Hornady A-Tip Bullets Increase BC With Machined, Aluminum Tips

Using Doppler radar and high-speed cameras, Hornady's Ballistic Development Group releases high-BC, aluminum-tipped A-Tip bullet line.

Tactical Life

Hornady recently announced the release of a new match-grade bullet for long-range shooting, the A-Tip. The A-Tip comes from the Hornady Ballistic Development Group (BDG). Hornady describes the BDG as a specialty research and design group within the company.

The BDG utilized company experience with the ELD-X and ELD Match lines. Further, high-speed cameras and even Doppler radar was employed to develop the A-Tip line of bullets. The resulting bullet comes as a long, uniform projectile with a precision-machined aluminum tip, according to Hornday.

“We wanted to incorporate aluminum tips in a full line of match bullets for years because we can make longer tips than we can with polymer materials,” said Joe Thielen, Assistant Director of Engineering. “This longer tip is a key component that helps move the center of gravity of the bullet rearward, thus enhancing in-flight stability and reducing dispersion. The problem has always been the cost to produce a tip like this, but we’ve developed a cost-effective process for manufacturing these aluminum tips while staying affordable for serious match shooters.”

Hornady machines the longer aluminum tips to be caliber-specific. Combined with the company’s AMP bullet jackets, the result produces aggressive profiles and optimized boattails for enhanced drag efficiency (high BC), according to Hornady. Each bullet design is designed for minimal drag variability to deliver shot-to-shot consistent downrange accuracy, according to Hornady.

“We designed the A-Tip projectiles with accuracy and precision first and foremost,” Thielen added. “Many low-drag bullets on the market today have very aggressive secant ogives, which look great on paper and yield high BCs, but usually these types of projectiles are very finicky when it comes to accuracy or performance in different chambers, standard twist rates, seating depths and barrels.”

A-Tip Features

Additionally, the BDG designed the A-Tip bullets to deliver balance between the center of gravity of the bullet versus center of pressure. Hornady says this feature minimizes in-flight drag variability. Hornady also packages the bullets right off the press. With no additional handling or tumbling, each bullet ships just like the one before it.

Hornday A-Tip bullets come in 100-count boxes, and retailers will also sell sleeves of five sequential 100-count boxes packaged together. Two, 500-count sleeves will also be offered, giving shooters the ability to purchase 1,000 sequentially packaged bullets. This feature should appeal to handloaders looking for maximum repeatability.

“We are frequently viewed as a very large bullet manufacturer, which in many ways we are, but the Ballistic Development Group runs like its own small ‘skunkworks’ division that allows us to offer the small-batch craftsmanship normally only offered by a boutique bullet maker,” said Jason Hornady, Vice President. “We’re shooters ourselves, and we also listen to what shooters want, and we are excited to be able to offer competitive and hard-core shooting enthusiasts projectiles that are undoubtedly the new standard bearer of precision and performance.”