How much grease is in those SKS's?

[His lordship.]

When I bought my Chinese SKS in 1993 it was well greased internally, I did not service the gas piston for 2 years and it seemed fine, but sooty, when I cleaned it.  Greased the gas piston, then serviced it 3 years later, etc.  My arsenal rebuilt Russian was bone dry, after greasing the internals, I ended up greasing the small gas piston rod interlink (inside the rear site area)between the main rod and the bolt body, as it was only lightly lubed by the Soviets.  

Bought an unissued Yugo recently, heavily greased in the bolt/action area, I removed some of it, have not had the gas piston assembly open yet, when I first fired it the grease was just spilling out of the gas piston cover vent hole so I figured it was ok.  But I have been wondering about that middle rod inside the rifle, I suspect that it is greased alright.  Anyways, I try not to open the gas piston rod cover assembly as much as possible as it will bell out the mouth, so I only service it every 2-3 years on those types of guns consuming an average of 200-300 rounds a year.  

The Yugo has a different shaped/made gas piston cover mouth, it looks heavy duty.  Has anyone flared out one of those?  Is the whole interior of the Yugo guns well greased when unissued?  I have read that some people leave the gas piston dry, and others say lightly oil it.  I figure the grease would help preserve and lubricate it.  And the SKS's did come greased from China and yugoslavia.

Thanks

[1911crazy]

I clean all my military guns squeeky clean off all cosmoline and the rust protective grease(i call it fresh cosmoline because its still soft and didn't harden yet) Then I "moly" everything up.  If we look at some of the well used yugo 59/66's the gas systems are pretty wornout which i believe is from heavy use and lack of lube.  I understand that most say run the gas system dry but is running metal to metal dry with the added heat a smart thing to do?  I don't run no gas system completely dry.  I still have my very first chinese norinco sks from when they were first for sale here for $59 and they came with a free case of ammo too.  After doing a G.I. cleaning on it I just moly'ed it up, reciecer, bolt carrier, bolt & gas system and to this day it shows no sign of wear at all.  This gun cycles like the energizer bunny everytime i take it out.  Understanding how moly works is the key to elimating all friction, all wear and galling too.  It stays were you put it and doesn't dryout over time it stays wet and ready to rock n roll at a  moments notice even after long term storage.  Now how moly works it works its way into the small pores of the metal on both moving parts and then there is no metal to metal contact the moly actually wears against itself so there is moly to moly contact rather than metal to metal contact.  Moly isn't temperature sensitive and it can take the heat too.  If you want to test it try feeling the friction of the piston dry first by putting it in backwards and moving it back and forth put it on the gas piston and run it backwards inside the tube to work it in.  Then wipe everything dry and feel how friction free it still is because the moly is in the pores of the metal but not on the surface.  I never shoot my guns without cleaning them properly because who knows if its grease or still wet, fresh  cosmoline for I'm not sure?  I've seen gas systems fuse themselves from the cosmoline seeing heat and it turns to a sticky hard crap that glues the piston to the tube right after shooting when it cools off.  Most will say DON"T LUBE THE GAS SYSTEM but my all my sks's function fine and won't wearout.   These people manufactured cheap replaceable sks's and they don't care if they wore them out because they would just turn it in and get another one.  Who knows how many rounds went thru these well used sks's?  These used guns have been hammered for sure.  I would keep them lubed with gun grease or moly just to be sure they don't wearout.
                                                                           BigBill