sounds like a good scrubbin! and well needed. for a while alot of guys i talked to and read posts of said a bore brush wasnt needed unless shooting sabots. i didnt use one for a while, then i finally said balony...im goingto brush it out and run boiling water through it. scrubbed the heck out of it and like you was surprised. although you can get preeeetty clean with just a patch i think a brush is the smart way to go. and i can also get mine into my "chamber"..cant remember what its called..but the veeeery bottom of the bore where the charge sits. i noticed jags dont go down that far and i can get a brush down that far. i dont know why or whats up with that..like theres something that stops my jags. but my brush scrubs that nice. it is rough on brushes to push it down there but i think its worth it to get it clean. i can sleep easier at night knowing i got the whole bore muzzle to breech cleaned. i now always clean like that. boiling water with a brush...then some patches with solvent(#13..or i picked up rusty duck DIRT cheap and i like that too now) then pull it out and start drying it...seems to work for me..i STILL use bore butter and have no reason to stop. I fire my gun as often as i can so it doesnt sit TOO long. though it sat this year from mid january till about a month ago with a charge in it! i somehow FORGOT to uncharge it when i came home from the last hunt. pulled the ball and cleaned it and was pleasantly surprised it was clean. i put the bore butter in while the metal is still piping hot from the boiling water but DRY and run alcohol patches then mroe dry just to make sure its dry. im pretttty particular about cleaning my flinter. i about died when i realized i forgot to uncharge it. but no rust so i guess it was ok. theres still guys that wont put a brush into their bores. i dont know why but they are out there. i will have to try a 54 cal brush in my 50cal. see if they will last better...or worse...

If your rods are TC they will replace them. I sent in a renegade kit rifle ramrod from years ago. The tip was coming off and it was starting to splinter on the grain. TC sent me a new one right away. Had a clear view powder measure that had a cracked end used to tighten the adjustment rod which I had duct taped to hold it tight. I sent that in at the same time and a new one came back too.They have very good service

MAUSER06: I have also had that problem with not getting a jag with patch all the way down. I discovered that it was where the hole came in the side from the nipple (bolster?). Apparently, there was a burr there where they drilled the hole into the barrel. It was stopping the jag, but if I pushed a little harder, it went past it the last inch or so to the breechplug.
I started using a rifle cleaning rod with a large dry patch flipped over the end of the rod to get all the way down there, then twist it around (it wasn't tight) to make sure I got any moisture out. I also followed up with an oily patch the same way to make sure it had a light coat of oil clear to the breechplug for storage.

All ML cleaning-patching should see an outer, front-to-back wrap versus a side-to-side wrap. Patches 2-1/2 to 3 incheswork best in 50-58-cal rifles - either round or sqauare... doesn't matter.I commonly double & triple wrap my patches to get the bottom of the my sidelocks boreclean. When I'm down there, I twist & turn the ramrod clockwise a few revolutions & sometimes surprised by the fouling I capture.

There are a variety of ramrod attachments you can try - to see what works best in your ML. Choose from bore brushes, jags, scrapers, patch removers, aero-tip bullet seaters,& ramrod thread adapters.

One of them will likely work nicely at the bottom of your bore. Be sure to include some liquid solvent either poured-in or sprayed heavily prior to cleaning the breech-bottom.

i used a .410 shotgun wire brush to get down in that funnel where the powder sits.i wrap a patch on it, soaked in bore cleaner,let it sit for awhile , then clean patch on brush back down, then warm water /soap. i am using hot water now and i am getting rust.