With your miles you should not be having any issue with grinding and would ditch the POS Hurst for a MGW in a heartbeat being that hey a missed shift with a POS shifter can really cost you...I know from personal experience unfortunately. And others have upgraded from the Hurst with great reports in the past I read here, if you could find some MGW threads, any way I love mine. Heck I would give you my stock sloppy shifter for free but I would not wish it on anyone. , and Wow reusing stuff can get hard on parts , knowing what I know I would check your slave and throwout bearing support. Monster makes a good billet bearing support most use as plastic in a hot trans connected to a hot plastic slave with a plastic support sliding on it and hot engine connected, has on pics I have seen even melted the slave a little even and the support to garbage if it happens. Spec is a brand I could get from my local Oreilys, you see that tells me NAH.... cheaper clutches will often perform worse but yours sounds more like a hydraulic problem and you most likely have no remote bleeder on your slave or separate clutch reservoir to change out and maybe a thrashed slave from the miles on it that should have been changed out or at least its support.
But not having faith in the ability to positively lock into gates the trans a shifter is just waiting to F up your engine, and Hurst has not had the best rep as in price is good but quality...MEH... Anyway theres some stuff to think about, Good Luck
I had about 18 K on my stock bearing support and mine was OK but with a new engine I got a monster LT1S clutch that is only 700 rwhp for the dual disc and performance and its just like stock only better. To go along with it I made sure I was to get the bearing support because I had seen old posts years back of screwed up slaves and supports years ago from members, and a remote bleeder , I already had a separate reservoir. And the Lt1s was able to use the stock slave for a SS, as in many clutches need a new slave for varied designs..... Now if the spec needed a new slave? what condition the shifter linkage is in or the mounting of it? what condition the slave and throw out bearing and its support? Anyway I could not be happier with the clutch: no chatter stock feel for pressure to engage. And never a slip. And the shifter is a friggin work of art...LOL
I have the black with red number ball on a retro shifter.
BTW you should not be "granny" shifting into third like as in lugging the engine that promotes stall and bucking and of course problems like oh not being able to hit a gear as the thing needs to be treated like a engine with a stall speed for the trans....mine is about 1500 as that's my take off rpm, idle is 950 for me.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...maro&FORM=VDRE