Here is the problem everyone runs into when they don't clean between every shot:
You go along, pushing more balls down, and it gets a bit harder to seat the ball with each shot, until someplace, you can't seat the ball at all!
Now you have a Bore Obstruction.
You can dribble a few drops of water, or liquid solvent, or even liquid lube down the bore, and wait 5 minutes to see if the liquid will infiltrate the cloth patch, and soften the crud that is stopping you from seating the ball.
Or you can try to muscle it down, risking breaking any wooden rod, or hammer it down, risking breaking a wood rod, or bending a metal range rod.
Or you can pull the ball with a ball puller jag, clean the gun and then load a NEW PRB down onto the powder charge.
Most of us have NO clue when you are going to get another ball down, and that next one that simply won't go. It depends on the caliber, the powder charge, the lube and patch used, the Weather, both temperature and humidity, and how long the barrel Set before you loaded the next charge and tried to load that next PRB. The only warning signs you get are a tight fitting PRB. If you have marked your RR for a Loaded PRB, the fact that the dirty barrel is requiring more effort to push the PRB down to the mark is the other "sign".
But, Like others, I tried to cut corners, and I found I could go past that mark by several loadings before I created that bore obstruction problem.
Then, I bench rested the gun, and noticed that shooting a dirty barrel caused the POI to change with each progressively dirty shot. I could get three shots into a group, but after that, I began to see " stringing". And, the second two shots were always together, but a bit away from that first shot, fired from a clean barrel.
I clean between shots NOW. I am not in a hurry to shoot any MLer. If I want to do fast shooting, I take out one of my repeating suppository guns. I take my time cleaning and reloading the gun, so that I can get the Best Accuracy out of the gun and do Precision shooting, whether its off a rest, or off-hand. (See my article on Off-hand, and Trick Shooting in the Member Resources section at the top of the index page to this forum). :thumbsup: By taking my time, I know that any "Miss" is my fault, and not that of the gun or my load. If you are ever going to improve as a shooter, you need that kind of consistency in your load, so that you can concentrate solely on your personal shooting skills.
Field Shooting( hunting and Hunters walks, or Seneca Runs) present enough terrain induced problems that interfere with your practiced stance, that you don't need other problems with your technique influencing the shot. When you can eliminate some of the variables in your load, why not do them? There are so many more over which you have little control! :hmm: :thumbsup:
