benEzra
Moderator Emeritus
Based on personal experience with a 1952 Tula SKS and a 2005-ish Rock River AR, I'll have to disagree with this. That SKS does not like to run dry and carbon-y at all; lubricating with Rem-Oil, shooting a couple hundred rounds of steel case, then letting it sit for several months in the safe, then taking it back to the range and firing 50-100 more rounds converted the SKS to a straight-pull single-shot, using copper-washed Norinco steel-case. Lubricating the bolt turned it back into a semiauto. That is the only time that SKS ever jammed in the thousand rounds or two that we put through it, as I recall, but that time it jammed every shot for an entire magazine, with the same ammo it ran fine on when clean.The SKS will win the durability and reliability contest over the AR every time in times where constant meticulous maintenance and servicing products are not available.
My AR has never jammed after a similar diet of steel-case without cleaning, but it has never been lubricated with a drying-out oil either.
Having said that, a small squirt bottle of motor oil, reapplied often enough to keep everything wet, is enough to keep an SKS/AR/AK running indefinitely without detail cleaning until the barrel wears out or you can't stand the carbon spraying out of it. Just give it the same care you'd give an SKS or an AK that you wanted to keep running no matter what.