I like Unique. Started using it in 1973 in a Ruger Old Model .45 Long Colt and it worked fine for pushing 250 gr. cast bullets at 850 to 950 fps.
Very accurate. Burned clean if I used a hard crimp.
BUT I learned something about using Unique in the .45 Long Colt: if you use Unique in the large capacity .45 Colt, never fire cartridges that are very cold!
One Spokane winter, when the temperature was about 10 degrees above Zero, my buddies and I went camping (18 and dumb ... today I'll stay indoors by the heater, thank you).
Anyway, temps at night got down to 10 below zero. At day, it rose to about 10 above.
We decided to do some shooting.
I loaded up the Ruger .45 and proceeded to hit all over a stump, upon which we'd placed a can.
You could hear that each shot had a different report, indicating incomplete ignition.
Bullets were hitting in an 18-inch vertical area, at about 50 feet, up and down that stump.
I stopped shooting after about 12 rounds, recognizing that something was wrong.
Later, in the spring, I fired the remainder of that box of ammo and it fired just fine. In the spring, the ammo had warmed to about 60 degrees.
Some years later I read that Unique, in large capacity cases, doesn't deal well with extremely cold temperatures.
Smaller capacity cases apparently don't exhibit the same problem.
I later switched to Magnum primers with a heavy crimp and that solved the "Unique hates the cold" problem.
Now, bear in mind that this was Unique dating from the early 1970s. Today's Unique may not have that problem.
I don't know; I have fired a pistol in such extreme cold for a long, long time.
The above is yet another good reason to carry a pistol in a shoulder holster or pocket if you're out in cold weather. This also protects the pistol from snow or sleet.
Anyway, the above is a warning. If you're going to use ammo in very cold weather, test-fire it in cold weather before you gamble your life or trophy hunt on it.
