I've always been a fan of federal premium ammunition. I use them for almost everything . I was messing around with my .17 and noticed one lookin like this. Debating on emailing them, or just saying screw it. Regardless, always check your ammo before you shoot.
Email them with what you found, they'll never know any issues are out there if you don't tell them.... Plus you'll usually get another free box for alerting them.... Keep the box with the lot# on it as they'll be looking for that info.....
I read an article once where the author delibertly damaged bullets then test fired them. Surprisingly damage to the tips made little difference. Damage to the heel (base) of bullet really hurt accuracy. Still I wouldn't load that one on an important shot.
The damaged plastic tip will cause no safety issue. Plus shooting the round won't cause much of a lost in accuracy. To me it's just a beauty issue. We shoot long range on PD's with damaged bullets and seen no real lose of accuracy.
I've been to the Hornady plant and it you seen the rate bullets are produced per minute you'd understand how one could get damaged. But that's no excuse for getting through the inspection.