In praise of the old leather seal

[eyebull]

I converted my Webley Vulcan to a leather seal over thirty years ago; it's still on the same one, and is smooth and very consistent. My Ospreys are similarly converted.
As Hsing-ee says, leather is very tolerant of cylinder wall irregularity, but they need to be sized to a good fit. Usually a relatively loose fit works best, it should be very easy to push it down the cylinder. Too tight will rob it of power.

This is intriguing. I'd be curious to know if other modern springers could be converted to leather, and how it would affect their real-world performance.

[45flint]

This is intriguing. I'd be curious to know if other modern springers could be converted to leather, and how it would affect their real-world performance.

It’s been interesting for me going back in time with my vintage airgun purchases. I’ve been fortunate to buy some old but virtually new guns. It’s like a time machine seeing what it was like to airgun in 1959? Yesterday it was finally warm enough to take out my BSA Airsporter MK2. The lubricated leather seal gave me 575 fps with a 14.5 grain pellet for 10.5 FP. Did some close target shots, so nice. Yes we have “progressed” to more powerful rifles but I could care less? Do I really need more power? What is amazing to me is that with this technology and craftsmanship a Airgun made it 55 years with no degradation. My Beeman R1 couldn’t make it 15 years without losted performance.

[Phil Russell]

Yes ... I see nothing wrong with the old leather seals and it somehow feels wrong to replace an original leather seal in a vintage gun with a modern plastic seal. But I have known leather seals to fail with age; but they are easy to make and replace, which all adds to the enjoyment. However, a quirk I am very aware of is that an old leather seal that falls apart on stripping the rifle and thus needs to be replaced can often be doing a very good job before the strip.
Cheers, Phil

[eyebull]

It’s been interesting for me going back in time with my vintage airgun purchases. I’ve been fortunate to buy some old but virtually new guns. It’s like a time machine seeing what it was like to airgun in 1959? Yesterday it was finally warm enough to take out my BSA Airsporter MK2. The lubricated leather seal gave me 575 fps with a 14.5 grain pellet for 10.5 FP. Did some close target shots, so nice. Yes we have “progressed” to more powerful rifles but I could care less? Do I really need more power? What is amazing to me is that with this technology and craftsmanship a Airgun made it 55 years with no degradation. My Beeman R1 couldn’t make it 15 years without losted performance.

Given the variability of pellet weights etc. I don't set my rifles to much more than 11 ft/lb anyway, so 10.5 ft/lb is just fine.
Maybe we need to take a step back.