Gents, if the barrel is indexed properly and there is no obvious damage or twisting of the receiver, then the op rod is just going to have to be re-bent and Jim Schwartz does that very well.

When I was working on batches of Navy Garands, I found a general rule of thumb on how op rods fit. Out of 10 rifles, two or three worked in most rifles, three to four worked in some other rifles, one to two only worked in a couple rifles and the last one or two only worked in the rifle it was in. This is due to tolerance stack up, wear and how the rods were adjusted to the receiver during assembly or rebuild.