[Jeff Higgins]

Another update:

My rifle does not like the Hornady flex tips one little bit. I'll play with them some more, but it's not looking good. Several different charges with each of three different powders and the best barely stay in a 6" bull at 100 yards. In sharp contrast, their flat points are averaging about 2" for five shots at 100 yards with the same variety of powders and range of charges.

I have to think it is the exceedingly long jump into the rifling required by the shape of the ogive. Any magazine rifle is constrained to an overall cartridge length that will fit in the magazine (with box magazines anyway, not tube magazines) and feed (which is the mechanical constraint in a lever gun). On top of that, anything in a tube magazine has to be crimped, so you are stuck with whatever OAL is provided by the location of the crimp groove. It's pretty apparent from the photo above just how quickly the flex tip bullet tapers into its ogive, and how far it must jump compared to the traditional flat point.

Oh well. No big deal. At the ranges this rifle is meant to be used, there is very little real difference in trajectory or performance between these two shapes. That, and Hornady just ran another batch of the flat points and I ordered a bunch more, so I'm sitting pretty with those anyway.