To shoot a spring airgun accurately you need to hold it as lightly as you can. Since the gun starts moving before the pellet can leave the barrel due to the movement of the piston you want to let it recoil in a repeatable manner. Having a tight grip will disturb the recoiling characteristics and will throw off your accuracy. Also .177 not penetrating both sides of a cardboard box does sound incredibly weak. My guess is the spring or the piston has gone bad. The pellet skirt needs to expand to engage the rifling and I'm not sure it'll expand reliably with such low pressures.
I bought one of these in Germany in 1970. It is a match pistol ,mine came with weights and sights . Was very accurate and powerful. Killed a very large possum.
Airguns use rubber seals or "O-rings" to focus the compressed air. As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, your rubber seals are either missing or dried out. You can contact Beeman (in Long Beach, CA, I think) about sending it in for a full service. There may be other places that will do a service on your Walther. Beeman did an excellent job on my Hammerli.
Depends on the type, pre-compressed air guns can be dry fired. Spring powered air guns like this one cannot because that leads to damaging the spring, which causes power and accuracy loss.
air pistols like this tend to be bigger and heavier than firearms because they need a means to generate the compressed air - this takes a complex mechanism including a strong spring, a piston and cylinder, etc.
The Walther LP53 was designed as a training gun to learn how a real WALTHER P38 or P1 would feel while shooting. It hast similar weight and Feeling. Even the recoil is the same as a real WALTHER P38 or P1.
it probably has a leather piston seal which needs treatment or replacement, o rings are the first to wear on air pistols and cant be treated and have to be replaced. dryfiring or whatever stated above results in lack of resistance and can damage the gun. More joules = more damage, but that pistol is so old the spring is probably all bend and worn so it lost a lot of energy, still wouldnt risk a collectors item
Thanks for the video! :-) BTW: the older models have that curved beavertail, just like the one from the movie poster.Your LP 53 seems to be one of the newer models from the 70s...
Curiosity: When the prop Walther PPK didn't show up for David Hurn's photo shoot of the actors, he provided his own Walther air pistol with the barrel airbrushed out on American posters. The original pistol recently sold in auction for US$439,000.
Weight makes less difference as power increases, while it does make a difference to some extent in air guns, it doesn't make THAT much of a difference. The reason for the inaccuracy is the missing seal on the gun.
I have one of these Air pistols, with the original case weights, cocking ball, etc, which I will sell. Mine has original power, so will send a pellet or dart completely through a can. I have carefully maintained the gun, and used it sparingly since purchased new. Reasonable offer.
007 bilge apart, the Walther LP-53 - like all spring-power air pistols need to - requires a special technique for shooting it accurately: a light hold (unlike a firearm), and applying pressure/hold on the grip with only the middle finger, thus allowing the other fingers and the thumb to be there for the ride and not interfere with the sudden recoil jump upon discharging. The middle finger does 50% and the trigger control the other 50% of the performance. Pellets matter but are not essential if the air pistol is well maintained and properly held while shooting. I have shot competitively with mine and got decent scores despite the fatigue the cocking of it exerts. The air Walthers are single hole pistols when tested from a Ransom machine, so they test the shooter's skill more than the shooter tests the Walther LP-53 and similar.
"not very accurate" "won't penetrate" ; there's something not up to par in your pistol, i believe. the last one manufactured was 1978 so yours is over 30 yrs old, minimum. did you check the breech seal? the two springs in the handle? the piston seal? "probably didn't sell very well" i don't know if 125,000 units is a lot, but from what i can tell there are a lot of folks who really like the materials, design, workmanship, accuracy, and looks of this classic, maybe that's why they don't stay on the market very long.
I have recently inherited a mint lp53 identical gun to the james bond gun in the deluxe blue silk and velvet lined case with test cards and wooden cocking knob serial number 024951 and i cant find any info on it
What thisisbadstuff said below and cleaning the barrel is important too, not as important on a firearm but still needs to be done. Thanks for the video! Oh different pellets too, airguns can be very fussy about which pellets you use, since this is a match type pistol using match grade pellets would be a good place to start or just decent flathead wadcutters.
I owned one once, sold it at auction but only got a low price for it as the box was not in great condition! For collectors that is important, I know now!
