We are always interested in this topic as we try to shoot about once a month in the winter and about 2 or 3 weeks per month in the spring, summer and fall. So we do quite a bit of cleaning! We have used 4 or 5 different types of black powder solvent/ cleaners in the last two years. So far we just can't see any advantage over a two second squirt of regular, everyday liquid dish washing soap in a gallon pail of warm tap water. With the breech end of the tube in the pail, 10 strokes with a tight fitting wet sponge and then use of a clean dry sponge kept just for this purpose and a hose down with WD-40 cleans our rifled cannon completely. 10 minutes start to finish.
Are we missing something here or are the extra benefits of these "special" cleaners very subtle or so esoteric that simple guys like us just can't quite notice them?
Thanks for posting, thelionspaw, this remains a very important topic; nobody wants a rusty bore!
Regards,
Mike and Tracy