Not necessarily. If they tested a bulbous and rounded shape against several other shapes, and their results showed the bulbous and rounded shape to be the best, then those are their results. However, if they used a commercially-manufactured nose cone, it may well be the case that their "elliptical" shape wasn't actually an elliptical profile, just sort of ellips-y.
As a practical matter, the difference between an elliptical and a spherically blunted ogive nose cone of equal overall fineness ratio is utterly splitting hairs at speeds below about Mach 0.75. I haven't seen any science projects looking at that difference. The basis for saying elliptical is best, if you trace it back all the way, is a series of tests done in a water tunnel in about 1947, looking at what would be the best nose shape for torpedoes. They just happened to choose elliptical as one of the shapes to test, and it was better than anything other shape they happened to choose to test. That in no way implies it's the best possible. (By the way, the reports on those tests never calculated a CD. I presume that the chart of CDs in Hoerner, which was then repeated in TIAMR and later in Stine, was generated by someone - likely Hoerner or an assistant - re-analyzing the data published in the water test report.) It may well be the case that alternative shapes could outperform elliptical up to around Mach 0.75-0.8, at which point the Von Karman shape would likely take over by its minimization of pressure drag through the transonic region.
My earlier request for photos of the Mini Bertha NC before it's sanded was based on an interest in accurately reproducing the shape that was actually shipped by Estes, rather than simply assuming it to be an elliptical shape.