I have been reading this post and was kind of hoping someome would chime in here. I do not know the answer. All I know is my experience. All I have found is that I get less fouling from a target barrel than I do a light barrel when I shoot them at the bench and they have a chance to get a little hot. I do not allow them to heat up too much before I set the rifle aside and let it cool off.

IMO what causes the fouling is friction. And I also believe friction causes the barrel to heat up. So it would stand to reason that the hotter the barrel is the more friction there is. So fouling would increase in the hotter barrel if you did not set it aside.

However I believe fouling is more a component of barrel quality. I watch 1,000 yard bench rest shooter's shoot a 10 shot string at 1,000 yards in 5 minutes. Their barrel's are not burning up after the 10 shots. But then they also shoot a heavier barrel than most.

I have noticed that my higher qualit barrel's(Krieger and Douglas)do not foul nearly as bad as my lower quality barrels(Savage). My savage 300 WSM rifle shoots great, but the barrel fouls quickly, and heavily. I always have to shoot two fouler shots after I clean it. Most riflesonly take one. Tom.