Mike,
If you are getting the same pitch at the 75% station, that little variation at the tip. won't hurt. Its not uncommon with wooden props.
Always take "recommended" pitch angles with a grain of salt. That all depends on the prop, the plane, the altitude, and most importantly, the engine. With two cycle engines, prop load and prop load alone determines the max rpm. Even a badly tuned engine will easily exceed its rpm limit with an unloaded prop. Inversely, a perfect engine will never reach max rpm with too much pitch.
Forget the numbers and take out two degrees of pitch and see what happens. If your engines recommended max rpm is 6700 wot, set the pitch so you are getting about 6500rpm wot on the ground. You will probably see very little difference in cruise speed at the same rpm. Even if you do have to up the cruise rpm slightly, you will probably see an improvement in fuel consumption because at the reduced pitch, the engine is not working as hard even at the slightly higher rpm.
An engine that is overloaded with too much pitch will also run hot.
Bill.
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