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If the Boers doctored their bullets it was probably to try to match the horrendous wound profile created by the .303 bullet. The .303 has a hard jacket and does not expand, but it has a hollow cavity near the front of the bullet that makes it butt-heavy and prone to upsetting upon impact. In other words they go in straight and come out sideways or backwards. They tear up a lot of meat!

If the Boers really cut crosses in the tips of their 7mm mauser bullets like in Breaker Morant they would have been sacrificing precious accuracy in what was about the most accurate and flat-shooting cartridge of its day. The Boers are so rifle-savvy that I really doubt many of them would choose to mess up their ammo this way.

I take it back about the .303. The spitzer-pointed bullet used in WWs I and II had that hollow cavity but I think that back in the Boer was the Brits were probably still using round-nose solid jacketed bullets like almost every other country at that time. The US didn't go to spitzer points til 1906. Springfields had to be rechambered or rebarreled for the new round.