lots of people do lots of different things.
One thing I did and highly recommend it to shoot a lot and while doing that expermint. When out at the range I swab between every shot but I also found out two of my muzzle loaders accercy goes out the window after just two shots useing loose T 7 Powder. I also installed kling wrap over the muzzle to see if that effected the poi.
I also don't think pellets are more convenunt. you have to have a load that is 50gr, 80gr.100gr, 130gr or 150gr. With loose I can have aq load of 70gr. 75gr. 85gr.90gr. For ther field kust measure out the grain amount you use and put them in to a quick load tube if you want to spent money or use pill bottles asprin bottles they all work just fine. Even some copper tubeing with valve stem caps taped over the ends works.
My experince of last deer season.
Took the Remington 700 54 cal out of the safe November 13th 2011. Ran a patch soaked with windex down the bore and dried it with a couple other patches. Went out to my range loaded up and shot 3 shots to verfy the poi had not changed. Brought it back in my room disassembled the breach plug and bolt cleaned both squeeky clean as well as the bore. Reinstalled the breech plug and bolt. Loaded with 100gr. T7 a T/C mag sabot and 240gr XTP. It sat in my room till the early hours of November 15 2011 when deer season opened. I left it on our screened in porch every night loaded. The season closed for me on December 20 some thing. I finally got back to the rifle on the screen porch on January 3d 2012 after I had taken cake of a bunch of stuff I put off during my hunting season.
With a CCI 209 primer I had installed on the 13th of November it went BOOM .The XTP went thru 2 4 inch phone books and a 4 inch grangers catolog about half way.
Could have been dead deer during the season I feel. I put some cling wrap over the muzzle during rainy days held with a rubber band.
Al