I thought I'd catch up with this post. First, I noticed the marks on the barrel on the chamber after I took the pics too. I disassembled it and used my trusty magnifier/lighted headgear and am 99.9% certain that there scratches and not cracks. One is just deeper than the other, and the one I found looping the barrel is actually part of the threads of the barrel. As for ammo, I tried slugging the barrel and being the first time I've done this, results weren't good. Checking around the muzzle with calipers yields at most .318 (need to clean for lead) and least .308-.311. If it comes to it, I'll take it to the smith and have it checked.
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