bird blaster, home defense turret, or weekend 3-gun reload speed test, a suppressor makes it better. Stripped to its major parts, the M2-G1 looks a lot like an M4 if you don’t look too closely. A single word to describe the M2-G1 is “smooth.” If there is any difference in felt recoil between the M4 and M2-G1, it would take a more refined shoulder than ours to tell the difference. The controls are larger than normal without being weirdly oversized. Slightly smaller than you might find on a 3-Gun shotgun, these are big where they need to be and don’t get in the way. Fast manipulation of the M2-G1 takes almost zero training time if you’re already familiar with the M4 overall pattern. The enlarged loading port makes stuffing shells in the tube easier, but it’s not a hotdog in a hallway like some competition guns are. This is still a duty gun, even if that memo didn’t make it to the engineers in charge of felt recoil. In our hands, double-loading was pretty simple, but quad-loading required precision. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? Take half the M2 and half the M4, and you get the M2-G1. Receiver and overall pattern are closer to the M2 design, but the gas system is basically a stripped-down version of the ARGO found in the M4. Both RPO and ARGO use dual pistons and take gas from just in front of the chamber. Both are extremely robust and don’t require a lot of cleaning. Both systems use a recoil spring located in the stock. And both come with a 10-year warranty. With the handguard off exposing the gas block, this thing is so AK we couldn’t help but play dress-up a bit. The lack of an ejection port only enhances this effect. What the ARGO has that the RPO doesn’t are self-cleaning pistons and auto-regulation for the gas. This results in the ARGO being a better system that lasts longer, requires less cleaning, and can operate with a wider range of ammo types, from the very worst to the very best. But simplifying the system to create the RPO means a shotgun that costs significantly less money. Diminishing returns are nothing new to anyone in the firearms world, but we most often see its ugly head when it comes to optics. This is the rare example of diminishing returns being obvious in a firearm. Yes, the M4 with ARGO is better. But is the difference between really, really good, and the absolute best enough to matter? For 99 percent of people, the answer is probably not. FAST IS SMOOTH, SMOOTH IS FAST? As good as the Benelli M2-G1 and M4 are, the other elephant in the room is the Beretta 1301. Benelli is owned by Beretta, so it’s more sibling rivalry than it is competing shotgun empires, but still worth comparing. What sets the 1301 apart from all others is the incredible speed that the BLINK system cycles. While all three designs are gas-powered, the 1301 uses a more traditional method of tapping the gas near the muzzle. Dirtier way of getting the job done, but it obviously works. Beretta’s 1301 BLINK is faster to cycle than Benelli’s M2-G1 RPO or the M4’s ARGO, but the Benelli systems are smoother and require less cleaning. How much less depends on ammo, environmental factors, and more. All three are outstanding designs, but all three have some trade-offs. If you’ve become accustomed to the 1301’s speed, the M2-G1 is going to feel slow even though the difference is in milliseconds. If the 1301 feels a little snappy to you, the M2-G1 will feel like a Thanksgiving hug. LOOSE ROUNDS If you must have the very best, the Benelli M4 still sits on its throne and isn’t going anywhere. For an agency buying for their doorkickers, or a shooter who is blasting through thousands of rounds per year and hates cleaning their guns, or if you have a fully funded retirement plan and are still looking at cash to burn, the M4 is going to suit you. But for everyone else, the M2-G1 is going to get the job done. While the M4 is better, the M2-G1 is still outstanding and a class above almost anything else in the price tier. Smooth, comfortable, packed with features, and still built with the duty-ready durability that Benelli has made itself known for. Why you can trust RECOIL Since our founding in 2012, RECOIL remains the premier firearms lifestyle publication for the modern shooting enthusiast. We deliver cutting-edge coverage of guns, gear, accessories and technology. 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$2k for any shotgun is a lot, sure it’s a Benelli but damn that’s a lot of dough when you can get similar performance without the fancy name for a third of that price.
