A couple years ago, I believe it was in "Handloader Magazine", they had an article about damaged bullet tips. They did everything they could to mess up the tips, hit them with a hammer, smashed them in a vise, cut an angle on them with a grinder, etc. The result was, the damaged tips "had almost no affect on the bullet flight"! I was surprised! However, they discovered that "any" damage at all to the "base" of a bullet will cause it to go severely off flight. I know some bench shooters trim the meplants on they're VLD bullets to make them perfect, but according to the testing mentioned, "it is not necessary". Shoot yours and let us know how they group :) !..Good Luck..Jim