leave it to Underclocked to get me laughing...

No you do not have to refresh the stuff. The alcohol will not dissipate. At least it does not seem to. I make it up a pint at a time and just store it on the shelf.

I use the mix to clean the major fowling out of the barrel after shooting. After all why waste expensive solvent simply to soak fowling and push it out on a cloth patch. You can also use water and simple dish soap to do the same thing. The reason I went to this mix wasI used to use an over the counter solution to swab the barrel between shots but had problems.

After you have the major fowling out of the barrel, I then like to run some Butch's Bore Shine or Birchwood Casey Bore Scrubber on patches through the barrel. Just in case there is any plastic, copper, or lead fowling hanging in the bore somewhere. A quick brush with a bore brush and a couple more patches of the alcohol car wash mix, and then I am ready to dry patch the barrel...

I noticed especially with the cap lock rifles that I was always getting hang fires.Even in some of the inline rifles I had problems with the over the counter swab. In fact last time out I usedstuff called Rusty Duck Black Off, instead of the homemade, and the gun refused to go off. This was with a 209 primer. I must have had the rusty duck patch too wet is all I can figure. So I had to pull the breech plug and I noticed the breech plug was now full of wet sludge fowling. I then had toblow it out with the air compressor. Since I had the breech plug out, I swabbed the barrel clean with the alcohol and car wash mix and then put the Knight Disc rifle back together again.

As the weather gets colder (if you live in a place like me) and there is more moisture in the air, increase the alcohol to the mix. It will help stop hangfires and misfires...