General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: British SAS sniper kills ISIS flamethrower executioner with a crack shot to save 12 hostages [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,271 posts)during the flight of a bullet. It's possible that a harder tip is desirable at long range to for better penetration, after allowing for the slowing down of the bullet - the 1124 ft/sec figure for velocity at the target in #74 is barely above the speed of sound.
On edit: "Ballistic Tip" seems to be a trademark for Nosler plastic-tipped bullets (and if it was air friction melting things, plastic would not be your solution). The idea is that a pointed tip has good aerodynamics, needed so the bullet doesn't slow down too much over distance (they want to keep it supersonic, since the characteristics will change a lot as it goes transonic), but the plastic tip behaves like a hollow point when it hits the target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic-tipped_bullet