Alright, so this may be a multifaceted answer, but I've been handloading for a bit now and haven't quite seen the same level of accuracy with my handloads as I have with factory stuff. I mostly shoot 9mm nowadays, .356 sized SNS 124gr coated bullets with about 4.0gr of titegroup (I've got a lot of leftovers from when I was trying to find stuff in the 2012ish powder shortages though so that'll be different every pound or so of powder I go through until I standardize on one.)
Usually I don't care much. I don't need a lot of accuracy for gamer stuff, but I like having the peace of mind that it's really just that I suck.
So what process do you guys work up for the handload that "your gun likes"? Do you start with a powder charge and start playing with OAL's? Do you start with an OAL and start playing with a powder charge? Is there something else that I'm missing here like crimp/bullet diameter or to play around with different powders? Also how do you measure crimp? I've been playing around with it on my dies and I'm trying to find the happy medium that has the bullet firmly in place but not scraping off the bullet coating.
I'm not looking to add a huge amount of extra effort, but I've got a progressive press inbound and I plan on using a lot more handloads for practice/matches because money.