I forgot to post back but I did get my gauges and mic'd this puppy.
the problem is that one gauge has 54mm as the largest size and another has 54mm as the smallest size so with either one it is not easy to get a good measurement as the gauge is either totally open or closed.
But the long and short is that the bore is not a uniform measurement all the way around, even with the measurement difficulties it is clearly not perfectly round. I did the same measurement on the other 6 cylinders of this brand I had on hand and they varied much, much less, in fact the NWP and Farmertec cylinders all varied less than the problem Meteor cylinder. The crazy thing is the piston does feel indeed a little tight going into the bore even without rings but will spin easily without scratching the piston (probably I don't produce enough rotations to cause visible indications).
Meteor sent me a replacement for the one I sent the customer so it's all good.
I did ask the Meteor/Caber sales guy about the whole process and they manufacture their pistons, rings and circlip from base material to finished product and do final manufacturing and Nikasil plating on their cylinders.
If anybody wants the out of round cylinder and piston to play with/measure let me know .
thanks to all you guys for helping me figure this out
Dave