Grooves in cast lead bullets are for the addition of a lubricant in
those grooves to help keep bore fouling to a minimum.

John

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 15:20:22 -0600,
(Matthew Russotto) wrote:

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

Thats a Heath/ Keith style Semiwad cutter, and is likely to have come
from a Henseley and Gibbs mould with a second choice being Ideal.

What is the diameter of the second band? If its .429-.433, its likely
for the 44 Special and if its .452-.455, its for the .45 ACP, both
rounds to be fired typically from a target revolver. Hollow base
bullets were very common in the 30s-70s for Bullseye shooters who were
shooting light to medium loads at paper targets.
The most common such today are 38 Special hollow base bullets, which
typically have a totally blunt nose with no ogive.

What's with the grooves? I haven't seen them in modern cartridges,
though Minies had them. Were these for black-powder revolvers?