So far I have always used the 45 Colt cases. I have starling brass mostly but have not tried the Schofield or the Cowboy cases but that’s something to look into also I suppose. I was not sure of an advantage of going with the shorter cases. It’s just not something that I have researched much at this point. Guess I need to.
Well not really necessary. Being a die-hard fan of Unique, I guess I go out of my way to try to safely use it and those little 8-9 grain charges just rattle around in that huge case!
But wait! in the 2nd edition of the Lee book, dated ~ 2013, they have just the ticket for you!
180 gr lead bullet
trail boss
starting 6.0 grains (lee dipper 1.30) for 818 fps
"never exceed" 7.3 grains for 935 fps, 12,700 psi
they DO NOT have a recipe for that bullet for unique or bullseye.
later I will dig out my ancient Lee book from 197x but things have changed so much I do not recommend the old
recipes to folks.
My 49th edition Lyman book only has recipes for 185 gr jacketed, which is sufficiently different from lead as to make one take pause and think. for example for a .45 Colt 200gr jacketed vs 200 gr lead they call for the following using Unique:
200 gr jacketed, Unique
start 8.5 gr for 847 fps
max 9,5 gr for 934 fps no pressure data.
200 gr lead, Unique
start 8.6 gr for 918 fps 8,700 cup
max 9.6 gr for 1083 fps 12,800 cup
we surmise that , as a rule of thumb, lead bullets can give "a tish" more velocity than jacket with less pressure, to a point.
I think, but cannot prove, that this is due to the entire jacket area acting as a bearing surface , vs two driving bands in a lead bullet.
for example using universal powder an 250 gr bullets, lee shows
250 gr lead bullet with universal powder
max 7.8 gr for 941 fps 13,000 cup
250 gr jacketed xtp bullet with universal powder
max 8.5 gr for 856 fps 14,000 cup
they have no recipe for 180 or 185 gr bullets with Trailboss or Bullseye, so no way to try to extrapolate.
Thus I would suggest you try trailboss! it is nice and fluffy, and is a good smokeless powder for modern guns!
Fluffy is good in big cases, but might meter funny.
hope this helps
prof marvel