I believe it suffered some material failure (though it was pretty new) which caused a tension knot where the bristles are. I tried hooking it with a pic. No joy. Pulling on it only made it worse. But that white hot cleaning rod did the trick in about 3 seconds.
I had a similar experience with an Otis Ripcord. I chalked that up to a one time thing, and bought another. I still have some hesitation about using it, but if it ever gets stuck again, I’ll just hit reverse and pull from the chamber end.
Personally, I think that bore snakes make for an adequate substitute for patches used after scrubbing with a brush. But, if you use a snake that has a scrubbing portion that is shorter than your barrel and chamber, then you run the risk of having the pull cord portion snap off when the scrubbing portion is sompletely in the barrel. Do so at your own risk, and don’t use pistol length snakes in rifle barrels.
I’m curious if this was one of the Viper style or not. I don’t know if it’s valid or not but I’ve heard they’re more prone to this very problem for some reason.