jsmvmd;
Good afternoon and welcome to our cyber 'Fire from north of the medicine line. I trust you're well.
While I believe I've chronographed these at one time, I'm unable to successfully search the memory banks for where I wrote it down, so please take that into account.
Way back in the day I wanted to build a "grouse load" for my '06 and had access to 100gr Hornady Half Jackets and Speer Plinkers.
As well, there was always a supply of WW231 and Hercules Unique for handgun reloading, so that's what I used.
My goal was to find a load which shot as close as possible to point of aim at 25yds when the rifle was sighted for it's usual big game load.
The method I settled on was starting with the '06 case with 4gr of WW231 and working up from there a half grain at a time until it was as close as I could make it without too much noise. I want to say in the '06 case I might have gone as high as 10gr of WW231.
They worked so well on both grouse and for relaxing big game that needed a little bit of help crossing over that I loaded some up for a .308 carbine my wife hunted with at the time. Again I want to say I started at about 4gr of WW231 and still going off of foggy memory found a sweet spot at 5.5gr or perhaps 6gr.
I've also played with 170gr cast bullets with the same powders since I have a nearly unlimited supply of them since I make my own. This time I consulted the Lyman Reloading Manual, started quite low again and stayed there when decent accuracy was achieved.
It appears that Universal isn't too much slower than Unique so I'd surely give it a try.
Hopefully that was useful to you or someone out there.
Again welcome and good luck with your reduced loads.
Dwayne
