fiddler, not flaming you but if you've ever seen a peasant rifle, you wouldn't be so quick to make such a statement. More often than not, those rifles are used hard and put away, without so much as a patch down the bore. They're very lucky if they even have any oil to put on the rifle.
The rifles get buried in muddy creeks, swamps, dumps and even out houses. Rusty bores, are not considered a problem. Their biggest problem, is getting the crud out of the barrel, gas systems and inner workings. It isn't at all unusual for them to break the rusty action open, with a piece of wood or a hammer. It isn't unusual for them to use a piece of iron rod to drive down the bore, so they can clean it up well enough to get a bullet down it. If they do happen to use it, the hot gasses and the bullet going down the bore and through the gas system, is about all of the really effective cleaning they will get.
Now, well trained government troops, are often a completely different matter. Not always though.
If we could get John One, to chime in here, he could easily tell you what kind of condition the milsurps he picks up in Africa and the Middle and Far East are like. I'll bet a rather large portion of them are scrap and even the poorer examples, that we see are the exception, rather than the norm.
As far as firearms, like the SKS are concerned, we've been pretty spoiled in Canada.
When the first Mosins, started coming in 40+ years ago, they mostly varied from poor to fair condition and got a bad rap because of it.
