I am a retiree from the tech sector. I have been retired for about five years and now have the time to play with some of my passions from years gone by. Three years ago, while cleaning out one of the buildings on our cottage land, my grandson found one of my old springers from the 70's and asked me if we could do some plinking with it. Sounded like a great idea until I realized the leather piston seal had dried up and was not repairable even after soaking in mineral oil.
Now I didn't want to discourage the grandson and he was leaving in a couple of days, so I wanted to come up with a quick piston seal solution. The only identifying model on the rifle was LG49 (made in Hungary). The compression chamber was measured to be 25 mm, which seems to be a common size. Thought about making a new leather seal but the weather was too nice, so I decided to take a ride into the local rural hardware store to see if we could find something that would work as a seal since I was not too concerned about ruining the old rifle.
After walking up and down isles I spotted polypropylene chair glides in different diameters, one being 25mm (1 inch) glides. These glides came with a nail imbedded in them for attaching to the bottom of a chair leg. I bought a pack of 8 for around $8, and we headed back to the cottage to see if we could make this work. To my surprise the glide was a snug fit, and the nail was easily removed by heating the nail and pulling it out of the softened material. Next was to drill a 3/4" hole in the centre, followed by a countersink for a screw to hold it on the front of the piston. Once this was completed, I put some Permatex High Performance Synthetic Grease with PTFE that I had at the cottage. Reassembled and the grandson put a can of 500 through a test. The unit worked fine and seemed very accurate.
Now after two summers of use I decided to take the rifle apart to inspect the chair glide seal for wear. To my surprise the seal looked almost new after passing about 4000 shots through it. I just thought I would pass this MacGyver move on to those that may find themselves in a similar situation.
I have been reading airgunforum over the winter for great tips as I restore some of my old air springers I found at the cottage and at my parent's place. One being a Webley Senior pistol.
Happy to be a member and look forward to the great conversations on air rifles.
