There's lots to think about in this thread. Commercial precut patches, at least those I have seen, seem to be cut from new material with the sizing still in it. The patches are hard and stiff. Pre-lubed precut commercial patches use ineffective and expensive lubricant in insufficient quantity, and the result is a fouled bore in only a couple of shots. Get completely away from commercial products, with a couple of exceptions. There are two commercial lubricants of which I am aware, that work well...Lehigh Valley Lube and Mr. Flintlock. More about these later.
But the patch material needs to be soft, flexible, and ABSORBANT! Fabric stores sell a variety of cloth that makes into wonderfully efficient patch material. These include various denims, cotton duck, cotton twill, and cotton drill. PURE COTTON - no synthetics whatsoever! Take your micrometer or Vernier's calipers to the store and measure the material...buy cloth that measures .018" minimum and perhaps .025" maximum, and anything between. Around .020" is about perfect in most rifles, plus or minus a few thou. Take the material home and wash it as is twice, to remove the fouling. Hang it to dry. Now, cut your patches or tear your strips if you cut on the muzzle.
If you use cut patches, and cut square is just as good as round, you can pre-lubricate them in a Sucrets tin, ready for your day's shooting. Put in as many patches as you think you might use, pour in your liquid lube - either of the two mentioned above, or your own concoction, and soak those patches thoroughly. Pour the excess liquid back into the bottle, you can even sqeeze out a bit of the liquid too, but don't squeeze too much out. Those patches should be soaked to the point of dripping. Don't worry about soaking your powder with lube...the patch gets stretches and compressed during the loading process and excess lube is squeezed out there. But don't be cheap with the lube. For hunting, mink oil or Neatsfoot oil works perfectly.
And your balls should be cast from the softest lead you can find. Wheel weights and battery terminals are a hard alloy of lead and are unsuitable for regular target shooting. And that may be a little confusing, because you guys south of the 49th have access to pure lead wheel weights...I wouldn't have believed it if one of you hadn't sent me some to make a point. Ours in the Great White North are hard alloyed. But the point is, your lead must be dead soft.
And finally, the crown of the muzzle is super important. Almost all factory crowns are cut either on a lathe or with a jig and are too abrupt. The patch gets stretched too thin on loading over this crown, and the patch cuts or is torn...accuracy is in the toilet before you start. Use your thumb and some abrasive cloth or paper in the 220 - 400 grit area to polish the crown's sharp corners. Just push your abrasive covered thumb into the muzzle and rotate your wrist and/or the barrel, pressing firmly, about thirty times. Then turn the rifle around 180 degrees, and repeat, to make sure the crown gets even attention all the way around. This one thing makes an enormous impact on how easily your rifle will load.
I still use a short starter, with about a 7" rod, to start the ball flush with the muzzle, and then send it down the bore, the length of the rod. This makes loading fast, painless, easy and consistent. Once the ball is started, it will go down very easily with a hickory rod. And I agree with Dane...barrel length has nothing to do with fouling accumulation. My 31" Jaeger and my 48" longrifle barrels both load equally as easily as the other....all day long!
