Good Morning All- I feel that these findings need to be posted. Yesterday I dropped the remaining 31 loads and measured the powder in them. The goal weight was 10.6 grains. The published max was 11 grains. The powder contained ranged from 13.3 to 14.9. I was using a soft lube, so there may be a skewing of the numbers because of that- but this mistake has been one of my own doing. I simply got into a hurry, was using a 5-10 scale. The old 505 came back out. Typically when I load, I set the scale-double check on a digital then I begin loading. That morning I did not.
I ordered a new recoil lug from numrichs and took it out to test yesterday. Ran flawlessly. (thankfully I was alone! Ratchet strapped to the bench with my trigger and lever twined)
In ending, this is a big wake-up call and since I had asked for advice I thought I had better share the results. After test firing the crap out of it, took the rifle, brass and my other trapper (for comparison) to a gunsmith friend. Checking function and brass condition, rifle's got a clean bill of health. Thankfully this ended well. Negligence, pure and simple. Friends, learn from this-it could happen to you as well. I can tell you I never thought this would have happened to me.