I breech seat with the following method and now I read about ringing the barrel, etc. (new to me) so I would appreciate some feedback.   I have sent a few hundred shots downrange so far with 38-55 Pedersoli HW and see no issues but....
I load my cases prior to the range and use a dry floral foam wad about as thin as you can cut it without it falling to pieces.  I push it down to the powder with a dowel until I feel the very first little bit of resistance.
I do not ever plan to or wish to powder load at the range.
How would I know if the barrel is "rung"?

Per Wayne Schwartz a ringed barrel is the result of holding the powder against the primer with a air space between powder and base of bullet. Ring will occur at base of bullet and is a expansion of the chamber caused by a hi pressure wave being stopped by the stationary bullet. He even caused a ringed barrel by shooting straight up with no wad in case. Poor quality steel in barrel will be easier to ring than modern steels. His  work was with with fixed ammunition.See if you can find his book {The Modern Schuetzen Rifle}. Air space in a case is not your friend. Type of wad seemed to make no difference.

so without a wad of some sort how to you load without spilling powder?   don't really want to bring the gun off the rest/bag each time to load with muzzle up, I guess i will if I should

Just be careful doing it and it'll go fine. Not with black of course. I've never shot that nasty stuff..

Roughly a wad on the powder serves as a bullet blown down the case until stopped by the obstruction of the bullet whereas at the mouth of the case it is like a gas check on the bullet.

One of the Alberta Schuetzen Guild ringed a RKS stainless steel barrel shooting 11.9 to 12.4 grains of H108 with a floral foam wad down on the powder shooting a Paul Jones 235 grain bullet.

The ring slowly developed over time and the shooter was not aware it was there.

The ring was just ahead of the case mouth and just behind the breech seated bullet.

Since it did not affect the case swelling in the chamber; and the bullet was ahead of the ring: it never affected the accuracy of his rifle.

But yes floral foam can ring a barrel.

This shooter always used floral foam and no other type of wad and he always put the wad down on a very light powder charge.

So DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE who says it will not happen to modern barrels or ringing will not happen if you use light loads or it will not happen if you use floral foam.

The ring gets larger with time and you may not know it is there initially unless you have a bore scope.

After many firings; the ring progresses and gets deeper so you can eventually see them when looking down the barrel.
Sometimes the ringing can occur in the chamber and you can detect that when you start getting bulged out cases that start to stick in the chamber.

Or pushing a tight wad down the barrel and for a second it skips forward easily due to less friction when it hits the ring.

I believe Charlie Dell recommended placing a wad at least .100" above the powder to give the powder column a slope toward the front of the charge. I've fired a couple thousand rounds in my 38-55 using a 260 gr. BS'd bullet and a .20 card wad .200" ahead of 17 gr 4227. So far I can see or feel no sign of a ring. That's not to say it can't happen in the future though. Same with my 32-20 and several thousand rounds using a small wad of kapok ahead of the charge.

JS

This is all a bunch of Huey about floral foam ringing chambers, it’s the most popular wad used, if it was ringing chambers we would all know it, it would’nt even be a topic of conversation.  Ledball