Hello Sassymassy, Welcome to the neighborhood. I am no expert on the subject or even claim to be very knowledgeable on the subject. Until the past couple of weeks I have been a Traditionalist Muzzle Loader. I discovered recently my old eyes aren’t going to allow the effective use of iron sights. So I went full bore into the inline muzzle loaders. Your issue seems to be a common problem with the BP substitutes and not the gun. The BP substitutes seem to leave a lot more residue in the barrel for some reason. It is even a lot worse with standard 209 primers in some rifles. I’ve learned a great deal from reading and research. I have discovered that you need to swab the barrel between shots at the very least. I tend to over do things a little, but this is working very well for me. Between shots I brush the barrel out pretty good, Run (1) moistened patch down the bore, followed by a dry one. I’ve been considering even putting a little bore butter on a patch and doing that also after the dry patch. Also when I change bullets in working on loads I’ll do a wet patch cleaning and pull the breech plug to clean and relube. This maybe overkill, but once I have a load that I’m happy with accuracy wise, I’ll try other methods that will work in the deer stand as well. I realize that I have not directly answered your question exactly as to why this is happening, but it is the best I have for now. Perhaps someone will be able to answer exactly why BP substitutes are this way. I suspect it's simply that they just don't burn clean enough.
