Yep . One of my first Garands was an H&R . Shot so good I made it my go-to shooter . After several years and thousands of rounds , I finally noticed the very small tack welds under the op-rod. Nothing had happened so far , so I continued to use it. After 30-35 years and 15-20,000 rounds , the grouping was opening up to 4-5 inches . Sent it off to have a NOS barrel installed which forced the removal of the welds. The new barrel installed without issues ( thought the welds might have been there to hold in a loose barrel due to oversized/ worn reciever threads ) . Accurracy was still a poor-ish 3-4 inches so I looked into it more and found looseness in the stock fit. Put in a new Dupage stock and I'm back to almost 2 inch groups and none past three.
It's good to have my old friend back.
Oh , as an aside , the gunsmith asked me if I wanted to have the gun refinished because of the grind marks . Thought about it , but they were under the wood and could not be seen and the rest of the original finish was pretty good . Found out later that the ground area would not have taken a proper refinish anyway due to metal changes caused by the heat.