Winchester 353 and Predom Lucznik side by side.

[mikies]

Diana’s model 5 air pistol: Part 1 | Blog | Pyramyd AIR

by Tom Gaylord Writing as B.B. Pelletier This Diana model 5 air pistol is marked as a Winchester model 353. A history of airguns This report covers: Iconic air pistol History Winchester Gun Broker The gun Grip Sights Trigger Expected performance Iconic air pistol Today we begin looking at one of...

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Thank you Septicdeath!! It was someone at Winchester that gave me the link to this forum. The part 1 where BB discusses the Diana5/Winchester 353 was very useful. I made the same observation about the front vs rear site. The machining on the front site seemed crude compared to the rest of pistol. Anyway I have been looking for more info on the 353 for weeks and until I was pointed here, I was coming up empty. Thank you so much. My goal is to get it operational and see what it can do. The blueing is not apparent, but there are no scratches or dings. How much it was used is hard to tell from the outside. The inside might tell a different story. Missing is the manual which comes with it. That will be another quest.

Anyway thank you again. I now have a direction to proceed.

 

[borne2fly]

I recently rebuilt my Diana 5.
There were two stages where I resorted to more-than-common tools ...
1) Getting the back cap unscrewed. Very often they are stuck tight and take quite a bit of fiddling (sometimes even heat) to knock loose.
2) Releasing the spring pressure in a controlled way and re-installing it later. I did this with the barrel fixed in the lathe and used the tailstock to control the release of the spring pressure.

The new seals are slightly oversized and need to be polished down to size a little. But they seal well.

 

[marflow 777]

so many old posts being resurrected
the Diana model 5 uses a 3mm rear cap screw and the tube being threaded in that size you unscrew the rear cap till the cap clears the threaded hole in the tube
you put a screw in the hole and that holds the rear spacer in place and with that done take the cap off and use a clamp to release the spring

 

[borne2fly]

so many old posts being resurrected
the Diana model 5 uses a 3mm rear cap screw and the tube being threaded in that size you unscrew the rear cap till the cap clears the threaded hole in the tube
you put a screw in the hole and that holds the rear spacer in place and with that done take the cap off and use a clamp to release the spring

Mine wasn't that easy. Removed the 3mm screw and the cap was stuck fast. Best way I could removed it without defacing the cap was to apply heat with a propane torch. That worked very well. The clamp I used was the lathe with a steady rest .... kept everything perfectly colinear