Some Garands are also picky about how the you fill the clips. The staggered column can be loaded so the top round is on the right when you charge the gun or on the left. The correct way, as your HXP arrived, is for the top round, the one you chamber manually, to be on the shooter's right side. The first round stripped semi-automatically then comes up on the left side. This was a problem the military discovered originally. I've forgotten whether or not they fixed it. Either way, the gun clearly favors one arrangement over the other as far as the follower getting the second round pushed up fast enough for the bolt to pick it up. More rounds in the magazine means more mass inertia to overcome in moving the ammunition up.
Howard and Wogpotter beat me to it with the grease. If you've been using the Tetra grease, especially on the op-rod spring, you should have a pretty fair layer of ptfe rubbed into the finish. You should be able to wipe the op-rod spring dry for that reason, and not incur special wear. However, do check that your op-rod is in good condition. They can get soft and bent over time and not push back quite so firmly at the start of the operating cycle.
Next, let me recommend a specific lubricating product that I've been using for about 8 years now. It's a NASA patent lube consisting of an extremely thin penetrating lubricant that bonds to iron, as a number of them will do these days, and that contains an acid-neutralized micronized moly in a colloidal suspension. It is called
Plate+ Silver and is sold by Sprinco. It works only on ferrous alloys. In 48-72 hours of submersion the oil bonds to the iron and the moly finds its way into every tiny surface imperfection. It then provides a fairly permanent lubrication that feels dry to the touch and can't be removed even by solvents. Only abrasion that removes the surface metal gets it completely off. Bores treated with it show the same velocity drop you get with moly-coated bullets and it withstands bore temperatures for 1000 rounds or so. Outside the bore it lasts close to indefinitely. I like to reapply it annually, but have no knowledge that I need to. The moly gets into the porous structure of Parkerizing and darkens it during soaking, so prepared for that finish to darken where you use this stuff.
I soak all the Garand moving parts and the un-barreled receiver and the gas cylinder in it these days. I set the op-rod piston-down in a baby food jar. I fill the jar about an inch past the piston (so it will discourage carbon accumulation). I put the op-rod spring into the op-rod and fill the op-rod's spring tunnel with the Plate+ Silver. This all sits for three days. I then reverse the spring to submerge the second half and give it another three days. I then remove the spring and pour the excess liquid from the op-rod tunnel back into its container (it's good until its all soaked up or gone). Same with the jar. I wipe off the piston head and wipe off the spring with a clean rag. I spin the spring coils over a crease in the rag to wipe them dry inside. I usually prop the op-rod up to let excess lubricant run out of the tunnel into the baby food jar. After an hour I wipe the mouth of the tunnel with the rag, including a twisted corner going in a short distance. I then run a clean bore mop into the op-rod tunnel to wipe the excess out. You can can use brake cleaner to take the lube off the mop. Let it dry, then run it in to pick up any left behind.
In the end, I wipe everything off off before final assembly. This lets the gun run dry, but not unlubricated. I had so much trouble with oil getting into the bedding on my first Garand that this drier approach is more attractive, season round. The product is not advertised as a rust inhibitor, so I would not give up wiping exterior surfaces with LPS 2 or Birchwood Casey Sheath or whatever your favorite rust inhibitor is.
P.S. The Hornady manual loads are anemic. If you have a good condition op-rod and receiver and bolt, go to Wolfe Publishing's site and buy a copy of Handloader #114, March-April 1985. It includes an article by John Clark (pp 30-33, & 50) with an extensive list of tested Garand match loads at more normal pressures. Just be aware that 1985 is long enough ago that powders and primers and case capacities by brand have altered since then. I recommend you knock at least 5% and preferably 10% off any load listed there and work it back up while watching for pressure signs and using CCI #34 military-hard primers seated 3-5 thousandths below flush with the case heads.