You might be able to get away with knocking stuck cartridges out with a well-oiled hickory loading rod, but a dowel will inevitably break and then you have two separate stuck pieces in your barrel, each helping the other to resist being driven out. Even a metal cleaning rod should be regarded as for emergency use only, not as a routine method of extracting badly stuck shells. I have a High Wall in .32-40 with a modern reline and chamber and notice that some of my shells swell at the heads, even with black powder loadings, and need a tap with a rod to get them out. These are old balloon-head cases and the shell holder and die setup on my loading press doesn't allow sizing all the way down to the rim. As KAF said, taking the innards out of the FLS die and using it like an old drive-in-and-out sizer might take care of this. Of course, leave us face it, extraction is the Achilles' Heel of all the classic single shots, and nobody should be surprised by the occasional sticky case. But even the bad lot I described can be gotten out by sliding the rod in from muzzle to breech, pulling it back slightly, and "throwing" it, with thumb and forefinger, against the back of the stuck case, by wrist action only. This usually results in my having to chase a case around the legs of the shooting bench. Having to pound the rod with a hammer is something else again. Threading one of those badly sticky cases through the primer hole, attaching a rod, smearing the shell with Clover compound, and lapping the chamber using a back-and-forth motion with an electric drill, should relieve the tight spots. I have done this on a couple undersized chambers, and, properly done, it polishes out the tight spots without enlarging the rest of the chamber. But I would look to my brass first, and make sure it is properly dimensioned.
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