When it has to be done, has anybody else had a steady hand?
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Yes. I have very consistently and steadily torn the heads off each and every seedling I tried to perform surgery on. 
I prefer to leave nature to its business.
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i squeeze 1st till i get some movement out of the shell. But normally leaving the seeds in a moist papertowel does the trick.
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I probably save 2/3 and accidentally kill 1/3. Now I try to plant my seeds deep enough to avoid helmet head.
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If you plant your seeds backwards the shell will come off by itself on the trip above ground.
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I’ve had a few successful surgeries w helmet shells I recommend using tweezers and a lil mist of water to help it along if I feel like it’s to stuck I just leave it.
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What end do you consider to be the forward end?
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This is the back of the seed, the tap root will come out the other end.
When you do the reversal seed plant, you want to get it in the medium before the exposed tap root is 1/4" because if you plant it with a long taproot, the plant won’t have enough energy to make spin and push above the medium. I also don’t put more than a sprinkle of medium above it, just enough to keep the seed from drying out.
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On my last batch of seeds I figured out you can ignore the helmet altogether and just gently pick the membrane loose. Loosen that and shell will just fall off. I’ve removed dozens of helmets with misting. This membrane thing was much easier and less stress to plants.
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Definitely removed many helmets, it is delicate work.
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Rarely get a helmet head, or stuck membrane, withe vertical germination. They seem to get scraped off 
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My weapons of choice are a steady hand and seam ripper in the other : ) or a needle
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Happens all the time. Sometimes I do it by hand, you can just pull it open like cracking an egg. Sometimes I use tweezers.
Moistening it first helps.
You can be a little more aggressive than you think, but not much more.
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I have recently done that with one of my seedling…
It works…
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No doubt friend. I resorted to it because these were some STUCK shells and I was about to kill one. So I started playing around and voila! Did the rest like that. Easy peasy.
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I used a small square of paper towel, damped, a placed on top or along were the seed is split. That additional moisture allowed the seedling to finish removing the shell by itself. Moisten and then one drop when placed on the seed is sufficient. Check it in 24 hours. Not my idea. 
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With an occasional moistening of the shell and a delicate squeeze with tweezers usually does the trick for me, usually older seeds need this treatment. Using a tooth pic between the cotyledons to steady the sprout helps too.
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