Walther LP53 Lockdown Fun

[hellsquad]

Interesting, fitting a TR Robb PTFE head in mine gave an instant 25 fps boost.

If you've sanded yours - then that must of made it smaller, so the gain must be coming from the oil swelling which is likely to wear off - possibly fairly quickly.
It would be interesting to see how it's doing after say 500 shots...

I actually can see the PTFE benefit, but not in my gun with its bumpy cylinder LOL

When I said sanded, i actualy just "broke" the impacted surface enough to allow oil to penetrate as it was solid, impacted and shiny before..

I have gone back to the leather and after about 300 shoots is now shooting 360+fps with single figure consistancy.

[steve medlock]

Interesting to read this as I've been messing around with LP53s recently as well and also comparing with predom Luczniks.

One of my LP53s has the Protek kit and makes 390 fps. Two others unmolested make 370 & 414 fps. The latter pistol appears to have spent most of its life in the box! I've not looked at piston seals yet.

I read elsewhere that HW30 springs can be cut down and used and I would also like to make my own Delrin bits to try.

My Predoms don't make the same sort of power - 300, 335 & 375 for the best one. I've always found them unpleasant to shoot in the past and so rarely take them out of the drawer. However I'm been trying to address the issues I have with them to make them more enjoyable as internally, they are a reasonable quality. Fitting the Protek kit made no difference to the power at all strangely.

Steve.

[hellsquad]

Interesting to read this as I've been messing around with LP53s recently as well and also comparing with predom Luczniks.

One of my LP53s has the Protek kit and makes 390 fps. Two others unmolested make 370 & 414 fps. The latter pistol appears to have spent most of its life in the box! I've not looked at piston seals yet.

I read elsewhere that HW30 springs can be cut down and used and I would also like to make my own Delrin bits to try.

My Predoms don't make the same sort of power - 300, 335 & 375 for the best one. I've always found them unpleasant to shoot in the past and so rarely take them out of the drawer. However I'm been trying to address the issues I have with them to make them more enjoyable as internally, they are a reasonable quality. Fitting the Protek kit made no difference to the power at all strangely.

Steve.

Did you feel the kit improved the firing cycle ?, I did

[steve medlock]

I wasn't at all sure so I've just taken two LP53s out to the workshop and tested them together. I don't know whether its a fair comparison as I don't know if all other things are equal but I was shooting more accurately with the unmodified pistol which was a bit surprising.

As far as the Predom goes, I 've cut down an HW30 spring and made Delrin top hat & spring guide. Previously it was doing 300 fps and now its doing a steady 470 fps !! The Delrin machines really easily and its so quick and easy to make these parts - don't know why I've never done it before. If only the Predoms had the Walther trigger.....

Steve

[steve medlock]

I enjoyed this thread last year so I thought I would add in what I've been doing over the last couple of days after 'reading up' on possible improvements to the LP53.

My benchmark was an LP53 with the Protek kit and the original Walther leather piston seal which was giving me 390 fps.
(Unfortunately I didn't have a record of what it was doing on the Walther springs)

I first replaced the spring with the HW30/18 coils upgrade and kept the leather seal - 440fps, substantial improvement.

Next, I fitted the Tony Leach seal. I wasn't sure what to expect as the seal is 3mm thicker than standard so reducing the swept volume quite a bit.
Result 485 fps - very pleasing! (increase may be partly due to the wear on my original seal of course).

Next step was to reduce the transfer port from 4mm to 2.8mm. I'm pretty slow on the lathe so it probably took me a good hour to make the insert.
Testing after the loctite had cured gave 490 fps. I really was hoping that this would push it over 500 but sadly no. I don't think that this change really made an appreciable effect.

Happily the pistol is still very pleasing to shoot which is good. I'd previously got a Predom up to 470 fps but felt quite harsh.

Pellets were RWS Geco.

Steve.

[steve medlock]

Having finished my LP53 mods for now, I thought I would compare some different pellets in respect of velocity. So a bit of fun for now with no interest in SDs or accuracy at this time.
I'd read that Air Arms pellets suited these barrels and as the postman brought some this morning, I thought I'd get right on it...

Results:

RWS Geco 7.3g 495 fps
AA Diabolo Match 4.49 8.02g 470 fps
AA Diabolo Express 4.52 7,87g 475 fps
Bisley Practice (H&N) 8.3g 450 fps
H&N Excite Econ II 7.6g 460 fps
Sig Sauer Dagger Copper Coat 7.2g 440 - 490 fps
Skenco Hyper Velocity 5.9g 530 - 580 fps

The last two pellets tested were too inconsistent to give a meaningful average!
The Geco, although an economy pellet, appear well made and are quite consistent so I will probably get a few more tins of those.

Steve.

[Garvin]

Having finished my LP53 mods for now, I thought I would compare some different pellets in respect of velocity. So a bit of fun for now with no interest in SDs or accuracy at this time.
I'd read that Air Arms pellets suited these barrels and as the postman brought some this morning, I thought I'd get right on it...

Results:

RWS Geco 7.3g 495 fps
AA Diabolo Match 4.49 8.02g 470 fps
AA Diabolo Express 4.52 7,87g 475 fps
Bisley Practice (H&N) 8.3g 450 fps
H&N Excite Econ II 7.6g 460 fps
Sig Sauer Dagger Copper Coat 7.2g 440 - 490 fps
Skenco Hyper Velocity 5.9g 530 - 580 fps

The last two pellets tested were too inconsistent to give a meaningful average!
The Geco, although an economy pellet, appear well made and are quite consistent so I will probably get a few more tins of those.

Steve.

This seems amazingly powerful to me Steve! Traditionally the LP53 was seen as high quality but fairly low-powered. No longer, it seems.

[loiner1965]

nice reading.......want one now lol

[hellsquad]

nice reading.......want one now lol

Still love mine, got it out today for a shoot in the garden, great fun

[Lawrie Amatruda]

A couple of my LP53s are doing 490fps with 7.9 Crosman Matchpells, mind you I have converted them to Co2

[RobinC]

Do these "Super LP53's" recoil any more, or less?

I still have mine, bought new in 1973 purely as a centre fire trainer!

No idea what muzzle velocity mine did, it always just limped through the paper at 10 mts, just enough to score the shots, but was very accurate!

I shot a Toz 36 Target nagant 7.62 revolver in Centre fire match (still have it deactivated!) at the time, and the LP53 was a good trainer, as it had more recoil than the centre fire pistol!

Good old days!
Have Fun
Robin

[steve medlock]

Do these "Super LP53's" recoil any more, or less?

I still have mine, bought new in 1973 purely as a centre fire trainer!

No idea what muzzle velocity mine did, it always just limped through the paper at 10 mts, just enough to score the shots, but was very accurate!

I shot a Toz 36 Target nagant 7.62 revolver in Centre fire match (still have it deactivated!) at the time, and the LP53 was a good trainer, as it had more recoil than the centre fire pistol!

Good old days!
Have Fun
Robin

Robin,

Good question I thought and I didn't know the answer so I've just been shooting my test pistol against one of my standard LP53s.

The recoil on the test pistol is very quick and returns to aim such that its not particularly noticeable. The standard pistol is a much slower reaction and is much more noticeable.

Accuracy wise, I would say the test pistol is comparable to my Diana 6 s which is quite remarkable.

Tuning air guns can often be disappointing and frustrating but this time a much improved pistol has emerged I feel.

Steve.