In 1991, I bought a new 17 Remington Model 700, at that time, no new rifle brass was available. A guy at a gun shop I used to visit said an unknown quantity and unknown times sized lot of brass was brought in for sale. It was Remington brand and appeared bright and shiny.
I bought them, 300 pieces or so, and proseeded to prime them, noticed a few had some green 'something' was stuck in the flash hole while I was inspecting the cases….removed them with a dental pick and moved on to charging them.
First 20 or so charged normally, then all of a sudden I was spilling powder everywhere. This confused the heck outta me, I had no idea what was going on or what could cause this sudden lack of powder space.
I dumped the powder and discovered that that green substance was coming out with the powder.
A 17 neck is hard to look into, but with plenty of light I was able to see the issue…getting it out also caused an issue. The corn cob was still inside the case and shaking it was not getting it out.
Anyway, some of the cases must have still had some of that polishing corn cob media, because about a dozen rounds had very hard bolt lift after firing them.
Although I doubt the stuff burns away, it definitely changes the volume and increased pressure…..so I would NOT be firing any rounds you SUSPECT may still contain corn cob media in the case.
I had forgotten about that incident, didn't even know what the stuff was, I didn't own a case polisher back then.
Cheers.