Oh man did you buy it used from a mechanic or something? That factory stripped screw nonsense is just brutal. I had a similar nightmare with a KitchenAid attachment once, stripped out of the box. Drilling it out is the only option but it still leaves those ugly scratches. Baratza usually has decent QC but sometimes you just get the lemon. Honestly at that point I would have just chucked the whole grinder and bought new.

Did you ask him what the gauge said when it popped?

I was that stubborn person too, swearing off scales like they were a personal insult to my measuring cups. "A cup is a cup," I'd tell myself after every flat, dense loaf of banana bread. Then my cousin sent me her grandmother's sugar cookie recipe, and every ingredient was in grams and ounces. First batch turned into hockey pucks. Second batch was a floury mess. Third batch I finally broke down and ordered a cheap digital scale, and the cookies came out the exact texture she promised. Now I weigh everything for baking, and my measuring cups just sit in the drawer collecting dust like neglected exes.