Years ago a 'friend' reloaded a bunch of 45acp rounds for me using 230 FMJ RN bullets and Universal powder. I fired one magazine out of my Kimber and figured out something was not right. After talking with him he said, "Oh yeah, been meaning to call you. My powder gauge was throwing too much powder." These were very hot loads, too hot.

Recently I got into reloading and I pulled everyone of those rounds apart. I weighed the powder and it was 9.2 grains. I saved everything and now I want to reload them. I have the original Universal powder that was in them and I also have Vihtavouri N320 and Alliant Unique. Searching through my two reference books (Modern Reloading by Richard Lee and Lyman Reloading Handbook) I'm getting conflicting data as to the amount of powder for the Unique.

Modern Reloading states a beginning charge of 6.0 and a max charge of 6.0. Lyman says 5.0 to start and 6.8 max. I do not see Universal listed anywhere.

Any suggestions ? I'm just looking for a target load.

Go to the Alliant Powder and Hodgdon Powder web sites. They have data for .45 Auto/230 grn loads for both those powders.

Get the Lyman #49 manual.

I load 230gr lead. The powder range for Unique is 5.9-6.9 gr.

I believe 6.5gr of Unique duplicates G.I Ball.

I have loaded the Hornady flat points with 7 grains of Unique for a good hot 'carry load' in my .45. Unique actually shoots better than the standard 231/Red Dot/etc faster burning powders in mine and probably less pressure as well. It is a little dirty for volume shooting however.

I went to the range today and shot both Unique and Vitavouri out of my Kimber. I loaded 5.4, 5.7, 6.0 and 6.3 grains with the Unique and 5.0 grains with the Vitavouri.

My first observation is the Unique powder is filthy. It didn't take long for my gun and my hands to be covered. The Vitavouri is much cleaner.

The 5.7 Unique load seemed to give me the best accuracy and the recoil was low. The Vitavouri gave me similar results. I have my first Skills -n-Drills event this Tuesday so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for the help.

The new Unique is supposed to be cleaner. I'm
still working on powder i bought several years ago. I use 4 gr in my 38 special, a pound goes
a ling way.

quote:

Originally posted by hawkins:
The new Unique is supposed to be cleaner. I'm
still working on powder i bought several years ago. I use 4 gr in my 38 special, a pound goes
a ling way.

It's not, the stuff I'm using is new and it's dirty.

I use Bulleye super clean shooting !