You know, I never really thought about the "dirtyness" of my rifle. I guess I expected it to be dirty, since I clean about every 40 shots and I don't swab in between. My cleaning routine is a little different: 1. remove the bolt and breechplug. 2. put a hoppes soaked patch on a long handled breech plug breech and clean out the breech with as many wet patches as necessary (2-3 usually). 2. Run 2-3 soaked hoppes patches from the breech out the muzzle. Let the gun sit for 15 minutes while I tend to the breech plug. 3. use dry patches wrapped around the breechplug brush and clean out breech. 4. wrap dry patches around a bore brush and run through the bore until clean. 5. A patch of Breakfree CLP and I'm done.