RE: Encore Problems (3 days to solve) HELP!
You're swabbing with too wet of a patch and soaking the fowling in the barrel. Then as you swab, you're pushing that wet fowling back into the plug. Once the plug gets clogged, then you're getting the misfires and hang fires.
All too often, people swab with too wet a patch. I use a mixture of isopropyl alcohol and car windshield washer fluid mixed 50/50. Just get the patch damp. I actually ring out the excess mix from the patch to make sure they are not too damp. Then to keep it from getting stuck in the barrel as you swab, work the patch in about 4" strokes, moving down the barrel. When you finally reach the breech, pull that "damp" patch back up, turn it over and repeat the procedure. After that, run the two dry patches the same way in short strokes down the barrel. Then load as normal.
If you have any doubts you may have packed the breech, instead of loading all the powder, etc, just put a 209 primer in it, and fire the primer off. It will blow the breech plug clean and clean. Do it in the dark sometime and you can see the fire come out the barrel from the simple primers. Want to check the plug for being clogged, push a dry patch to the bottom of the breech on your jag and pop a primer, it will about burn that thing up.
That will take care of your misfires. When you swab, remember... you're not really trying to "clean" the gun, just to get the major fowling out of the barrel and make sure that a hard crud ring is not building in the breech. Other then that, it sounds like your all set..
Good luck.