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Hello Rune Son of Bjarne
Perhaps we ask too much of Gandalf. Despite being of a divine nature - he was not infallible. Tolkien related in a correspondence:
“But in this ‘mythology’ all the ‘angelic’ powers concerned with this world were capable of many degrees of error …”. - Letter #156
When talking of wizards, and in particular Gandalf:
“… he makes mistakes of judgement ….”. - Letter #156
One of these “mistakes” is misjudging the growth potential of the Ring. All we can conclude from the text is that he was aware of minor fluctuations in fit. We would be on dangerous ground extrapolating further.
Consider the scenario of the Ring being of fixed size for the Dark Lord’s finger and not being endowed with the magical ability to substantially grow or shrink. Does anybody truly believe Gandalf would not have instantly recognized Bilbo’s ‘magic bangle’ for what it really was?
So in my opinion, the text displays Gandalf hastily overlooking the Ring’s minor fit fluctuations without due consideration. But this was intentional on Tolkien’s part, and conveyed by the relatively quick dismissal of the looseness/tightness phenomena. The ‘chain’ solved the problem. And that was the only problem - in the wizard’s mind.
It usually takes a minimum of three aligning matters before one can reasonably start thinking of dismissing coincidence and begin forming a tenable theory. The Ring was definitely ‘gold’ and ‘unadorned’. A correctly envisioned ‘size’ - would have formed the third physical characteristic leg to the triad. A connection Tolkien didn’t want Gandalf to make in The Shadow of the Past or in the interval prior to reading Isildur’s scroll. Otherwise the hole in the plot would have been too large for a credible story.
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