Fortunately there are endless alternatives to cleaning and lubing and I have no interest in getting anyone to use bore butter...however, I will add some clarification to some claims made in this thread, based on my personal hands on experiences.
Natural Lube 1000 has been a fine lube for me going on 20 years now...all my precut patches are prelubed with it, regardless if they carry the brand name Oxyoke (who makes them for everybody else anyway) or the brand name T/C, Traditions, CVA, Remington, etc.
It’s the only lube I've ever used for hunting and if anybody is worried about deer smelling it they need to seriously rethink their understanding of scent as it relates to hunting.
Whatever air currents might carry the scent of Natural Lube 1000 to a deer's nose...(and who knows if it would even bother them in the first place)...will also be carrying all your other human smells right along with it...your scent, gun oil, blackpowder, the smell of gasoline if you filled up on your way, the smell of bacon & eggs / any cooking smells if you ate along the way, etc, etc, etc.
So any remote possibility that a hint of wintergreen smell might reach a deer is completely irrelevant...the deer is already long gone from all the other human smells it’s getting on that breeze.
No one can disagree that successful cleaning and lubing have 3 requirements to prevent rust and/or corrosion...the bores must be:
1) 100% cleaned
2) 100% dried
3) 100% lubed
If #1 & #2 are done correctly, then any lube which insulates the bore walls from the air which contains moisture, will do.
And Natural Lube 1000 works just fine as a bore lube..."if it’s used correctly".
Not being a liquid, it does not 'run' or 'migrate' around like WD40 or some oils will so its not forgiving in that sense...it has to be heavily plastered up and down the bore to ensure every square inch of bore wall surface gets coated...then dry patched out when time to use the ML again.
Since I shoot (and clean & lube) a lot year round, I actually got tired of all the extra attention I gave to bore butter to ensure my bores were well protected...and on the basis that WD40 had been a 100% reliable rust preventive for a lifetime accumulation of Remingtons, Marlins, S&Ws for 30-40 years, I switched to that for my ML bores.
After they're 100% clean and dry I just run a sloppy, dripping wet WD40 patch up and down a few times and store the ML muzzle down...simple, faster, and no question that it works.
At any rate, the good news there are lots of choices for folks to clean and lube as they see fit...but there's nothing wrong with NL1000 as a product...it works just fine if used correctly.