I had to smile when I saw this thread posted. As a kid we had a pretty good supply of 30-06 Lake City ball ammo and even a bunch of corrosive stuff laying around. Like Topshot, I would use tin snips to cut the tips of the bullets off. I would take it one step further and try to smooth out my work using a bench grinder. It's a wonder I didn't blow my hands off, or worse, as some of those rounds got pretty hot.
I don't know how those bullets would have shot at long-distance, but for us shots were typically under 100 yards and the results were indeed explosive. No core separations that I was ever aware of but these things created one heck of an exit wound.