I was raised being given very discrete reloading steps by old timers. While they were getting a little free labor, I was learning a piece of the puzzle at a time.
Before long, I knew the whole process from end to end. The old timers seemed to understand how to teach in a low key way, but also how to make sure you actually knew what you were doing before you took on more complexity.
When the time came , they were careful to select the best examples of guns and ammo to teach pressure and safety. We used robust rigs and started with simple straightwall designs like 38 Special and walked the experience up to 357 Mag. Eventually you got the hang of different types of bullets and powders, and you did it without risk to yourself or the gun. The follow up with bottleneck rifle and shotgun ran the same. Small steps with tight oversight and good feedback.
There was time and distance between what I learned as a kid, and working in the weapon development world. By the time I found myself seeing pressure data, I thought back to those fall days with the old timers and how well they had taught us about pressure without the benefit of the pressure traces.
There is a tendency in the current environment to allow the shortages to get students disorganized. They seem to want to jump to production runs and yet they must start learning without being able to gather the right components due to availability.
It is up to all of us to slow them down and let them have a chance to learn about the effects of different components on pressure before they make dangerous assumptions or "take what they could get" and have an accident.
Consider starting folks out with a robust 38/357 and walk them through from powder puff loads to full house magnums using cast, plated, and jacketed. Let them have a chance to learn how things should look and the warning signs before turning them loose with too many unknowns. YMMV.
