Brass dents revisited

[montana]

Something you'd use to polish you car, or headlights. Wet and Dry fine grit sandpaper and can of WD40 (I use this to clean caked carbon off the tails of bolts). Liquid or cream car polish like Autosol with a cut will also work. If you have a Dremel that will be perfect.

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With respect Klem,

I would not recommend using any abrasive or steel to remove carbon off the bolt tail. High end manufacturers go to great lengths to keep a tight tolerance in their bolt tail bores in their carriers and is one of the many benchmarks to determine a high end or low end bolt carrier.

When you use abrasives or metal to scrape off carbon from the bolt tail, you are also reducing the O.D. of the bolt tail. The space between the bolt tail O.D. and the carrier's bolt tail I.D. bore uses a small tolerance.
Minimum: .0015
Maximum: .0025

This is one of the reasons a bolt carrier will cause a rifle to short stroke, while a different bolt carrier will run fine in the same rifle..
A shiny bolt tail is an obvious clue to this practice..

I will soak the bolt tail in solvent and use a plastic brush if I feel the need to remove any carbon off the bolt tail.