Heres a trick I believe that I may have come up with for using bore butter effectively:

Using one of those hand held steam cleaners ( you or your wife may have one already, I got ours at Wal MArt for $30) shoot steam through the end where the breech plug fits - so that the scalding water which is produced runs out he muzzel.

The barrel will get so hot the you wont want to touch it, so with a towel or t-shirt, hold onto it so you can run your cleaning patches through it a few times. them dry the outside and inside thourougly with a towel and dry patches inside the barrell.

At this time, the barrell is still extremely hot, but dry. Run a patch saturated with bore butter thriought once or twice, you will be able to feel it get sort and melt with the heat.

Then you have a perfectly cleaned barrel - like the day you bought it, and a perfectly stored barrel. The bore butter will come out more the yellow color it was when you put it in instead of a gunky brown and black color.