Yes to both Holman, it's very strange and I don't want to open the top
Maverickbo,
I had the same problem with my Vapro Flask. The first batteries I stuck in were Efest and they are a little too tight in the tube. I pushed them in anyway and it was like they (at one point during insertion) popped in compressed the spring clip internally and because of how tight they were in the tube just stayed pushed way in.holding the spring clip overly compressed. When you put the bat plug in the battery is just too far up in the tube and didn't make contact on the plug end.
It was difficult to get them back out but I kept pounding the bottom of the flask against the palm of my hand and finally inertia forced the batteries to drop down enough that I was able to get my hands on the end of the Bat an pull them the rest of the way out.
Before I had a chance to make the same mistake a second time someone posted that by sanding the battery sleeve a little would allow them to slide smoothly in and out as they should. I used some fairly coarse sandpaper and then polished the batteries with one of those green pot scrubbers and all is good now and they slide very easy in the tubes and no more binding.
By the way Maverick if you sand them to the point that all the printing is removed and all the sheen of the plastic wrap is gone that is all you need to take off. It is only a thousandth or two over size. Then I just marked what type they are with a magic marker and marked them in pairs "A", "A", "B", "B".... etc to keep them as matched pairs.
One caveat is you do accidently bare a spot on the battery down to bare metal no harm done. It is after all the ground side of the battery anyway. I have read post where people accidently nicked a battery on the threads and considered the battery damaged... "This is just not true" and they will work just fine. If OCD takes over Google replacement sleeves you can buy about ten sleeves for $1 dollar in any color you want including clear.
Hope this helps and I sure hope we are talking about the same problem... I am pretty sure we are but you know how it goes in these post.
PS - Now when I insert any battery I push it in just deep enough to let the bat plug start to thread and let plug push the battery in until it makes contact even though the sanded ones now slide in and out like they should (nice and smooth).