I use Universal for all of my smokeless pistol cartridges. For 250 grain bullets, I use 7.3 grains of powder generally, which is probably a bit stouter than what you're looking for. Hodgdon lists the starting charge of 6.5 grains at a velocity of 742 ft/s, and I can say that anywhere between that and 6.8 makes for very mild shooting out of my guns.
You'll have the same issues as you will with other powders in such a large case of course. I've heard that Universal is particularly position sensitive (although I have never had any noticeable issue with this, just loading for the purpose of plinking) and obviously it does not nearly fill up the case. There could be pistol powders without that issue (aside from the obvious example of Trail Boss I'm not aware of any) but I will say it does fill it far beyond "barely covering the bottom of the case." As long as you are paying attention, the powder is visible enough that you will never be wondering even at a glance whether the case is charged or not. Its biggest advantage is that it's fairly cheap, and at least in my experience relatively easy to find throughout this whole ordeal, and as the name implies it really does work well in pretty much every pistol cartridge.