So you push the crud back down on top of your fresh powder.
What about the two to three inches from the breach up that get all fouled.
No cleaning:
100 shots shots a day huh.
Your reply should be over in the joke section!
Actually you don't clean the breech until the end of the day...you do thoroughly clean your black powder weapons every day you fire them don't you?
The problem with fouling in the barrel is that it constricts the inside diameter. Muskets in the Revolutionary War used undersized balls specifically so they could continue to fire 3-shots per minute without needing to run a cleaning patch down the barrel. With rifles, the ball has to be a close enough fit that the round ball would force the patch that held it into the rifling grooves. With the patch pressing into the rifling grooves, the patch and the round ball both spin. So rifles are slower loading than muskets but accurate to far greater ranges.
However, If you fired two shots without a lube that would soften and push the fouling down on top of the new charge, you might get a second load to seat, but not a third. So a good cleaning lube makes a world of difference when firing multiple shots. The fouling at the back of the breech has virtually no effect on the loading of the next round though, as long as you clean your rifle every day you fire it. So using a patch lube, like Stumpy's Moose Snot, that softens and loosens the fouling enough to shove it down on top of the fresh powder charge allows you to keep loading and firing all day.
If I don't use enough Moose Snot on a patch, I will have a tougher time seating the ball. It will seat but it's a bit of a struggle (I use .490 ball in my .50 rifle). Then I just make sure I use more on my next shot and everything loads and fires just fine without using a cleaning wipe. The trick with using enough of it or any similar self-cleaning lube is to use enough to feel it come through the back of the patch while you are rubbing the front into your lube. And, of course, make sure you lube enough area of the patch to engage the rifling.
I've been using Stumpy's Moose Snot for over 20-years now and as long as I use enough lube on the patch, I don't have to stop and make a cleaning wipe at all. I can just continue loading and firing one shot after another. It's a concoction you mix together yourself that fits nicely in an Altoids-type tin box and is the consistency of paste shoe polish. It gets a little softer in 100°F temps but doesn't liquefy and leak out. Nor does it freeze solid in below zero Fahrenheit temperatures. It works well.
