My friend has one of these Thompson Center rifles. He tells me that when he cleans it, it has some sort of section at the bottom of the barrel that is about .22 in diameter. He says he has to use a .22 brush on a rod to clean that section. What the heck is he talking about. Were these barrels made different than others. Does it serve a purpose. Could he possibly have something lodged in there that has a hole through it, and not know it. Can someone please explain this to me. Im dumbfounded and I try to keep up on my muzzleloading data.

He is probably talking about Thompson Center's coned breech. Think of a short ice cream cone and that is what the back of some barrels near the breech look like. I take a small 30 caliber brush from time to time and wrap a patch and reach back in there and scrub around. Strange, I never really find anything. I also use a breech scraper from time to time in the back of the sidelocks. I think a good hard water flush knocks 99.9% of the fowling out of the cone, but I am sure that is what he is refering to.