Try it, you'll like it, just not on your custom blued exhibition rifle. Or any nice blue job. Parked or cerakoted or stainless, who cares!
Wet towels, ice cubes, tube and funnel, even CO2 gas. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure there's no liquid in the bore (incompressible, so other stuff bends) when you shoot again. If you get a barrel hot enough that water will warp it, you've already ruined that pipe.
One guy I shoot with every so often, he's got a SPECIAL RACK so he can pour water down his barrels without much fuss, he just stuffs the hose in the chamber and cracks the valve to the ice chest. Has air, too, a puff and a damp patch of Hoppes 9 and away he goes. Gets decent barrel life and has done more to endanger prairie dogs globally than anyone else.
I have one rifle that is in a special abuse-victim stock that is epoxied and sealed in a massively hogged out barrel channel. I have towel strips that velcro on (sometimes the velcro dot glue gets gooshy) and a spritz bottle of water. Could use rubbing alcohol. A side benefit of the wet/damp strips is less MIRAGE.
But I've never been bashful about hosing down the metal just as long as it's not put away wet. And I never make steam or let things get that toasty. If I can't lay my hand on the barrel, I cool it off.
