No guessing with a torque wrench. Allows directly measuring and adjusting bearing clearance.

https://youtu.be/3maKtAfzkMg

 

A lot of good information in the video!

My grandfather taught me basically the same method for finding the zero clearance starting point and not the going procedure of using a torque wrench, but from there I was taught to go off of thread pitch & angle. We would determine thread pitch while things were apart using a comparason gauge, then set clearances based off a book my grandfather had. That book is long gone now, but I seem to recall us setting our old farm trucks up with an 1/8 turn from zero clearance. The thread pitch of the axle stub shaft is 16tpi so an 1/8 turn would be ~0.008 inch of axial end play which is close to your 0.010 inch set point. Looking at the adjustment ring (anti-rotation plate) with it's 16 holes so it allows for ~0.004 inch of axial adjustment per position change on the adjustment ring (anti-rotation plate), but as you said, that changes by flipping it over as the hole pattern is offset from the key so you can get a bit closer if needed when lining things up during reassembly.