Mike, you can also load up 'Super El Cheapo AmmoMart' loadings using that same 160-grain bullet (mould is $30, Lee of course) but WITHOUT the gas-check. Accuracy will not be as good and you would have to use a bit less powder so the bases don't melt. Turn them out 10 for a dollar.
I tried a few and really wasn't all that satisfied, but I had a little box of gas-checks lying around, so they saved the day. Going along at this rate, I should need another box of gas-checks about the year 2744: just in time for the rifle's 800th birthday!
UNIQUE really is unique. You don't have to have a wad with any of these, the stuff just takes light so easily and so very uniformly. You CAN, if you like, make up a series of test loads, starting about 16 grains and then going up, a quarter or half a grain at a time, watching the groups as you do so. At SOME point or other, if you do your part, your groups should tighten up better than with the other loads. This is the load that you adopt as your new standard and start working right around that load to fine-tune things for the best shooting. It can be fun.
There are other powders that you can do up very light loads with, also. Most of the various shotgun powders are suited to this sort of thing. I prefer playing with Unique because it is so versatile and doesn't seem to need a wad, ever. I know guys who have shot Blue Dot in their rifles (for light loads only, of course) but they say that you have to wad it to get a complete burn.
If you have only Blue Dot or Red Dot or something like that, likely you will want a wad of some kind, Best thing to use is just those silly supermarket "cotton balls" that they sell in the wimmin's department for slopping on the make-up. Last ones I got were a couple of bucks for 300 of them. Being that I already had a pair of scissors, that gave me 600 wads for 2 bucks. Cotton or Rayon are the materials for this, as both will consume completely when you fire. Petroleum-based Synthetics tend to melt, which will not likely wreck your barrel but it sure won't do anything for accuracy. You just dump in the powder, pop in a wad and ram it lightly into position with a pencil: works well and you can do a whole loading-block of shells in a few minutes.
The generally-recommended powder for making up light loads is SR-4759, which is an IMR Company powder. This is an SR powder: Sporting Rifle, and it is the last holdover from the age of the Bulk powders, although it is not really a Bulk powder itself, but it really isn't all that far from one, either. Bulk powders could be loaded bulk-for-bulk with Black (although the WEIGHTS of the charges would differ) and were popular in the early days of smokeless powder. You can do just about anything with SR-4759 and it is the recommended Black-powder substitute at a load level of 38%-of-Black-by Weight. If you have a .50-100 Winchester, you can load your shells with 100 grains of Black OR with 38 grains of SR-4759 and get the same performance at the same pressure levels. The manufacturers have de-listed SR-4759 three times that I know of since I started handloading, but they always have to bring it back because it is just so darned USEFUL. Last summer was my best friend's last year at the rifle range. His heart was giving lots of troubles and he was having a lot of trouble breathing, so nothing ferociously-nasty could be used with any safety for him. We spent the summer shooting his pre-'64 Winchester Model 70 in .300 Weatherby Magnum... but with the thing loaded down with a 150-grain Hornady and a light charge of SR-4759. He had a 20-power scope on it and made some satisfactorily-tiny groups and the ammo actually was producing about the same horsepower as a LIGHT .30-30 load. There are loads for this powder as a special reduced-charge powder, in a couple of the latest loading books.
Whatever you do, be sure you have fun!
