Its much more likely that your friend poured the powder down a barrel with oil or moisture in it, and failed to clean and dry out the barrel before loading the powder. I always recommend flushing a barrel out with alcohol to remove oils and grease, and moisture, which evaporates with the alcohol.
Normally, unless you are using a very damp Waterbased lube on a patch, or using saliva on the patch, you should not see the powder in the chamber affected by your lube. I have seen guys putting a wet patch down their barrels that are SO wet, that liquid is found pouring down the sides of their barrel. That is Way TOO MUCH liquid lube. When you do that, you are going to foul the powder to some extent, and cause at least the front part of the load to " clump". I have helped men pull their PRBs, and then use a patch pulling jag( looks like a corkscrew) to dig the powder out. The clumped powder clearly feels damp, and often shows evidence of the luquid lube. I specifically recall one guy at the club doing this with his bottle of Hoppe's #8 Black Powder solve and lube. I was using the product at the same time, and when I saw how much he was pouring over the patch and down the barrel, my mind said, " Uh, Oh!" and sure enough, the charge would not fire. That is when I started looking for my ball puller, to help him. It wasn't until we actually put the clumped powder in his hand for him to feel that he would believe how he had caused his powder to fail to go off.
Apparently, someone had shown him how to liberally use the solvent when wetting a cleaning patch, and he misunderstood and thought that is what you did with your patch, too! Its nice to see someone else screw up, but I have plenty of " dumb Things " I have done in my ML career, too. :surrender: :hatsoff:
