???? Walther LP53

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jkingrph said:
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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Use some light oil on the threads of that cap and get it running up nice and smooth (without the spring in)
No point struggling with tight threads before you even have the spring in….so check.
Then sit on the edge of a chair or on the stairs. Hold gun sideways on between your hands, elbows on your knees. It creates a powerful mechanical advantages ….use the palm of your left hand to do undo/tighten….
 
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Steveoo said:
Use some light oil on the threads of that cap and get it running up nice and smooth (without the spring in)
No point struggling with tight threads before you even have the spring in….so check.
Then sit on the edge of a chair or on the stairs. Hold gun sideways on between your hands, elbows on your knees. It creates a powerful mechanical advantages ….use the palm of your left hand to do undo/tighten….
Click to expand...
I did clean and lube the threads with a very light synthetic grease with teflon, That did make it a bit easier,
 
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I was finally able to test the LP 53 today, enough light for my chronograph to work. Before breech seal, new leather piston seal and the Protek spring and guides, I was getting about 290-295fps. With new seals and original springs, about 305, with new sping abut 370. I suspect that new leather seal is still somewhat tight and probably will wear in and hopefully increase velocity some. As it is the firing cycle is much smoother with the Protek kit installed.

I was advised by Phillip at Protek to remove the rear sight when installing a spring he knew of some that had been broken when customers had been trying to do so, and that replacement sights are not available.
 
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jkingrph said:
I was finally able to test the LP 53 today, enough light for my chronograph to work. Before breech seal, new leather piston seal and the Protek spring and guides, I was getting about 290-295fps. With new seals and original springs, about 305, with new sping abut 370. I suspect that new leather seal is still somewhat tight and probably will wear in and hopefully increase velocity some. As it is the firing cycle is much smoother with the Protek kit installed.

I was advised by Phillip at Protek to remove the rear sight when installing a spring he knew of some that had been broken when customers had been trying to do so, and that replacement sights are not available.
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There is something a bit off with your gun here. The Proteks kit never performed as my original design specs …If it had been followed correctly it would have been a much better kit (Mainspring used is very poor and rear guide too tight) but even so, you can still expect 50 fps from it….but your gun is a good 40 fps down on what you can expect from the stock pistol on OEM springs….
At 100 fps light of the mark at the outset of your project, i suspect the gun is not sealing or a bad piston chamber.
Its poss you may have a un true piston. You may need to bore gauge it to check for roundness and parallel.
 
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Last I mixed some HBN( microsized hexogonal boron nitride) power in some RWS chamber oil and introduced a good bit into the transfer port and hopefully coated the cylinder and leather piston seal with it. I also had a small bit of lightweight Mobil 1 with some of the powder suspended and lubed the piston and spring a little more with a few drops of it. When I had originally assembled the gun I had used a synthetic grease on the piston and spring and it may have been a bit tacky. I started shooting and zeroing, then just switched over to shooting over my chronograph. Velocity jumped up to the mid 390's, a few down into 385 range and one or two just barely over 400, so improving. I don't know how many I shot like that but a lot, my hands were getting sore from cocking it. Those little wooden cocking aids really help. I'm still hoping and thinking it will improve some more with a lot more pellets through the barrel.

HBN is a white powder, that can be used as a dry lubricant. It is inert and non toxic,often used in creams/lotions. and lipsticks to create a feeling of smoothness/slickness. Get a bit on the fingers and they really feel slick. I have used it to lube bullets for my centerfire rifles, but it makes them a little too slick, small caliber bullets simply get too slick and slippery to pick up easily.
 
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Steveoo said:
I would clean everything out and just use a touch of mineral oil to soak the piston head in …
Synthetic mixes, esp those which contain any Teflon can cause Leather to separate apart and over expand..
Keep your lube simple..
Maybe 100 shots or so to see it can at least run-in to the low to mid 400s..
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I will give that a try tomorrow, I got a call late last night and will be working today and will not have any time to fool with it today.
 
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i bought a Predom in good+ condition @ Midwest show $ 90.00 last year shoots good . I had never saw one or heard of one just liked the looks and thought it was interesting that the spring is in the grip and so recoil is sort of UP . really like the pistol , fun and fairly common to find at the shows .
 
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beerthief said:
i bought a Predom in good+ condition @ Midwest show $ 90.00 last year shoots good . I had never saw one or heard of one just liked the looks and thought it was interesting that the spring is in the grip and so recoil is sort of UP . really like the pistol , fun and fairly common to find at the shows .
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Second that Beerthief. In my opinion the Predom is a bit underrated, and with a red dot actually a nice pistol to shoot. Ok, it may be classified as a copycat, but it stands for itself in my opinion.
 
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The Proteks kit was originally my idea but where my original development was stolen by a notable on the Airgunbbs and put into production. No sour grapes from me in regard that as it is a free market and always likely to happen to any tuner at some point or another. I think most tuners do not care as long as there is some acknowledgement....
However, the engineer that did the work changed things, going with a worse than useless hand wound mainspring with a very tight guide.
This robbed a good 20-30 fps and effects the accuracy. The spring also weakens very quickly.
I have fitted a few for shooters who purchased them that were already rusting when they showed up in the post. A characteristic of low carbon steel.
The making of good mainspring is a real science. You cannot just wind these things up yourself. It takes years of development with well researched methods and materials to create long lasting mainsprings. Also why reinvent the wheel when the mainspring I prescribed was already sitting there.

If you do not have the required skills to manufacture the parts, you could buy the kit and simply swap out the mainspring for the HW30 spring. The chopping of the coils not highly skilled and easily done with a dremel or corner of a grinding wheel (if you have one) and the 30 mainspring has marginally bigger inside diameter than the kits spring, meaning it will better fit on the tight guide....just a bit of an expensive way to go about it I guess.
 
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Canders said:
Agree with the assesments of the Predom, very nice and it was that one that i went looking for but found an LP53 for less. @beerthief , wish they were that cheap over here, seen two recently in a shop for £250 :oops:.
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I stumbled on a guy @ midwest Air gun show (sort of a garage sale where people set up tables and sell air guns ) He had bought the guns at a estate sale and was just selling what ever he could as he didn't know anything .(or so he said?)
 
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Notes on the Predom.
It's a goody but needs work internally.
It will always be slightly behind the LP53 due to the trigger not being anything like as comfortable, or as light.
The absence of thumb rest on the grip does nothing to help and the additional weight of the steel barrel can causes a slight muzzle dip when the gun bucks upward on stroke completion, but some will like the fact the barrel is steel instead of alloy which is also easier to re-blue.

The predom definately needs to have a steel Top hat as the piston is lighter than the LP53 and too light.
The Proteks kit will slide over the guide and the mainspring, or preferred HW30 mainspring will fit.
Crafting up a new seal will be a must.
Anything that works for the LP53 will fit and have slightly greater benefit due to its too light piston and even shorter guide rod...
 
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I stumbled across this thread because I have an LP53, and since around 10 years ago it has lost enough pressure that pellets can no longer reliably leave the barrel.

Hopefully I can use the information here to revive the pistol, but on top of that, especially input from steveoo, do you think this would be good enough to compete in ISSF 10M air pistol at a local level? I used to compete back in uni and I wonder if a modded LP53 can do well enough that I can hold off on buying a top level pistol for a couple of years. Will it last going through a couple hundred pelelts a week?

Last question is if anyone has figured out if there is a way to do dry fire training with this pistol. If I manage to get the discipline in I plan to mix training strings a few times a week and daily dry fire.
 
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