[Unclenick]

All .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle bullets start out swaged, AFAIK, whether they are subsequently plated with Luballoy (Winchester's original alternative to cupro-nickel jacket metal for cup and core bullets) or copper or brass before lubrication. The swaging process usually uses fairly soft alloys, though it is not uncommon to add a couple of percent or so of antimony to harden them a little. I know that's close to what you see in chilled shot (3% antimony) but shot also has arsenic in it and is water quenched hard, while neither is the case for the lead alloy wire used in swaged bullets. So, BHN 6-7 is a reasonable result. It's still soft enough to slug a bore with, so it's pretty soft.

I've heard it suggested that some brands of .22 LR are harder than others. That's technically possible as it's possible to swage harder alloys than are normally used, but I doubt that it's usually desirable to do so. Short, Long, and Long Rifle use heeled bullets whose bearing surface diameter (0.2215"-0.2255") is specified at only half a thousandth under the case diameter (0.2220"-0.2260"), and, at the low end are actually smaller than bore groove diameter (0.2220"-0.2240"). The chamber itself is 0.2270"-0.2290" diameter before the taper of the throat. So, the bullet has to be soft enough to bump up to handle extra space where it encounters such, or leading will be made worse by gas bypass. A fast enough powder combined with a soft enough alloy are required to bump the bullet up to obturate the bore.

The lubrication, I assume, has always been used on .22's back to the original Short cartridge. Probably just beeswax or a mix of beeswax and tallow early on, though Bee's wax and graphite have been on some swaged lead bullets. Certainly 19th century bullet molds had lube grooves, so it's not like it was a secret, even then, that some kind of lubrication is needed for lead bullets that had no paper patch, and even with paper it helps to have some. The Afghanistan resistance was given to rumors during the second war with the British (and maybe in the first, as well, but they mainly had smooth bore muskets then, so I don't know) that the British lubricated their bullets with pork fat, thus condemning the devout Muslim jihadi struck by one to be denied admission to paradise. It was actually mutton fat that was normally used, but the rumors helped agitate against the British occupation.