Odd shifter problem, need advice

I've got a problem that is related to my shifter adjustment. The car is a 71 Duster w/360, trans is an A-833, shifter is a Hurst Comp Plus with bolt in handle, linkage and levers are correct. All the rest of the related things for the clutch were sourced new from Brewer's.

At first I noticed that regularly I would grind the gears going into second, so I re-adjusted the shifter, and now it goes cleanly into second but grinds going into first if I don't come to a stop first. There's a lot of slop in the shifter so it seems like maybe I'm chasing the correct adjustment back and forth. So instead of going through the adjustment process again I thought I would ask, is there anyway to say if the current behavior of grinding into first seems related to the rod adjustment being too long or too short?

I understand if the only answer is "rebuild everything you haven't already". But I thought maybe someone had been through this before and might be able to say "lengthen (or shorten) the rod one turn and try again"

Thanks.