I've been shooting BP muzzle loaders now pretty exclusively for the past 8-10 years. In that time I've come across pretty varied approaches for cleaning. Old school is just water and patches: using more and your barrel will not “season”. I’ve come across those who say “why the hell would you ever pour water on your metal: you want rust? I find modern smokeless solvents pretty ineffective in my experience at removing the charred black on the pan, bridle, barrel, tang… so I imagine they must be equally ineffective INSIDE the barrel as well. My hands on Sunday were soooo “sooty” from cleaning my gun that I couldn’t get the black soot, Crisco, beeswax grime off my hands with soap, water and a scouring pad. I saw the tub of Gojo sitting on the solvents table in the laundry room, so said to myself, what the hell. Rubbed it on, wiped it off dry, and I coulda performed surgery they were so clean! So my mind starts spinning (as it’s apt to do after 5.5 hours of full load shooting on a warm day): would it clean the inside of the barrel as well, and as easy?
I think we’ve pretty much established in the shooting world that barrels are like women: no two alike, no matter how similar they look and each needs to be treated with what suits them.
So I ask, what is your cleaning regimen for your BP arms? Specify smoothbore, rifled, whether you shoot patched balls, sabots or conicals. Do you use brushes or just patches, etc. I’d be interested in reading the different regimens used here.