The poor accuracy is mainly due to deteriorated seals or poor quality pellets. Try to get a re-seal job and purchase some good JSB or H&N pellets, and you'll be shooting 1-hole groups all day!
I agree! I got this LP 53 in 1972 including a barrel weight in Germany. No poor accuracy ever and a quite strong recoil. After some years I replaced the seals. Yes, shooting 1-hole groups all day possible.
Your gun is missing the rubber seal around the chamber where you insert the pellet, this is important as a lot of the air escapes here.. so you loos most of the power :-)
I had one of these back in the early 1970's and neither I nor anyone else I knew could get a decent group with mine, not even friends who had been, or were, serious competitive shooters,
Gordon Sulley Because of the vertically acting piston, the pistol jumps before the pellet has left the barrel so it is extremely sensitive to grip. Sight mine in for single hand shooting and it groups well, add a second hand for support and the group moves several inches as 25 feet. Even how hard you grip the grip can affect the position of the group. The German military used them to teach the importance of consistent grip. It does have a lovely trigger to compensate though.
The Polish copy is called the Predom Lucznik Air Pistol, I don't think it has a model number, it's roughly close looking as the LP53 but a whole deal rougher in build quality!! I feel certain that your pistol would perform better after a service as suggested by Candleman Smith :) I have an LP53 but can's say what accuracy is like as it has the wrong rearsight and no elevtion screw!! I also have an LP2 which is a single stroke pneumatic which shoots beautifully!!
Wow that would've been a cool pellet gun to have as a kid I wish Walther would repoduce them with a nitro piston in it. Also your seal is missing that's why your loosing power.
I have one almost mint in the box with all accessories and I cannot hit anything with it. But there are those who can. Look up 100 years of air pistols by ptdunk where he can hit targets with any air pistol. So potentially they are accurate... Thanks for a great review.
Just to add, I commented to ptdunk's video regarding the lack of accuracy with mine and he replied saying that a loose grip and follow-through is necessary to get accuracy and he's correct. Now I can hit targets! So they can be accurate.
Part of your "James Bond collection"? It ought to be part of your "G. Gordon Liddy collection." This was the gun that Liddy used to shoot out the lights prior to the Watergate break-in. By the way, you need to employ the "artillery hold" when firing a spring-cocker, for good accuracy. Go check it out on TH-cam.
I'm not sure about this gun precisely, but airguns are definitely useful for small game hunting. You can even get air rifles in .25 caliber pretty much anywhere.
I have one, they date from the first 3 years or so of production in the late 1950s. I prefer the smooth finish guns which look more like Walther firearms.
Your gun looks in very bad shape, i think that is why you cant hit anything, sorry :-( your spring looks firm and chrisp.. get a rubber seal, you might make it accurate with that
At this time they don't use any kind of rubber as seal. The first rubber seals came out in the late 60s and early 70s. This model use a leather seal for the barrel and the main piston. Yes there are no spare parts anymore but in germany we have a company called "Waffencenter Gotha" they can build some spareparts if you need one.
I had this when I was 10 yrs. Old. Nobody knows that this is the LP-53 on the promotional posters, only Bond fans and gun guys. Love it!
What a great bit of trivia. Who would've thought that 007, James Bond, license to kill appeared on several movie posters armed with a .177 air pistol.
Love your reviews, thanks for sharing. Got a LP53 a week ago and you inspired me to do a Utube review to compliment yours.
To shoot a spring airgun accurately you need to hold it as lightly as you can. Since the gun starts moving before the pellet can leave the barrel due to the movement of the piston you want to let it recoil in a repeatable manner. Having a tight grip will disturb the recoiling characteristics and will throw off your accuracy. Also .177 not penetrating both sides of a cardboard box does sound incredibly weak. My guess is the spring or the piston has gone bad. The pellet skirt needs to expand to engage the rifling and I'm not sure it'll expand reliably with such low pressures.
walthers very expensive target airguns only shoot a little over 500fps...something to do with german laws probably...
I bought one of these in Germany in 1970. It is a match pistol ,mine came with weights and sights . Was very accurate and powerful. Killed a very large possum.
