I started a thread here about my search for a replacement for Unique. I narrowed it down to two possibilities, BE-86 and CFE-Pistol. I happened to find a pound of CFE-Pistol at an LGS so I decided to give that a try. I've still got a bunch of coated and uncoated 180-grain bullets for .40 S&W so I decided to work with them.

My old practice load in this caliber was 5.5 grains of Unique under a 180 RNL and it gave 960 fps from my full-size M&P. My carry load in this gun is 180-grain HST and it ran 989 fps a couple of days ago. I went to the Brian Enos forum and searched in the reloading section for CFE-Pistol data in 40 and there was a good bit there, though much of it was with 1911-length ammo. It appeared that 5.8 grains would be a good place to start. Hodgdon's starting load for 180s is 5.9 grains. I loaded up some Bayou Bullets coated 180-grain LTCs to 1.12" OAL and chronographed them. Ten rounds averaged 990 fps with an SD of 8. One fps faster than the HST, close enough.