Sometime ago, someone posted a thread to say they used a particular grease to reduce to almost nil, the air leakage from his loading-tap. I cannot recall the date or member.

Recently, the loading-tap lever was very stiff on one of my two Webley Mk3s. I therefore opened up the loading tap assembly, removed the parts and the hardened grease that caused the problem and then reassembled. Alas, in so doing, I then noticed that after cocking the rifle and then switching the loading tap into the upright (loading) position, the seal did not take the pressure from the released air as it previously had. Instead, whereas the cocking lever was previously brought to a near halt, despite the pressure of the air under pressure from the spring, the cocking lever now swiftly returns to its position against the barrel.

I doubt this has any impact on the velocity, but I thought I would see if I could restore the ability of the rifle to hold the pressure when slowly releasing the cocking lever (with the tap opened after cocking the rifle and then pulling the trigger and slowly releasing the cocking lever).

This rather special characteristic still operates on my other Mk3.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Rgds
Andrew