Mike - what calibre? I ran into this problem when hunting in very cold temps, -30 and worse, on our late season ML only moose hunt. In extreme temps, testing loads with mink oil, babyoil, olive oil, the barrel got crunchy after 3 or 4 shots. I was using 165gr. 2F at that time for moose. Why- it worked. I then started experimenting with paper ctgs. similar to the military paper ctgs. of bygone years, but with a change - a ball close to the bore size (.006" smaller in this case) and used ordinary bond paper - about 18 to 20 pound as printing paper goes. It was around .003" thick, anyway. 2 wraps sealed with glue, folded over and glued above the ball, and just folded on the bottom, gave me an almost indestructable paper ctg that could be carried in the pocket & gave an 8 second re-load when using a leather disk capper.
The really bright side to this, is that they allowed WW balls and also struck to the sights and gave the same excellent accuracy as cloth patched round balls. The paper wrap was slightly engraved upon loading and all that paper crunched down below the ball sealed the powder gasses behind it so no burning either, just confette out in front of the muzzle. I found I could shoot 10 paper ctgs. in a row until they got too crunchy, then, in testing, would fire a 'cleaning load'. That was 82gr. (3 drams) of 2F and a dripping wet cloth patched pure lead ball. That cleaned the gunk out and allowed another 10 paper ctgs.
Dphar and Bruce S. also use paper ctgs. in thier bore rifles. One ALR forum member, buffalohunter, I think, experimented with paper ctgs. and found they worked in his .54 Kodiak as well. So- form .73, to .69, .66, on down to a little .54 - the paper ctgs. worked.
Incidently, the 'cleaning load' is something I sometimes do at the range after shooting the trail- up to 90 shots sometimes, to clean out most of the breech fouling. In my small bores, .32, .40 and .45, I load about 15 to 25gr. of 3F, then a dripping wet patched ball and shoot that go-pow load at a big plate of steel, usually target #1 - the fouling shot plate. It's amazing how little actual fouling is left in the bore afte this shot - barely anything in the breech, and, of course, only one shot's fouling in the bore itself, that shot being only 15 to 20gr. You must be ceratin that patched ball is hard on the powder - no air spaces allowed. No, it isn't hard to load as the very wet patch softens the fouling, alowing seating on the powder. I suggest not to leave this charge in the bore for very long - the extra, wet fouling pushed down by the wet patch might foul that little charge. So far, it hasn't happened to me - knock on wood.
