What Caused This?

[Singer B]

I acquired a pretty nice 1891 Argentine Mauser a few weeks ago. It is all matching except for the missing cleaning rod. It was in pretty good shape and just needed a new top handguard and a good conservation cleaning/treatment. After I finished servicing it, I took it out for a test fire session using PPU 7.65x53mm Rifle Line ammo. The first round chambered perfectly and the round fired with no perceived problem. When I tried to extract the casing, the bolt was stuck and I had to pound it open. The case was stuck in the chamber and I had to pound it out with a rod. I took the gun back to my gunsmith (who also sold it to me) along with the spent casing. He ran a camera into the chamber and you could see that the chamber had been gouged with some tool and the marks in the chamber matched those on the casing. The edges of the chamber were chipped and cracked. Basically, the gun should not be fired and I have now retired it which is too bad because it turned out pretty nice! My gunsmith did offer me my money back, but he is a pretty good person and the gun still fits in my collection. My question is, has anyone seen this before and if so, what caused it and why would someone do this? Was this part of decommissioning process? Thank you for any information you can provide.

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