That depends on how you are making the aluminum parts. If you are machining them, that’s not a fair comparison vs injection molding. Comparing a die cast aluminum part would be comparable. At that point your “creating consistency” argument falls apart. Just have to remember you can machine composites too.
That’s another area they hit on in their video though, that is a hollow argument. They were talking about consistency then talk about how they varied the copper, lead and aluminum to make the 3 components somehow better than a solid machined bullet from a billet of a single material. That’s just not the way things work.
For ballistic coefficient, the manipulations they can control with a tipped al, Cu, & Pb bullet absolutely “the way things work,” when you can manipulate your CoG vs. CoP relationship. Solid coppers have a lower sectional density, and resultingly a lower ballistic coefficient than a similar length and profile lead core. So having a lead core vs. not is one step in the right direction. Adding ogive length to a copper bullet throws 3.6g/cm3 material out front (instead of 2.7SG for Al), which moves the CoG forward, increasing its sensitivity to yaw. We see manufactures running hollow cavities to mitigate that mass transition, but the larger hollow cavities leave the bullet more susceptible to tip variability/damage in handling - and of course, core profile variability in ogive formation.
You CAN machine polymers, but it’s pretty clear to see their poly bullet tips are not turned. The inclusion bubbles evident in the original release translucent ELD’s shined a light on how these things are made (and if you take a file to NAB’s, NBT’s, SST’s, Vmax’s, TMK’s, etc, you can find the bubble you couldn’t see through their opaque nature). These inclusions don’t appear to have any consistency in position nor size.
But... the greatest inconsistency I have seen in poly tipped bullets isn’t necessarily in the tip itself, but rather in the integration to the jacket. Whether they’re not concentric to the shank, not coaxial, pushed a flare against the jacket, or have an overhang lip under the shoulder of the tip, standing slightly proud with a hairline gap, or even have a slight mold flash at the shoulder, there are a number of ways I have seen poly tips varying. Equally, we see inconsistencies in tip uniformity and length for traditional cup and core BTHP’s. We see lot to lot variations in all of these, and even considerable variability within a given lot. No, we don’t see that in $1.50 lathe copper solids, but we don’t see 75¢ price tags on them either, nor do we see them on the shelf at Cabela’s in mass production. A very different die and force profile can be used to tip with aluminum than with a poly tip, which could easily encourage consistency in the integration.
I’m not particularly interested in the A-tips, and will say I’m actually disappointed they called them “A-tips”. Between the old “A-max” line, which was “A” for Accuracy, and the “E-tip” which is E for Evironmentally friendly, which refers to the lack of a lead core, so calling them E-tip was already kind of a divergence. So while A-tip makes sense Aluminum Tip, when I first saw the new model name announced, I thought “damn, why would they bring back the A-maxes?”. I love the idea of a .3 BC bullet in 6mm, but I know I don’t shoot well enough, even in matches, to need the difference in consistency. I might be interested in a high BC version for 30 and 33cal’s to feed my “light” ELR rifles in 300wm and 338LM, and if I were shooting 600/1000 benchrest any more, I could be interested there too.
But I am very certain I will find myself shooting against A-tips at precision rifle matches within a month after they hit the streets.
