I know this subject has been visited numerous times but I thought I would mention this as I have been away from the forum for some time and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.
I competed at Camp Perry this summer in the vintage military class with my M39. I bought it in unissued shape and had only fired it a few times. I had hand loaded about 50 some SMK 174gr .311 J-words and got fantastic accuracy. I also shot about 150 rounds of the brass cased Prvi 182gr surplus and that’s what I shot the match with. I did notice that the gun got rather hot while shooting the match. When I got back to our barracks and I was cleaning the gun I grabed one of my friends 30-06 bore gauge tools and placed it in the muzzle and it read a -1. A recently re-barreled (Crition) Garand read a +1.
Do you guys think I damaged it? Cleaning Patches still go down the barrel real smooth.