For cutting out individual bricks I use one of these on an angle grinder to remove all the mortar around the brick and then it just drops out.
Just don't force it and let the tool do the work, letting it cool down every few minutes, or you'll snap it and it gets expensive to keep replacing it.
I got mine from Screwfix 3 years ago, and appart from a small bald patch, it's still going stong. I didn't realise that they calculate the size from the shoulder, and not from the shank, so got the smaller one, so yes, the longer one may not last as long. Having got down as far as I can, I then run an old chisel around the brick to break through the last bit.
It's no so much the wear on it but messing about in a hole that low down will mean the tool will be under a lot of bending stress about 90% of the time. It will snap in minutes.
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