I am compelled to throw my two cents into the pot.

Last Sat. I discussed MLers with an older gentleman whilst standing in line for a controlled hunt deer license application. He stated that one should clean MLers with room temperature water, rinse with hot water and run patches until dry, then use light coating of modern rust preventive. His exact words were “They’ve discovered cleaning with hot water…”; I didn’t ask him who they were. (I assumed he was talking about Randy et al.) He said that washing with hot water forced moisture into the pores of the steel and caused latent rust (as in the day after a patch would show rust).

Now I’ve used nothing but Bore Butter in my round ball shooter and I have had a little rust in the barrel the day after cleaning, but then I was washing and rinsing with hot water after a days hunt and maybe I wasn’t getting the barrel completely dry. And I have to admit I never have done anything to specifically “season” the barrel. I just started using BB after a buddy gave me tube, before that I used WD-40. About the only thing I’ve ever seasoned is a pie iron (cast iron) I got for fathers day with cooking oil and that worked like a charm.