Does Sweets 7.62 loose it's strength?

[ShtrRdy]

I recently went through a barrel break-in process for a new barrel. The gunsmith I had do the work suggested I use Sweet's as the copper remover. I had a bottle of it from quite a few years ago that I haven't used much. Anyway, when cleaning in between shots it didn't seem to be removing much copper. I could see copper on the lands at the muzzle. I then tried some Bore Tech Eliminator and that stuff really did well at removing copper.

So my question is, does Sweet's loose it's strength over time?

 

[FearNoWind]

If my research is without error, Sweets has a good deal of ammonia as one of is active ingredients. Ammonia evaporates quite readily at very low temperatures so if you've had an ammonia based cleaner around for any length of time it may very well have lost its vigor.
Kinda like how chewing gum looses its flavor on the bedpost overnight.

 

[mtwarych]

I think the bullet jacket material on differing types and brands of bullets differ.

I have had small caliber rifles shooting varmint type bullets clean up very nicely with Sweets.

The same bottle of Sweets two days later would not clean a 7mm mag shooting bonded type big game bullets. That same day, Barnes #10 cleaned the same barrel with only 3 series of patch only cleaning.

As of now, I use different cleaning products by what works quickest for me with that particular rifle/bullet combination.

Good luck, You will work it out.

 

[newmexkid]

I had a bottle of Sweet's that was probably 6-7 years old. I was cleaning a bad bore and it just wasn't doing the job. At that time I wondered if the Sweet's had lost it's strength. Went and bought a new bottle and it worked like magic! Now I mark the "bought" date on the bottles.