???? Walther LP53

No problem. Remember what i said about polishing that pin down in a drill chuck. You can use some fine wet and dry paper, until an easy slide fit is acheived.
This making reassembly so much easier, where you can use your thumb to start it, rather than trying to hold a hammer to tap it in. Once aligned you can then reach for the hammer and punch.
The pin never comes loose once in as it has spring tension acting on it coming from the Barr spring pushing against the pin…..plus the grips do not allow any movement of the pin even if it were quite loose.
Its made reassembly easy for me.

I finally got it back tougher this morning. It still strikes me as a 3 handed job, not the easiest thing to do. Putting a slight taper on the very end of the pin and radiusing to remove the sharp shoulder from the factory radius really helped. Previously it was actually getting caught on the edges of the pivot hole in the trigger bar and catching and getting deformed. I suspect the factory had some specialty jigs to hold some of those parts in place for assembly, I just cannot see people assembling them entirely by hand without some kind of help.

Anyway I am awaiting parts, I also need a new breech seal, so have one on the way also.

Once practiced, i can completely strip and rebuild in approx 5 mins.
So i guess they were just practiced fitters.
The elastic over the Beaver tail end helps keep the trigger back…maybe they used something similar.

Steveoo said:

Once practiced, i can completely strip and rebuild in approx 5 mins.
So i guess they were just practiced fitters.
The elastic over the Beaver tail end helps keep the trigger back…maybe they used something similar.

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I’ve been following this thread with great interest Steveoo and also read your thread from Oct 2020 on “Walther LP53 Tune”. Having recently acquired an LP53, I’m going to try your modifications. I can’t get a leather seal anywhere in the UK so, although my preference is your set up of seal, I think I’ll try a Tony Leach poly seal kit (when he responds to my messages). I’ve got a new HW30 mainspring but need a top hat and rear guide and possibly a hardened steel slip ring for the top hat. Being a bit cheeky, any chance you could make some for me (obviously for a fee)? If not then I’ll have to find someone who could make them up for me to the dimensions you specified in your first thread.
These two threads have been a mine of useful information. Many thanks, Ray.

Would the top-hat need a hardened steel slip ring? Would a PTFE one be suitable?

Steveoo said:

Once practiced, i can completely strip and rebuild in approx 5 mins.
So i guess they were just practiced fitters.
The elastic over the Beaver tail end helps keep the trigger back…maybe they used something similar.

Click to expand...

I got the PFTE piston seal in from Robb yesterday, still awaiting the Protek spring and guide. I decided to wait until I get that Protek spring unit in before removing the old leather seal. I hope that combination will be a little smoother and possibly easier to cock. A sheet with the Robb seal said some cylinders were not perfectly round and maybe tapered so I am hoping this seal will work good. If not I guess a leather one will be in the works, JG airguns here in the states shows one also with a metal piece , they call the assembly a piston head. How does that attach to the piece, not identified on the parts, with the long slot that the piston head attaches to, and the spring fits inside.

All,
Maybe JG ships outside of the US.


Hope this helps

Ray1313 said:

I’ve been following this thread with great interest Steveoo and also read your thread from Oct 2020 on “Walther LP53 Tune”. Having recently acquired an LP53, I’m going to try your modifications. I can’t get a leather seal anywhere in the UK so, although my preference is your set up of seal, I think I’ll try a Tony Leach poly seal kit (when he responds to my messages). I’ve got a new HW30 mainspring but need a top hat and rear guide and possibly a hardened steel slip ring for the top hat. Being a bit cheeky, any chance you could make some for me (obviously for a fee)? If not then I’ll have to find someone who could make them up for me to the dimensions you specified in your first thread.
These two threads have been a mine of useful information. Many thanks, Ray.

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Ill sort you out PM me

Just for clarification. I did a kit for Harvey on AGF. He went to a fair bit of trouble to provide useful testing results when he fitted it but, Harveys gun was coming from a very low starting point stock.
Most stock LP53 i encounter are usually hitting 380fps-420fps territory. Len has a nicely lubed completely stock version making 440fps to make the point.
Harveys results are good for identifying typical improvement ranges for seals and kits but coming from a very poor start velocity. I think he must have a bad cylinder chamber.

I just took mine out and chronographed it. 299-305 fps with the original springs, leather seal and breech seal. The breech seal is in obvious need of replacement, flat with the face of the barrel and hard. I'm hoping to get near that 400fps mark with new pfte piston seal spring and breech seal.

Steveoo said:

Ill sort you out PM me

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Thanks, will do as soon as I can. Got a few more days and posts to do on here before I can send PM’s. Unless you are also on the best UK based forum?

Ray1313 said:

Thanks, will do as soon as I can. Got a few more days and posts to do on here before I can send PM’s. Unless you are also on the best UK based forum?

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God no …id never go back on there…..

Steveoo said:

God know id never go back on there…..

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Do you mean AGF?

Both forums…..not sure which is worse

Steveoo said:

Both forums…..not sure which is worse

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I only use AGF, never have been on the other one. Log in less frequently now than when I first took an interest in the sport. It was recommended to me but I’m finding now that vintage and antique guns are holding more interest for me.

Sorry about going off topic guys.

I do visit the AGF and BBS regularly, but I know there can be a lot of nastiness in some of the threads, so I avoid them. (I spend most of the time checking out the sales section for interesting stuff!).
Some of the full-power rifle shooters look down on pistol shooters, particularly anyone who likes replicas. I do have a few, but find myself more draw to traditional airguns as they are usually better made, and for me more satisfying to shoot.

I couldn't abide the Tintwit and Black max link up duo. One provides the cheap kits, the other fits them….so they had a commercial interest…..active on both sites.
Suggest something alternative and they come in support of each other to shut it down. Stifling development….So predictable. They also have support of the moderation team (maybe sponsors) finding yourself banned off the site if getting in a disagreement.

The problem is their one size fits all of a cheap plastic kit cannot be right for all guns.
If Tinbum had left it alone, I would probably have commended him on providing a cheap kit the masses can fit, with little DIY skills, but saying there is not better ways is an over zealous bid to corner the market.
Especially as most of his ideas had come from better tuners early development.
It makes me smile when little sheep flock in support, but have no engineering skills to know the difference…so i would not bother sharing anymore on there.
Other notable tuners stopped posting for similar reasons.
At one point the only topic of conversation on there was fit a Tinbum kit…

As a point of interest, i had made mention of getting tired of swapping out shooters broken plastic top hats.
Also having to retune 4ftb 45s that should have been doing 5.8 but got branded some sort of heretic…..interesting then that a design change occurred 3 years ago to try to overcome the issue with breakages ….ill leave you to figure it out…

Very informative, I will regard goings on with much less of a sheep's eye in future...

jkingrph said:

I got the PFTE piston seal in from Robb yesterday, still awaiting the Protek spring and guide. I decided to wait until I get that Protek spring unit in before removing the old leather seal. I hope that combination will be a little smoother and possibly easier to cock. A sheet with the Robb seal said some cylinders were not perfectly round and maybe tapered so I am hoping this seal will work good. If not I guess a leather one will be in the works, JG airguns here in the states shows one also with a metal piece , they call the assembly a piston head. How does that attach to the piece, not identified on the parts, with the long slot that the piston head attaches to, and the spring fits inside.

Click to expand...

Just my humble non-solicited opinion as a non-expert on the LP53. I installed a Robb piston seal on my non-modified LP53. I thought it made the recoil action harsher than the original leather seal. No real difference in fps. I'm going to try fabricating a new leather seal to see if there is an improvement. I would be interested in hearing if your experience with the Robb seal is different.

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.