RE: Cleaning your muzzleloader?
Hot soapy water is all fine and good but it will not remove plastic, copper or lead fowling found in some of the inline rifles. Inlines cause their own set of problems unlike the old traditional that shot a patched roundball that protected the lead from the barrel. Conicals will lead up the barrel and a good bore brush can take most of that out.
I personally like the use of a bore brush and solvents. I think I can get the barrel very clean. After I run some isopropyl alcohol patches down the barrel and make sure it is dry, then it is very important to run a quality gun oil in the bore of the barrel to protect it from rusting......