Newbie question...sorry

No one is saying go to max load at the gate
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I am...I'm saying load them and test fire like I said. If they show signs of pressure or bad accuracy, then you know they are NG.

IME, listed max loads are not dangerous to test. They can damage brass or be unreliable.....maybe cause long term damage to the gun. Max load dangers are about fatigue of shooting over pressure loads many times. I am speaking about modern guns with in spec parts.

You are perfectly safe sneaking up on max load through many iterations....I like most experienced reloaders want to find an accurate load and make a ton of them! I do this through 1-3 iterative load development cycles as described above.
 
For plated bullets I usually start at mid lead level and end at mid jacket level for max. As a general rule I usually end up just over starting levels for jacketed. At some point accuracy gets good and further along it starts to degrade. I load in the middle of this area, this allows for slight variances in powder drops and still maintains acceptable accuracy. So say at 5 grains you start getting good results, and at 6 grains it's starting to degrade, I would set my loads at 5.5 grains. At this point I load up 50 rounds and shoot them, if I'm satisfied with the results then I'll make that a load and load up a couple hundred. Then if all is still good I'll load up a couple thousand and just shoot the heck out of them. Kind of a long drawn out process but I do it this way to prevent loading up large amounts only to find I've settled on the wrong load and am stuck with a bunch of sub par ammo. The example I've used is a bit exaggerated Since the node isn't usually in a range level of a whole grain in small pistol cartridges, I just used it to illustrate my point in an easy to understand way.
 
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