Sweets and Similar Caustic Solvents

The patch has to be pushing some quantity of it into the vents in my muzzle break (I have a NJ-compliant upper where the device cannot be removed) and into the gas system.

My question is: what is that stuff doing to my AR if I don’t get it all out?

causing corrosion.

no finish on brass jags, the cleaner is disloving the brass (well the copper part). that is waht it does.

link

That is what common sense says.
But whenever I ask people who use stuff like Sweets about the inherent conflict between the 15-minute warning on the label and the internal characteristics of a compensator and the AR's gas system, I just get a dismissive "it's fine, don't worry about that."
But no one has ever given me a satisfactory answer as to "WHY" I do not have to worry about it.

Thanks for the link. I am going to keep that.

the Ammonia will pitt steel. now if you dry flush and reoil the ppm of Ammonia can be low enough where it will not casue any problems.


Simple test grab some polished steel (clean oil free) and leave of sweets on it to air dry, what happens? now you have an idea of what could happen (never did the test) if you let the rifle alone long enough with sweets on it.

Ditch the Sweets. I use to use it and while it is a very good product there are better, safer and more effective products to be had. I now use Wipe Out foaming bore cleaner and it removed copper as good as the sweets but is 100% safe to leave in the bore and will never cause damage.

I clean with sweets on Sundays. I use hydrogen peroxide after. It does a good job. I have cleaned this way on maybe 40 different SS uppers until they got shot out. And on guns that have a flash hider or comp, I hit that with brake clean.

Use it up but if you don't feel comfortable buy something else and I will buy the rest of your sweets from you.

Like they said before me, there are plenty of good solvents out there that work the same. Butches is good too if your looking.

Here is what happens when foaming bore cleaner leaks out of the receiver, runs down the barrel nut and into the handguard clamp, and then sits undetected for a couple of months.



Kudos to Spikes Tactical for being good sports and sending me new screws.

All I am seeing is loctite on some screws.

I think water left on those screws for a couple of months would also be no good.

How does the borecleaner.........I think your doing it wrong.

LocTite does not eat brass. 1/4-inch of threads were gone from the middle of both screws, right where the gap is in the rail.

First off, who uses brass screws? The ones in your picture look like steel to me. And I would like to see better (close up) pictures of those screws.

What do you mean the threads are gone? The threads look just fine, there is a white section on the threads which is dried loctite. Hit it with a bore brush and get the dried loctite off.

And please explain how you got bore solvent on the screws to begin with?

Are you saying the solvent went up, over the back of the barrel extension, down between the upper and the barrel extension, between where the barrel nut torques the barrel extension to the upper, around the barrel nut to the inside of your rail, and dissolved the screws?

If so, where is the damage to the upper, the barrel extension, the inside of the rail, and the outside of the barrel?

Wipe Out foaming bore cleaner is 100% safe on ALL gun finishes and does not cause any corrosion. In fact the instructions tell you to leave in the the bore as it protects from corrosion. No all foaming bore cleaners are the same.

Only thing I would worry about with wipe out or any other foaming cleaner is build up in the gas tube. I used it for a while on my AR, just blew the tube out with some brake cleaner. Now I use patch out on the AR and wipe out on the bolt guns.

What would it do to the gas tube? It is a liquid once the foam goes away. It would be blown out after the next shot is fired. I would not think it could build up because of that???

Yes it is a liquid, but I have seen notes from a couple of foam cleaners not to use them on gas operated semi autos. I think it is the same reason we don't put CLP down the gas tube. But IDK, I struggled for the longest time to keep my AR running.

Finishes, maybe, but it will attack brass, just like every other copper remover on the market.

from the above pic looks like loctite on steel screw threads, need better pics to see what the op is talking about.

OP, can you post better pics of the damaged areas on the upper?

I am re-thinking my hasty diagnosis. I assumed the screws were brass when I saw the blue powder. The florescent overhead light over my workbench makes the powder appear white in my prior photo, but the powder was indeed blue. To me, it looked like salts produced by corrosion of copper. But if the screws are steel, they would not produce blue salts. With a key assumption debunked, I need to re-think.

The damage was only to the screws. I have a titanium barrel nut and the rails are aluminum.
When I cleaned the screws (Kroil & fine brass brush), you can see below how I brushed the threads right off the shank over about a 1/8-to-1/4" of the length. The threads are severely damaged from about 1/8" down to the nose of the shank.



Details/History:
- My first AR and I am still learning.
- No problems for the first 500+ rounds shooting Lake City XM193
- Bought some cheap ammo to save money. Kids shot about 600 rounds in one afternoon. Made a complete mess.
- Bore would not come clean with Hoppes (as always did before), so I tried Bore Scrubber and Bore Scrubber Foaming Gel.
- I learned that the AR receiver is not sealed when I saw foaming gel dripping on my workbench. I thought I wiped everything clean, but never thought about it running into the gap in the rail clamp.
- Rife sat unused for about 3 weeks.
- Took the kids shooting. After about 300 rounds, noticed the SAR slipping about 1/2".
- Loosened the screws only enough to slide the rail back into place, applied some LocTite and tightened.
- Rifle sat unused for another 3 weeks (this fall was a busy quarter at work)
- Next time shooting, the rail slipped 1” after only 100 rounds.
- I disassembled and saw what I posted in my original pic.

