Gas rings are produced via stamp cutting.   This means that the top side edges will be round, while the bottom side edges are sharp instead.

When the gas rings are mounted to the bolt channel via your finger nail, you have to make sure that the stack of rings are all installed with the bottom sharp edges towards the tail of the bolt.   This puts smooth edge against sharp edge, with the sharp edge facing the tail of the bolt to give a better seal from the gas being driven against them at unlock.  
Note, depending on how sharp/bur'd the rings are brand new, it may not be a bad idea to take a light stone to the burs so they they will not catch on something.

Some times assemblers will get in a rush, and install sharp edge toward sharp edge, and this will cause the rings to bind up against each other to cause the damage you see.

As for gas rings, they are cheap enough, so pick up a few sets to cover you down the road as well.



As for if it was not the rings installed wrongly, some times the step channel in the carrier is cut too deep, and when the bolt is moving at lock and unlock, the rings will get caught at the reduced step.  This is easy to check and as you are installing the bolt into the carrier, you can look at the cam channel on the bolt/ end of slot channel on the carrier, and make sure that all the rings have moved past this step reduced before the cam can be inserted into the bolt.  Also, look inside the carrier and make sure that there is not a bur at the gas port that may have snagged the rings.  The key passage port should be behind the ring, but some times there is enough of a bur that will snap off to snag a ring instead.

If the bolt or carrier is the problem, then get the manufacturer on the phone that produced them, and they will send you are replacement for free. Hence defective produced is defective produced, no mater how old the B/C is.

In general, the bolts are all produced to the same spec, so the replacement should head space the same as the old bolt in the rifle.
Note, if you have head space gauges, not a bad idea to check it.

On carriers, you have to check the gas tube to bolt alignment on the swap, and regarding bolts, since they do mate in with the rifle barrel extension is play, you really don't want to start swapping bolts around in other rifles over and over again (short of just say a few rounds for testing).

If the rings where not installed correctly the first time around, and where  bur binding up against each other, then the answer is yes.

Like I said, rings installed incorrectly from the beginning, and it happens a lot, since an entire production rifle is production line built in about 3 min flat as the average; including all the sub parts as well.

Truth is, the two things that you really need to check as you are first pulling a brand new factory built rig down for cleaning before it shot, is to check the gas rings and the hammer spring, since these currently are being installed incorrectly on a shit ton of rigs since it not armors that are building the rigs, but who the company can find to production line build them cheaply instead (yes, even the sub assemblies as well).