In a very approximate manner:
When magnets are dropped into a narrow, long box, they naturally prefer either to align all parallel to each other parallel to the long side of the box, or anti-parallel to each other (with anti-parallel polarities) and perpendicular to the long side of the box. In both cases the magnets will lie parallel to the magnetic field created by other magnets.
So your configuration is most likely due to the case that at the tip you have some anisotropy , most likely due to changes in steel's chemistry or physics (phases).
Just my 2c.
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