Airguns use rubber seals or "O-rings" to focus the compressed air. As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, your rubber seals are either missing or dried out. You can contact Beeman (in Long Beach, CA, I think) about sending it in for a full service. There may be other places that will do a service on your Walther. Beeman did an excellent job on my Hammerli.
Depends on the type, pre-compressed air guns can be dry fired. Spring powered air guns like this one cannot because that leads to damaging the spring, which causes power and accuracy loss.
air pistols like this tend to be bigger and heavier than firearms because they need a means to generate the compressed air - this takes a complex mechanism including a strong spring, a piston and cylinder, etc.
I've got one of those; absolutely love it, but it is pretty bloody heavy.
The Walther LP53 was designed as a training gun to learn how a real WALTHER P38 or P1 would feel while shooting. It hast similar weight and Feeling. Even the recoil is the same as a real WALTHER P38 or P1.
it probably has a leather piston seal which needs treatment or replacement, o rings are the first to wear on air pistols and cant be treated and have to be replaced. dryfiring or whatever stated above results in lack of resistance and can damage the gun. More joules = more damage, but that pistol is so old the spring is probably all bend and worn so it lost a lot of energy, still wouldnt risk a collectors item
Thanks for the video! :-)
BTW: the older models have that curved beavertail, just like the one from the movie poster.Your LP 53 seems to be one of the newer models from the 70s...
Curiosity: When the prop Walther PPK didn't show up for David Hurn's photo shoot of the actors, he provided his own Walther air pistol with the barrel airbrushed out on American posters. The original pistol recently sold in auction for US$439,000.
I have just a Daisy air pistol my parents bought me when I was a kid in the '80's, & it is heavier than my Beretta 92FS also.
Weight makes less difference as power increases, while it does make a difference to some extent in air guns, it doesn't make THAT much of a difference. The reason for the inaccuracy is the missing seal on the gun.
I have one of these Air pistols, with the original case weights, cocking ball, etc, which I will sell. Mine has original power, so will send a pellet or dart completely through a can. I have carefully maintained the gun, and used it sparingly since purchased new. Reasonable offer.
007 bilge apart, the Walther LP-53 - like all spring-power air pistols need to - requires a special technique for shooting it accurately: a light hold (unlike a firearm), and applying pressure/hold on the grip with only the middle finger, thus allowing the other fingers and the thumb to be there for the ride and not interfere with the sudden recoil jump upon discharging. The middle finger does 50% and the trigger control the other 50% of the performance. Pellets matter but are not essential if the air pistol is well maintained and properly held while shooting. I have shot competitively with mine and got decent scores despite the fatigue the cocking of it exerts. The air Walthers are single hole pistols when tested from a Ransom machine, so they test the shooter's skill more than the shooter tests the Walther LP-53 and similar.
"not very accurate" "won't penetrate" ; there's something not up to par in your pistol, i believe. the last one manufactured was 1978 so yours is over 30 yrs old, minimum. did you check the breech seal? the two springs in the handle? the piston seal? "probably didn't sell very well" i don't know if 125,000 units is a lot, but from what i can tell there are a lot of folks who really like the materials, design, workmanship, accuracy, and looks of this classic, maybe that's why they don't stay on the market very long.
It's most famously known as the gun in a stylised form on the 007 logo, where the 7 becomes the grip.
I have recently inherited a mint lp53 identical gun to the james bond gun in the deluxe blue silk and velvet lined case with test cards and wooden cocking knob serial number 024951 and i cant find any info on it
What thisisbadstuff said below and cleaning the barrel is important too, not as important on a firearm but still needs to be done. Thanks for the video! Oh different pellets too, airguns can be very fussy about which pellets you use, since this is a match type pistol using match grade pellets would be a good place to start or just decent flathead wadcutters.
I owned one once, sold it at auction but only got a low price for it as the box was not in great condition! For collectors that is important, I know now!
The poor accuracy is mainly due to deteriorated seals or poor quality pellets. Try to get a re-seal job and purchase some good JSB or H&N pellets, and you'll be shooting 1-hole groups all day!
I agree! I got this LP 53 in 1972 including a barrel weight in Germany. No poor accuracy ever and a quite strong recoil. After some years I replaced the seals. Yes, shooting 1-hole groups all day possible.
