Originally Posted by Rumbler
Mapper,
I mostly just use voodoo.
No, seriously, some might call it voodoo, but in reality it is spending the time thinking through what I want to accomplish in a particular load, then a combination of published resources, experience gained by making previous mistakes, and patience in testing.
Patience in testing may be the single most important component behind doing enough research to learn if the powder you think will work, will actually fit the performance criteria you want/need.
I believe it would take an awful lot of words to cover even most of the major concepts, mid level concerns, and finite tuning techniques. Then there is addressing these things and their level of concern related to what type of ammunition you want to produce; hunting, self defense, benchrest accuracy, 'cheap range plinking', etc. Then there is; gas gun, single shot, bolt action variants and their "needs".
Heck it took me several weeks and dozens of rounds JUST to figure out what the best bullet jump was for my Remmy 700. Obviously someone just wanting to create plinking ammo, OR someone wanting match level ammo for their magazine fed gas gun wouldn't have any interest in that process..