timing/dwell questions

[mwmeador38]

well i saw a good thread on here concerning timing and dwell once but now i can't seem to find it again. i have a 66 chevy 283. i bought an old dwell meter
on ebay and when i hooked it up it said 4 degrees. i thought maybe the old thing didn't work or something. so i'm in the garage today and decide to try and set the dwell with it again. i turn the hex screw clockwise and get it to 10 degrees and the engine starts running bad. i loosened the distributor and turned it counter clockwise until the vacuum advance hit the back of the intake. it ran better but now that's where i'm stuck. so what do i do now? pull the distributor and turn it clockwise and re-stab it? then proceed to increase the dwell until i reach about 30? i don't want to get everything so messed up i can't get her running again but it looks to me like that's what needs to be done. any advice???