HDW - I am looking at my Speed #12 and also my reloading data. Does Speer still make a 185 TMJ? If so, they are listing 5.0-5.8 for Unique powder. Thats a low velocity of about 670. I don't know what gun you have, but a 185 grain bullet at 670 fps sure isn't going to produce much recoil at all, and I would imagine it should function quite well, if they have that load listed. Have you considered going to a 200 grain lead bullet, and a light load of Unique. They are showing a 200 SWC lead bullet with 4.9 grs of unique at 716 fps as a minimum. Might be worth a try. I agree with Briman, I am shooting a 165 grain RNFP lead bullet out of my .30-06 with 12 grains of Unique. That is a very low load and is producing 1450 fps, I can't imagine that reducing unique in the 45 should make a difference. I would also look into 231, which is what I use.
Another thing that comes to mind, is that no scale is absolutely perfect. Nor are all primers perfect. How much deviation are you getting right now. I would be willing to bet that at times, you are actually going slightly below the minimum on some rounds here and there if you are throwing your loads with a powder measure. Just a thought.
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Yep I considered all those options, I have the speer #13 manual and a few others the hodgdon 2004 annual manual and a hand out manual from alliant Id say im pretty well covered for different ways to go LOL. i am gonna try them out especially the cast lead bullet idea im betting that would be a good route to go since lead bullets are much cheaper then jacketed, I did think about the reduced rifle loads with unique, and figured I should have no problem at all reducing my 45 loads.... so I did, reduced the 6.5 start load to 5.6 the gun functions fine and nooooooo it didnt blow up travelr....... Yeah I have quite a bit of deviations asfar as my powder throw goes with unique im getting about a .4 grain variation. Today im actually gonna throw some together with hodgdon clays its more consistant in my thrower with only a .2 grain variation the load im looking at shows 716 fps with the start load and a 200 grain jacketed bullet im actually gonna go middle of the road on this one and use a charge slightly over start, recoil should be quite minimal. thanks guys for you input