Your gun is missing the rubber seal around the chamber where you insert the pellet, this is important as a lot of the air escapes here.. so you loos most of the power :-)
It needs all that weight because of the huge spring and piston flying up in it when you discharge it!
I had one of these back in the early 1970's and neither I nor anyone else I knew could get a decent group with mine, not even friends who had been, or were, serious competitive shooters,
Gordon Sulley Because of the vertically acting piston, the pistol jumps before the pellet has left the barrel so it is extremely sensitive to grip. Sight mine in for single hand shooting and it groups well, add a second hand for support and the group moves several inches as 25 feet. Even how hard you grip the grip can affect the position of the group. The German military used them to teach the importance of consistent grip. It does have a lovely trigger to compensate though.
The Polish copy is called the Predom Lucznik Air Pistol, I don't think it has a model number, it's roughly close looking as the LP53 but a whole deal rougher in build quality!!
I feel certain that your pistol would perform better after a service as suggested by Candleman Smith :)
I have an LP53 but can's say what accuracy is like as it has the wrong rearsight and no elevtion screw!!
I also have an LP2 which is a single stroke pneumatic which shoots beautifully!!
aflatminor polish is WZ1970
Thanks Gasman :)
@LifeSizePotato you're probably using ammo that is the wrong weight. I shoot air soft guns, and the weight of the projectile matters a lot.
There should be a counter balance to fit over the barrel:)
hi, is a gaz system or a pneumatic system ?
Wow that would've been a cool pellet gun to have as a kid I wish Walther would repoduce them with a nitro piston in it. Also your seal is missing that's why your loosing power.
I have one almost mint in the box with all accessories and I cannot hit anything with it. But there are those who can.
Look up 100 years of air pistols by ptdunk where he can hit targets with any air pistol. So potentially they are accurate...
Thanks for a great review.
Just to add, I commented to ptdunk's video regarding the lack of accuracy with mine and he replied saying that a loose grip and follow-through is necessary to get accuracy and he's correct. Now I can hit targets! So they can be accurate.
I wonder if that pistol is where the C02 goes.
Part of your "James Bond collection"? It ought to be part of your "G. Gordon Liddy collection." This was the gun that Liddy used to shoot out the lights prior to the Watergate break-in. By the way, you need to employ the "artillery hold" when firing a spring-cocker, for good accuracy. Go check it out on TH-cam.
ok thank you
Use different pellets flat head match pellets might help
ok thanks
If the Walther LP53 is to expensive there is a polish copy of it you can get for 100 bugs. It's not so accurate but extremly solit.
what is it called?
WH250398 Predom-Lucznik KL170:
Bronzedraken
Thank you
Actually, it can be really accurate. My good friend is an expert on air guns and after fine tuning it for me it shoots like a dream.
WH250398 WZ1970
I've got one of these but the rear site is missing; any ideas? VERY light trigger.
Green Goblin
Can you hunt small game with this? Rabbits and squirrels for example?
I'm not sure about this gun precisely, but airguns are definitely useful for small game hunting. You can even get air rifles in .25 caliber pretty much anywhere.
that's only 2,5J
I had one in 1983 it was crap.shot little darts and pellets.was crap.trsde it for a radio at pawn shop
Have you still got the Pistol?
G. Gordon Liddy used one ☝️ during the Watergate breakin to shoot out the security lights.
Does anybody know anything about these guns with smooth frame finish? Which years were they produced?
I have one, they date from the first 3 years or so of production in the late 1950s. I prefer the smooth finish guns which look more like Walther firearms.
@@mrradman2986 Thank you for the info! Do you probably also know between which years Walther sold them in deluxe cases? I mean with that velvet inlay.
125000 lp53 where made.
I have one and it for sale if ay one is interested
from russia, with love
In this case from Germany, with love ;)
jak polski łucznik :)
Your gun looks in very bad shape, i think that is why you cant hit anything, sorry :-( your spring looks firm and chrisp.. get a rubber seal, you might make it accurate with that
At this time they don't use any kind of rubber as seal. The first rubber seals came out in the late 60s and early 70s. This model use a leather seal for the barrel and the main piston. Yes there are no spare parts anymore but in germany we have a company called "Waffencenter Gotha" they can build some spareparts if you need one.
I'm from Germany, I have one for sale
Ja? Immernoxh?
Boring