Hello experts,

I have recently ran into a problem with my post war Garandicon that was not the case the first 50 rounds I fired; It does not cycle completely. I've tried doing my own trouble shooting and here's what I've got

Problem: My main problem is short stroking(?) as most rounds will eject, but does not feed the next round. I assume it does not complete rearward travel completely to pick up the next round. Sometimes it will not cycle enough to even extract the round. What leads me to believe it's a short stroke problem is hotter commercial ammo I've tried (1 full clip) cycled flawlessly. Also prev mentioned it functioned perfectly before with ~50 rounds of surplus m2 ball. Now the problem exists with m2 ball surplus, and my hand loads to m2 ball spec.

Here's what I've troubleshot:
1.Gas piston measures .526" Gas cylinder measures roughly .5265/.527. Doesn't seem the be a undersized piston problem?
2. Gas port is clean and open
3. Gas plug was hand tight with screwdriver
4. Op rod spring looks good (and fed hotter ammo fine)
5. Passed the tilt test after i brought it back from the range even with the carbon fouling prior to cleaning (to get the bolt to completely rotate it took a few extra degrees of tilt though). Tho when i install the trigger group without op rod spring the hammer hangs up the bolt; I assume this is normal. The extra degrees needed could also very well be "over cleaning" as i had a very liberal amount of grease on the bolt, follower, and receiver. But still "passes" tilt test.
6. Chamber is nice and white since I normally snake and patch the bore after every session.
7. The ejector in the bolt does not protrude past the bolt face.

Things I've not checked rigorously:
1. Headspace - I dont have a head space guage but I now have problems with surplus m2 ball on top of my "to the book" handloads. But everything seems to feed/extract perfectly when manually operating bolt.
2. The gas plug be just not be sealing properly and be defective. I HAVE tried a new adjustable gas block though, and has the same problem with the setting "completely screwed in"
3. Loose gas cylinder. It seems to wiggle a couple thousandths but not any more so than when i got the rifle, and would previously operate fine. Would .01" or so in a loose gas cylinder make a difference in the rifle not fully cycling?

What do you think; Could it be one of the things I haven't checked, or did I overlook something?
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