I like Red Dot, and use a lot of it because a friend gave me 12 pounds of it. HP38/231 is good, too, and of course Bullseye was the original .45ACP powder.
The "classic" target load for conventional Bullseye match shooting is 4.0 grains of Bullseye powder behind a 200 grain LSWC.
I use 4.5 grains behind a 185 grain Plated or JHP.
Quite a few shooters rely on W231 and quite another few have switched to the VV powders.
Pete
There are so many powders that work well in .45acp, or for that matter most common handgun cartridges. When I started loading the .45acp, about 50yrs ago, the most commonly used powders in my part of the world were, Herco/GreenDot,AL5/AL7/Bullseye/and RedDot. I don't load it much anymore, but when I do, I load it with Promo/TiteGroup/Clays/231/or BullsEye. Good accurate loads can be made with pretty much whatever you can find in that bun rate range. Savage
Two years ago when D MAN wrote the original post, Unique (and many other powders) were still in very short supply even at (as you put it) "real gun stores". Today that's not the case, but that's today...
I can still find unique around here. I personaly think theres better choices for target loads in the 45 but I still use it quite often for full power loads. Nice thing about the 45acp and even the 40 and 9 is that about any powder for herco at the slow end to redot at the faster end can be used and give great results. Even some slower yet powders like hs6 blue dot ect can be used in a pinch. You might laugh but my choice for powders for those calibers when reloading plinking stuff comes down to using left overs and powders I either have lots of or just want to burn up.
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