20 years or so ago, I began loading for my 45 Colt. I cannot remember all of the powders I started out with but I do remember that Unique was my final choice. It shot well and loaded up some fairly heavy loads for a Ruger Blackhawk but I also found it to be dirty. After about a year of shooting it with Unique, I got tired of the soot. I looked up some similar loads in an old Lymann loading book and found some HS-6 loads. Keep in mind that I'm loading for a Blackhawk and this powder may not be suitable for new model Vaquero's, Colt revolvers, replicas and other weaker framed revolvers. Nonetheless, the HS-6 gave accurate loads with probably 50% less soot. I have been using HS-6 for all these years since...near 20 years now.
I have to say this however; I shoot cast bullets exclusively. In the past I experimented with jacketed bullets and found that the amount of soot residue is reduced to almost none when shooting jacketed bullets. I've experimented with some loads with H-110 and other ball powders and found that they are slightly less sooty as well. Nonetheless, I have come to conclude that most of the soot that I see all over my Blackhawk is not generally from the powder itself but rather from the lube on my cast bullets.
I am not sure what type of bullets you are loading beerbelly but if you are loading cast bullets, try a few jacketed loads and see if the "dirt" is reduced. If so, perhaps you won't be so disenchanted with the Unique powder but rather the bullet lube used on your cast bullets. It bugged me for several years but I have come to live with it. On trips in which I have taken my Blackhawk with me and had no time to clean it between shooting it, I have fired literally five to seven hundered rounds from it in the course of a few days and never had a problem with it caking up or having the performance comprimized. In rare and extreme cases like this, I just keep it well oiled and wipe it off with a clean rag between shootings. Most of the soot simply wipes right off anyway. I've had this particular revolver for 20 years now and it is still in fine shape....of course, it's a Ruger Blackhawk too.
