How should I lube my ODS-1775 or other Kalashnikov Pattern firearm?

We get a lot of questions about lubrication for the AK.  The AK generally is happy so long as it's wet.  You can use lard, tallow, 10W30, SLIP2000, anything so long as it's wet.  That said, we've had really good luck with the following:

We like grease (OCCAMLUBE BLACK MAGIC is our fav) on the camming triangular lug of the bolt, the rail cuts in the sides of the bolt carrier, the rails on the receiver (both the welded in ones in the crack there to keep out corrosion and the top ones that the BCG rides on). Another good place is between the axis pins and the hammer and trigger (but oil is good there too). After we grease all those spots and run the action a couple times we put a light oil (10w30, slip2000, remlube- whatever you like) on all of the internals (including the recoil spring) but NOT the piston itself.  Too much oil can poison primers, so blowing your bolt off (including the firing pin channel) with compressed air is a superb idea.

We must emphasize two critical exceptions to the "keep it wet" rule:

1.  If you must oil the piston head, wipe it down very thoroughly after doing so.  That oil gets turned into carbon during operation and will gunk up your piston/block interface really badly.

2. NEVER use grease on the firing pin or in the firing pin channel.  It can cause the firing pin to stick, causing an unintended detonation.  Our favorite method is to wipe the pin down with a light coat of oil, then spray oil into the firing pin channel and blow it out with compressed air.  If you don't have compressed air, use a q-tip or similar to put a light coat in the channel.  Inspect that it's debris-free before reinstalling the pin.  Shake the bolt and listen for the firing pin rattling forward-and-back to ensure that this critical safety aspect is met.

We've got a couple of videos on field stripping and lubing your gun here:

https://youtu.be/FtxInrjORA4?si=S-k3tI9mcMEyb-GF

https://youtu.be/6WvELK4Hdx4?si=hmokb3vuVAi2-nCQ