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).
NO, IT DOES NOT! I have cleaned my rifles with 2 quarts of boiling water poured through the bore, followed by three or four dry patches, then used Break-Free or Birchwood casey Sheath as a bore preservative since 1967. NO ML barrel treated this way has ever rusted! The only time I had a rust problem was when I substituted Bore Butter for Break-Free or Sheath. And, I have found that that T/C No. 13 " bore cleaner" doesn' t get a bore clean. Boiling water does. Boiling water was the Mountain Man' s Choice to clean Hawken rifles! But they used bear' s oil or Sperm oil for a preservative. Sperm oil is great for this purpose, if you can find some! I once had a small bottle of the stuff from a 19th century cache of it!!