If I have no prior experience or knowledge about a particular bullet, I generally start with it seated at .015" off the lands. I have no interest in jamming a bullet unless it is the only option available to get it to shoot, and I may well simply choose a different bullet in that event. Regardless, I would start charge weight testing with the bullet seated at .015" off the lands, beginning at a reliably safe charge weight and working up carefully. The reason for choosing .015" off as the initial seating depth will become obvious in the next step, but it's basically so that you are optimizing charge weight approximately in the middle of the seating depth range you will test subsequently. In my hands, moving a jumped bullet .015" or so in either direction is typically not enough to change velocity/pressure markedly, so you probably won't have to go back and re-optimize charge weight again after the seating depth test.
Once a suitable charge weight has been selected, I would then test seating depth from perhaps .003" off to .030" off the lands. I start at around .003" off because I generally have not had good results with bullets seated right at "touching" the lands. Chances are very good you will find a decent seating depth optimum window within that range that is at least 2-3 increments (.003") wide. Load to the longest increment; i.e. if equally good groups are obtained at .015" and .018" off, load to .015" off. This will allow the most headroom for land erosion before seating depth needs to be re-visited. Of the many bullets I have loaded over the years, only one has failed to display an optimal seating depth window within the range of .003" to .030" off when tested in this fashion. That particular bullet was the .224" Nosler 77 RDF, and it tuned in between ~.030" and .040" off the lands. This approach has worked for a variety of different bullets including VLDs, Hybrids, and tangent ogive bullets.
In the event an optimal seating depth window is NOT found between .003" and .030" off, then you have a couple choices. You can try testing even further from the lands, which is exactly what I had to do with the 77 RDF bullet. Just be aware that if you have to seat the bullet a lot farther from the lands than the seating depth at which you did the charge weight testing (i.e. .015" off), you may need to reduce (i.e. re-optimize) the charge weight. This is because pressure can increase due to the smaller [effective] case volume as the bullet is seated deeper into the case. How far past .030" off the lands pressure might become a significant issue and require charge weight correction/reduction can only be determined by the person testing.
The other choice would be to start seating the bullet into the lands. In my hands, a few bullets have worked really well seated into the lands, very often in a window from about .003" or .004" in to about .007" or .008" in. In fact, bullets such as the .224" 90 VLD will often shoots lights out seated slightly into the lands, but the window can sometimes be quite narrow. However, in my experience, many bullets will shoot just as well seated somewhere off the lands, and usually with a more forgiving (i.e. wider) window. That is why I generally don't attempt to jam bullets until the other alternatives have been exhausted. In fairness, I shoot F-TR competition and this approach has served me well, including with a variety of heavy .224" bullets in .223 Rem. That does not mean it is necessarily a good approach for other disciplines, especially those where jamming bullets might be considered more the norm. The bullet of choice as well as the particular discipline have a lot to do with where and how the load might be expected to tune in. This is the recipe I have used when loading for F-Class and/or general shooting. Just be aware that if you have different and/or very specific needs, other approaches may serve you better.
