How light a load for a JHC and Unique powder?

[SunnySlopes]

I have several boxes of Sierra 180 grain jacketed hollow cavity 44 cal bullets. I want to load some mild loads to break in/loosen up a Ruger Redhawk I recently purchased.

I'm using Unique powder and the recommended starting load is ~11 grains. My favorite bullet for this caliber is 240 grain lead swc and 7.0 grains Unique.

Can I go to 9 grains for the 180? 8 grains?

The range will be 20, 25 yards plinking/paper punching.

I seem to remember back in the day, some gun magazine writer talked about jacketed bullets shedding their jacket in the barrel with extremely underpowered loads.

 

[Charlie98]

No, that was just the Speer half-jacket bullets. Any reasonable published load with Unique will be fine with your bullets.

 

[frankmako]

The old saying is 10 grains of unique is your starting load. Work up or down to get what you want. 8 or 9 grains should be a good load for the ruger.