This is indeed the long term fun. But for a new guy buying his first pound of powder who basically wants to get a 9mm load running and later move on to 45ACP, a good-enough pistol powder is the way to start.
Of those powders he mentioned, #2 and #5 will work (better than #7, even though 9mm load data is available for #7), Unique will work, as will W231/HP38. Hodgdon Universal and HS-6 are in the same burn-speed range and should have lots of data available, but I don't have books to look that up at the moment. I used Power Pistol when I shot IDPA with 9mm and it worked fine, but it has the biggest fireball of any powder I've used - not a real problem in the daytime, but it starts to get interesting if the light starts to fade, and the one time I participated in a night match it made things more difficult after the first shot.
BTW, bullet shape (hollow point, round nose, flat point, etc.) doesn't matter when you're picking a powder to start working up a load. What does matter is the bullet weight and its type - lead, plated or jacketed. My IDPA loads, that were used in a Glock 19 and 26, were 124g jacketed hollow points from Montana Gold, which have a rather conical shape to the nose. That shape feeds perfectly in the Glocks, and in the Browning Hi Powers I used before.
I'd leave the rifle loading for later - as a 223 shooter and reloader I'll just say that there can be quite a few more variables to consider when you start that process. I'd learn the basics of reloading with the pistols, first.
ask me how I know
