(1) Yes, you can do it.
(2) No, you really shouldn't.
I am wondering why the reason is I shouldn't? Is there a danger?
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TL;DR -- You could avoid max loads and be safe, but you're wasting components. You can safely burn your powder in a pile, and toss your bullets and primers in a lake, but I wouldn't recommend it.
One, they're going to shoot very poorly. When when I say "poorly", what I mean is "I know people that could probably throw them more accurately". Take a look at...well, any bullet, and you'll find the center of gravity is no further forward than halfway (in the case of full wadcutters). In those CoG-in-the-middle wadcutters, we know that they can't be made accurate any further than about 50 yards, because they start tumbling. In your bullet-turned-backwards scenario, weight is way out in front, and they're going to start tumbling right away.
Two, they're not going to do what you think they're going to do. What do we use wadcutters and semiwads for, and how is a backwards bullet going to fail at this?
(1) Punching neat, accurate holes in paper--but this won't happen because the backwards bullet will likely keyhole, and it won't be as accurate as if it was pointed the right way.
(2) Transferring energy to bowling pins, tough animals, and dangerous people--but you're going to lose velocity and have poor accuracy and you already have a great bullet for doing this exact thing with: the roundnose flatpoint.
Some people (survivalist whackjobs and folks trapped behind the lines of no-hollowpoint states) suggested using reversed hollow-base wadcutters as an improvised hollowpoint many years ago. But accuracy sucked and terminal performance was worse, because as it turns out, a functional hollowpoint is slightly more complicated than just having a big empty nose on a bullet.
I am wanting to drill nice round holes in paper. I like plated because it doesn't lead up the barrel. These are the ones I am using :
.44 240 gr Flat Point - Berry's Manufacturing
Well, couple things. One is that you can shoot lead and not lead up a barrel. I think I've only had leading in one of the family guns, but I can't even rightly attribute it to handloaded ammo or lead bullets. A lot of my guns see nothing
but lead, because I shoot outdoors and enjoy accuracy and I'm a huge cheapskate.
And that includes when I was starting out. Buy good bullets, don't ask them to do unreasonable things, and mostly you'll have no problems. Sometimes you get a weird gun that just doesn't cooperate, but thus far, I've been lucky with my various bores and throats.
But lead
is pretty dirty, I'll admit that.
You might be interested in giving coated bullets a try. A nice 240-grain LSWC from Missouri:
Missouri Bullet Company
I've not run coated myself (see aforementioned frugality), but a lot of guys like the stuff. And I definitely enjoy MBC's 240-grain LSWC--the holes it makes are as neat as a hole punch.
I don't rage against plated--it's clean to handle, clean to shoot, and looks very pretty, while being a lot cheaper than jacketed if purchased smartly (although some small-caliber jacketed can get pretty close if you're willing to buy a couple thousand at a time). But it's not as accurate as lead--not a big deal if you're doing FAST drills at 7 yards, but pretty relevant to a .44 Magnum at 25.
