I once did that to a friend's muzzleloader. He was over to the house and we were going to shoot ourrifles. I was running a solvent patch down the barrel of my sidelock to remove the oil and such and then ran an alcohol patch while he watched me with great interest. I asked him when he cleaned his rifle last because I had noticed that there was still fowling around the nipple/bolster area. He insisted he had cleaned it a couple days prior to that. Just joking with him I asked if I could check. He replied, go ahead, your not going to find anything. I took a patch and put Butch's Bore Shine on it and scrubbed his bore with one patch. That patch came up with more fowling then even I expected. The look on his face was priceless. He then began to explain that he had given it a good soap and water bath, and that the patches were clean coming through the bath. We ran a few more solvent patches and it still brought up some fowling. Finally I ran an alcohol patch through it and we popped caps getting ready to shoot.

After we shot, he wanted to clean rifles at my house, so I got out the hot water and soap and we washed the fowling out of the barrel. He then thought we were done until I started in with some solvent patches and a bore brush. You might say, he never cleaned his rifle likethat in the past, but he does now...