The New E-Tip
Nosler has had a tremendous amount of success with its AccuBond. The sleek, streamlined, boattail projectile looks great on paper. It has a high ballistic coefficient, great sectional density, and is designed to open up fast while driving deep. It works well, but it doesn't have the penetration or weight retention some hunters demand. And it has a lead core.

The E-Tip proved itself on Texas hogs and sheep. During our exclusive field test, each animal taken fell to a single shot.

When they teamed up to design the E-Tip, Winchester and Nosler set out to come up with a lead-free bullet that opened up as fast as the AccuBond but retained 90 percent or more of its weight. To get there, they had to go the solid route.

Nosler engineers used the same gilding-metal copper alloy on the E-Tip that they use to make the AccuBond. Called 210 alloy, it consists of 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc. Its solid construction means it holds together well for deeper penetration. In fact, Winchester claims over 90-percent weight retention for the E-Tip bullet.

According to Winchester's Glen Weeks, the zinc content raises the tensile strength of the bullet. Although the

E-Tip is even harder than a copper bullet, the zinc acts as sort of a lubricant, so fouling is much less than with a solid-copper bullet. Winchester's Lubalox coating also helps in the fouling department.

To get the solid bullet to expand over a wide velocity range, the design team gave the bullet an extra-deep hollowpoint cavity. In fact, the cavity, which extends past the ogive, may be the deepest I've seen.

That hollowpoint, which Winchester refers to as the E2 cavity, helps the E-Tip bullet expand at various velocities. That means the bullet will expand about as well at 500 yards as it does at 100, despite the fact that it is tough enough to withstand a close-up impact on a bull elk's shoulder at magnum velocities.

Its hollowpoint is not just a tool to promote expansion. In fact, it is one of the main ingredients in the E-Tip's accuracy. When a solid-copper bullet starts down the bore, it doesn't slug up to fill the rifling like a conventional cup and core bullet does. The E-Tip, on the other hand, slugs up and really grabs the rifling like a conventional bullet. According to Nosler's Mike Lake, its unique construction also decreases pressure, which means you can use the same reloading data you would for, say, an AccuBond of the same weight.

Some other E-Tip design features are consistent with the design of Nosler's AccuBond and Winchester's XP3. A sexy profile and a boattail give the 180-grain .30-caliber E-Tip a ballistic coefficient of .523 and a sectional density of .271.

Again, like the AccuBond and XP3, the E-Tip has a polycarbonate tip. The OD-green plastic tip prevents tip deformation under recoil in the magazine and enhances the bullet's ballistic coefficient, which makes for better downrange performance.