I will say this. My recent foray into flintlocks has pretty much disabused me of the notion that both water and anhydrous chemicals are poison to high carbon steel. They're not. In fact, shooting with these codgers has dispelled a lot of prevalent gun myths I've been aware of through watching how seventy and eighty year old guys, who've been shooting these smoke poles their whole lives, do things that work. Rust is oxidation, which is the same thing as burning, just slower. Using any anhydrous product or chemical on high carbon steel does exactly zero to it if it's removed within a short time frame, zero. I've seen plenty of 200 year old antique firearms cleaned with tap water and without a spot of rust or a pit on them. After cleaning they dry them off, and put a light coat of gun oil, or better yet, water soluble cutting oil on them, and they've lasted hundreds of years. Outside of something that is actually an oxidization accelerant, like a strong acid, it is very difficult to hurt steel without alot of heat or abrasion (like a bullet traveling down a barrel). Don't kid yourself, however you clean you're probably not doing jack to the steel. If it were otherwise there wouldn't be any antique firearms, I can assure you. It's relatively recently that things like soap and water, became feared when cleaning a rifle.
