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???? Walther LP53

JG airguns has a piston head that seems to show a cupped leather seal like that but with a leather inner washer? Your opinion, and if going leather what do you recommend to lube the leather, neatsfoot oil or silicone oil?


THey also show the piston seal and inner washer seperately



They say to fit the seal to the gun dry, how do you lube it after assembly, pull it back far enough to see, and then apply oil
 
FWIW:

 
Yeah it looks ok….
If on UK soil i can do them for £30 …

For lube, i simply soak in Parkerhale Express gun oil, or Abbey gun oil and maybe 2 drops every few 100 shots.
There is a lot of misinformation on lubing leather seals. The rotting of the leather with regular being one.
It rots but takes eons…
Changing a leather seal out once in 5 years is not an issue.
 
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For what its worth guys, here are the results of my chrono session at the range yesterday. The pistol has had nothing done to it apart from fitting a new breech seal and a bit of neatsfoot lubrication for the original leather seal.

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I actually prefer my own leather seals. It just takes a bit of patience to get there. I will come onto them in a moment.
As regard the Robb seal, you cannot just put it in the gun. He deliberately makes all his seal up on size, so they can be trimmed to fit. In this way he avoids none sealing returns….
The little nose piece made from steel, can be held in a drill chuck and the PTFE seal polished down with wet and dry to 23.1mm dia to get a sliding fit. PTFE must have a smear of Silicone oil to allow sealing. He tells you this in his sales literature and provides the lube.
The PTFE seal does slam until it finally achieves a proper sealing fit, when both the slam goes down and velocity goes up but takes a good 100 rounds.
Its not ideal however…
The key with the 53 is using a leather seal but keeping it slim, giving you more stroke/volume by placing the buffer spacer within the leather, not ahead of it as it was OEM …like shown.

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Thanks @Steveoo for giving us all the benefit of your experience - invaluable stuff. I had a good first session with my pistol at the range yesterday and loved it. Had fun and came away with a big smile. It could easily become my favourite. By the way, that seal assembly of yours is a beauty.
 
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For what its worth guys, here are the results of my chrono session at the range yesterday. The pistol has had nothing done to it apart from fitting a new breech seal and a bit of neatsfoot lubrication for the original leather seal.

View attachment 343419
Thanks for posting your results. My LP53 has the TR Robb piston head installed, however those numbers look very comparable to mine. Here are my numbers with 7.9 Premieres; 385, 371, 371, 380, 385, 351, 378, 376, 376, 376, 378. Ave fps in this string; 375. By using a pellet insert, velocity climbed to 410.
 
Thanks for posting your results. My LP53 has the TR Robb piston head installed, however those numbers look very comparable to mine. Here are my numbers with 7.9 Premieres; 385, 371, 371, 380, 385, 351, 378, 376, 376, 376, 378. Ave fps in this string; 375. By using a pellet insert, velocity climbed to 410.
What do you mean by a pellet insert? I have a Robb piston head on order, but with all the problems with the UK Royal mail and US customs, I am going to try a new leather seal first and see what happens I have one out for delivery today from JG Airguns. I'll give the the cylinder and piston unit a good cleaning when I get it out, I can see a lot of dirt in there and that cannot be helping anything. I thought about neatsfoot oil, but after doing some reading will probably go with some silicone oil.
 
What do you mean by a pellet insert? I have a Robb piston head on order, but with all the problems with the UK Royal mail and US customs, I am going to try a new leather seal first and see what happens I have one out for delivery today from JG Airguns. I'll give the the cylinder and piston unit a good cleaning when I get it out, I can see a lot of dirt in there and that cannot be helping anything. I thought about neatsfoot oil, but after doing some reading will probably go with some silicone oil.
A pellet insert is simply a probe small enough to push the pellet 1/16" or 1/8' onto the lands of the rifling.
 
Its indicating you are not using a pellet that works in the pop gun phase….
Either too tight or too slow….
Use a Falcon, JSB RS, or RWS Meister Match…
Also that there maybe a burr present at the breech….try chamfering the breech slightly…
Crosman Premieres were at one time held in high regard by many shooters, though maybe not the best choice for the LP53. However it was the closest I had on hand to 8gr which I consider the standard in .177 for testing velocity.
 
I took it back apart this morning and here is what I found, Installed a new leather piston head. oiled it with some silicone. I still need new breech seals the one in it now is flat and hard, probably not sealing much if any. I did not wait too long and tested it over a chrono, still about 300 fps. I cleaned the cylinder chamber out with mineral spirits, let dry and sprayed with some dry teflon for starters. I'm hoping after the oil soaks the seal a bit more and I get new breech seals it will get some more velocity back. I injured my left hand last summer and really have a hard time putting that trigger bar pin back in as well as getting the mainspring cap started.

The new leather seal is more of a cup, and uses a leather inner washer, instead of that rubber washer on the end, Hopefully it will help giving more volume and velocity,
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It went in dry with just a little wiggling, and seems to slide fairly easily. I think I prefer to let it wear in for a proper fit, and I am thinking afte the oil soaks in good it may swell and seal a little better. I need to get the breech seal replaced before considering anything else. . I did use some heavyweight silicone oil on it when I first installed it, then afte getting things back together put some RWS chamber oil in the exhause port and am letting it stand muzzle up now so it can work it's way down.. Also like I said I sprayed the cylinder walls with some dry teflon befor assembling, so hope that helps in the long run also.
 
Still no breeh seal, but with new piston head seals velocity jumped from about 295 to 350 fps. I could see where it was blowing some oil out the side, around the hard flat seal in there now. I have a couple on order from thecountrystore in the UK , but who knows when they will arrive, and finally found some over here on this side of the pond, they are supposed to be delivered next Monday, so am hoping for a bigger jump in performance.
 
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Still no breeh seal, but with new piston head seals velocity jumped from about 295 to 350 fps. I could see where it was blowing some oil out the side, around the hard flat seal in there now. I have a couple on order from thecountrystore in the UK , but who knows when they will arrive, and finally found some over here on this side of the pond, they are supposed to be delivered next Monday, so am hoping for a bigger jump in performance.
If you can remove the breach seal without it breaking apart, you could replace the seal with a backer of paper or masking tape to shim it up. This might suffice until the replacement seal arrives. I did this once and my LP53 worked fine for many shots. I eventually bought a suitable O-ring from the local Ace Hardware store which works perfectly.
 
Well USPS came through and delivered the breech seal today. The old one was extemely flat and had flattened on both sides so it was totally square edged. Popped the new one and gave the gun a quick test and was somewhat dissapointed. Velocity with remains about 300-310 fps, no change and that is with new leather seals. I am hoping the new Proteck spring will arrive soon. On Mar 20 they said it had shipped the previous week.
 
I went ahead and installed the Protek spring this morning. It's raining and too overcast to use my chronograph so will have to test with that another day. Shooting cycle seems a little smoother though. Getting that spring cap, lower guide started on is a job, I ended up holding it in a padded vise and using my body weight to compress the spring, started the grip body onto the threads. If anyone knows of a better way to do this, please let me know, I broked my left thumb about a year ago and simply cannot hold things as tightly as I used too.

I also picked up one of those little wooden cocking aids and it makes cocking much easier.
 
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