What is the Purpose of Pointy Boolits?

[rintinglen]

Right on. The bullet they were talking about was the 358093 Lyman, not the H&G73 or the Lyman 356402.

The original design was the 429303 for the .44 Magnum by Ray Thompson for metal penetration. Then, Lyman came out with the 35893 (changed to the 358093 for ease of use in a database) for the .357 Magnum. I've had good luck with both at magnum velocities but so so luck at lower velocities. Both have grease grooves grooves that hold too much lube. I experienced lube "boogers" on the traget face at 100 yards. Both are hard to cast as the deep lube grooves tend to hold on to the square grooves and are hard to get to drop./beagle

Actually, it was designed by Carl F Hudson, who called it the "Hi-Velo-Pen."

He made it to allow his 44 Mag Load to shoot through a mild steel 3/16 plate. There is a letter by him about this original 429-303 boolit in the 1st edition Lyman Cast Bullet handbook. His loads are pretty fierce!

[sargenv]

At one point I was looking to give myself an edge over other competitive revolver shooters. I was looking for a bullet profile that might help me "load a moonclip faster" into either my 610 or 627. I'd been using 158 and 170 RN for 38 special and a 185 RN for 40 cal in a 610. I got in on a group buy for "pointy bullet molds" and got 3. Now I wish I'd gotten a pointy mold for my 41 magnum also.

I think at the time I couldn't really tell the difference between either the pointed or RN profiles so now I have the molds as a novelty. I switched back to moly coated 158's or 170's.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’m surprised it those boolits were destined to law enforcement, they weren’t jacketed .

[Sasquatch-1]

I’m surprised it those boolits were destined to law enforcement, they weren’t jacketed .

When I first went to work for the Washington D. C. police we were still carrying .38 spls. with lead hard ball ammo. we did transition to a lead hollow point, but still a lead bullet. It wasn't until we changed to Glocks that we started using jacketed bullets.

[stubshaft]

The pointy bullet Dean Grenell wrote about was a French design called an "Arcane" bullet. I had the pleasure of meeting Dean and talking with him about it. He also had Veral Smith of LBT make him a number of molds in various calibers to test the effectiveness of the design. I still have one of the .501" 375 grain molds. I've found it to be a very accurate bullet.

The original concept utilized copper bullets driven at twice the normal velocities. It was extremely destructive and IIRC the BATF banned the importation of the ammo.