Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Case head separation

Since you dont have freezer room, do you have a buddy with a deep freezer that will take a barreled receiver ?

What I did was take a can a bit bigger than a soup can, bend one side to resemble the spout of a coffee pot, than place the item in the can and heat it GENTLY until it melts - it will resemble solder actually.. Prepare the rifle by running a good patch down the bore from the muzzle end and stop about 1/4" before the chamber mouth.. Leave the patch and the rod in there while you tip the rifle up muzzle down and angle the ejection port so you have a good view of the chamber mouth in which to pour the cerrosafe into it.. Pour JUST ENOUGH to fill the chamber w/o going over, if possible..

Set the can aside to cool. Leave the action alone for about 10-12 minutes.. Remove the rod and patch. Take another wooden dowel, insert into the muzzle to the chamber and tap a couple times.. The case should fall right out.. Then drop the case into the can, heat it again slowly until it melts and remove the empty case via forceps and throw away.. Once the cerrosafe cools, cover the can and keep.. It lasts forever..

Were you able to remove the brass? How?

I have had several case heads separate in an Enfield years ago, when I reloaded 303 brass one time too many. The broken shell extractor with the teeth worked for me, but not by closing the bolt on it and pulling it out with the bolt. I unscrewed the fake case head off the broken shell extractor, screwed a cleaning rod into the teeth part, hooked the teeth over the front of the case, and whacked backwards on the handle of the cleaning rod a time or two with a hammer. Couple of whacks pulled those broken 303 shells right out.

Edit to add, there used to be two different makes of those broken shell extractors. One only had one row of those little teeth. The other one had two or three rows of teeth. I had far better luck with the one with multiple rows of teeth.

I am following this now, intently!
I had a 7mm rem Mag seperate and the case is still in there (minus the head of course). Tried a few tricks, nothing worked, It's now in the freezer until later today, then I don't know?
Off to a gunsmith maybe??