It is important to note that the screws were never touched prior to the rail slipping; so it is not a matter of me stripping the screws by over-tightening. I am willing to accept that it was not the solvents, but "Something" destroyed those screws. See original pic: the threads are there. They disintegrated under only Kroil and a fine brass brush.
Any thoughts would be welcome.

IMHO the screws look to have been either:

1. Cross threaded
2. Wrong thread pitch
3. Or could also possibly be related to soft/low quality fasteners complicated by Loctite 242 or similar.

My question is what do the threads look like in the HG sockets?

That said,any solvent/cleaner with the pH/chemistry to attack copper or brass would not be good to have soaking on mated steel and aluminum parts no matter how safe they are for barrel steel IMHO.
HTH

I lack the technology to get a good photo of the tap threads. Trust me that they appear to retain integrity.
LocTite was only applied AFTER the first slippage of the SAR.
When it comes to torque, shouldn't steel beat aluminum because Al is more brittle than Fe? So, cross-threading or incorrect pitch should destroy the tap, not the screw. Also, note that the threads were intact and sharp upon extraction. The visible damage in the second pic was caused by a fine brass brush. Steel destroyed by brass?
None of this makes sense to me.

<edit>
P.S.
The above reads like assertions, but are actually questions on facts. Please interpret as interrogatives.

I will have to go on your first hand observations as to thread condition when removed as my eyes are no longer good enough to differenciate in first photo.But last picture looks to indicate thread material sheared/rolled off of fastener IMHO.If it was related to caustic conditions I would expect to see pitted/rough surface and discoloration/staining of substrate rather than smooth shear,or force matched appearance.
As to whether the aluminum would yield to the steel fastener,I would say that would depend on the quality of the fastener.If low quality or cheap import grade(YFS marked cap head etc.) fastener the heat treat or case could verywell be softer than that of anodized aluminum.Wrong thread pitch could also have similar results as first few threads in socket deform/foul and effectively damage fastener thread as its installed.
If the threads are good in the HG I would just replace the fasters with known quality and would recommend a good anti seize such as TW25B and then properly torqued to specs given by manufacturer.If you want to use,or a thread locker is recommended I would use a non setting type such as ND Industries VIBRA-TITE etc..
Keep the solvents in the bore and remove after use thoroughly.
As a note,for ammonia based cleaners I always flush the bores with 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol,dry patch well and apply a coat of CLP if the weapon is to be put into storage for any length of time.Im not familiar with and have not used any of these newer aerosol foaming bore cleaners so Im ignorant of their properties or performance characteristics.
That said IMHO a chrome lined bore should not require repeated use of copper removing agents.The-10 describes all that is necessary for normal conditions and use and the only cleaner recommended is CLP.
HTH

if X threaded into al yes, al will give to steel, but your rail may have cres threaded inserts, then if the screws were x threaded the screws can look as you posted.

eta, bore solvents will attack loc-tite making it useless over time.

Thank you for the detailed pics, it does indeed show missing threads which was hidden by the residue.

It appears that the threaded portion near the screw head is intact, but the threads along the body are flattened.

Its almost as if the rail has inserts that were tougher than the screw and the screw suffered some damage on the way out and in.

How hard was it to install the new screws into the rail?

Rail was installed on rifle when I purchased it.
I loosened, adjusted the rail, and re-tightened without any difficulty.
Replacement screws went in without any difficulty.

Its not fine, you should worry about it. is that better , as others have said nh3 will corrode many things including stainless.

I use sweets to from time to time, generally only after a really rought day or a lot or .22 through my conversion kit, but I keep the soak time vry brief and I get it all out as best I can.

Also yo should never allow your cleaning tools to soak up anything solvent or otherwise. A bunch of stuff will eat a bore brush alive.

EDIT: OP after reading down the rest of the thread... (punny). couple things, Sweets really is in a class mostly by itself, its is some fairly caustic shit, no reason to run around like the world is ending when you use it, but soemone telling you not to worry about it is not speaking correctly, you don't have to worry about most gun cleaners but stuff like sweets is an exception.

2. I am not convinced that we are actually seeing any damage there at all. A dab of loctite is good, and then witness mark those bad boys. why would you ever want to deal with discoverign something is loose by feeling it rattle around while standing on the line, witness mark your screws and then there will be no more doubts.

Couple other general rules. Nothing should be used in the gas mechanism or any gas mech. for that matter other than a pipe cleaner or the like, I wont even hit it with iwth brake cleaner on the inside. outside ya sure.

DONT EVER CORK YOUR BARREL

also get in the habit of setting up your cleaning stuff an resting your rifle on an angle to let everytthing drip down and out, nothing should be left to sit static.


The issues with ammo is a common one and is also very often inccorectly diagnosed as lacquer buildup or the like gumming up the chamber. I assume the cheap ammo you switched to is russian. A couple members here have prove pretty convicingly that the russian stuff either wolf or bear or whatever will run just fine as far as reliability goes even with the coating.

The problem with jams FTF's and teh like seems to be fairly repeatable and seems to occur almost always when the shooter switchs from wolf or bear or anyo of th ecoated crap back down to the 193. iirc it had t do with the cases expanding slightly and getting cuaght in the crud that was let behind that until then was not an issue.

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