Original/ Diana 45 - Factory Synthetic Piston Seals

[Drew451]

As I long time 45 fan, there's always been one thing that bothered me. I have read numerous times that Diana switched to a synthetic piston seal for very late examples of the 45 (original version) but I have always doubted this, myself. I have never seen one or even pictures of a 45 thus equipped.
Despite becoming less popular here by 1983 ish, I know that the model ran to late 1988 before the 34 based 45 T01 came out shortly afterwards. Lately, I have seen / seen references to two 88's with the usual leather riveted set up. Can we safely say that the original 45 was produced with this type of seal throughout its entire 10 year run or are there a tiny amount of synthetic sealed examples, produced for a matter of months only?

[jonnyone]

You're asking a 64,000 dollar question there! I suspect that there the majority of owners of this classic have never ventured inside their guns and wouldn't know. Shame, as its not that difficult a gun to strip down provided care is taken with the spring pressure and note is made of where everything goes.
For my part I've stripped down, serviced, tweaked in some cases and assembled 2x45s, 2x 50T01s, 1x50 and all have had the usual factory leather washer in place. In regards to the 50 this washer was screwed on, but with the rest it was a captive rivet I had to have removed, drilled, tapped and a synthetic washer fitted. This gave improvement across the board in all in terms of consistency and power.
I think Walters in his book makes mention somewhere that he was bemused by the fact that Diana soldiered on with leather whilst fitting plastic washers to other guns within their range. Personally, I think it was a mistake and the gun would have been better served with a plastic washer to perhaps to reduce the need for stiff powerful mainsprings. That said the gun is still a solid well designed gun that was at least level with its competitors and ahead in certain areas.
Other manufacturing areas have plenty of instances where changes to design or mechanical spec are instigated. For example in the car industry I know of an instance where a new higher efficiency engine was fitted to the tail end of a production run of a certain model before its replacement with an updated model which then included the updated engine. There must be other examples in industry where this happens. Coming back to our friend the 45 though, I personally have my doubts that there released any 45s with synthetic piston seals. Its not inconceivable though. Logically for this to happen it would have made sense to use up the very last of the washers, and also the pistons that take the leather seal before starting a fresh production of the updated piston and seal arrangement.
Id really like to have an answer to this myself. If they do exist any such 45 fitted with factory synthetic seals would indeed be a rare beast.
Dave

[landymick]

I'm fairly confident the 45 had leather all way through its production run, the UK RWS 45 of 84 vintage still had a leather seal fitted .