delete old pages now or later

Hi.
I just added some 301 redirects to my htaccess file.

Should I delete the old pages now?

If I do that, will someone visiting the old page automatically be redirected to the new page?

Or, do I wait until the search engines have spidered the new pages?

Thank you.

 

I always leave the onl pages on the server, only because, if for some reason i have a problem with the 301 .

And yes, if the 301 is set up correctly, users who go to the old url will be redirected to the new url.

I always verify that the header is putting out a 301.... just to be sure i set it up correctly and thier are no problems.

Put the old url in and see what the header returns.
http://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php

btw: that is NOT a link to my site...

 

Thank you for that link.
I read that I should do that header check but didn't know how.