My experience has been chrome rings are harder to seat than cast and my experience has also been cast rings seat pretty well in the first hour or less of use. Actually I've never seen much to convince me they wouldn't seat fairly well just running the engine enough to set timing, adjust carburetor, check temp, etc. Chrome rings last longer but require the engine to be labored to seat properly (as Jerry already said). I should add I'm not a fan of chrome rings...at least not anymore. I thought they were a neat idea when I was younger, but I've had some that never did seat right no matter what I did. Cast wears quicker, but I'll take that any day. I should add I probably drive like your grandmother, though.
Ring gap is also a concern. The rule of thumb for a non-competition engine is .004" per inch of bore size. I've heard some say as little as .003" per inch of bore size, and while this is on the slim side, it will work. So if your bore size was 3 inches, your gap for the top 2 rings ought to be .012". What you have depends on the machinist/assembler and whether he cared about this or even checked it. Fact...the 235 I'm using now is bored to 40 because the prior owner had it bored to 30 over by some person who thought a ring gap of .038" was ok. The manual calls for .007" to a max of .017". The gap between the cylinder wall and piston was equally as out of whack. In the past, you might see different gaps for the 1st and 2nd ring. Today I believe most agree they can be equal.
Another possible problem is that the assembler didn't "clock" the rings correctly. This is really basic, but I mention it anyway. Things are going to work better if the gaps don't line up.
