When you think of the word "Yankee", all sorts of things come to mind, both positive and negative. But in the context of what we want to relay here, the best interpretation of what "Yankee" means would be to say that we align ourselves with the great Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and think of Yankee as that indomitable spirit that can be transported to the Middle Ages and still looks forward to making the world a better place. A bit by science, a bit by engineering, a bit by well placed, and played, bluffs. It's all in the "character".
Luckily, that character has not been lost. I have more than a few good friends that are true "Yankees" in the best sense of the word. One of them lives in Pennsylvania. So we'll call him the Pennsylvania Yankee.

When the LGU first arrived to American shores, we invited some shooters to be part of the pioneering group to purchase the first few. From there, our first review and testing came out:
 
http://www.ctcustomairguns.com/hectors-airgun-blog/the-walther-sport-family 

Because the trigger was so terrible and we knew that in advance, from some reviews of the LGV that bears exactly the same trigger unit, we got Match triggers for everyone and posted detailed instructions on how to swap the blades, where 2 out of 3 adjustments are located. That set of instructions can be found here:

http://www.ctcustomairguns.com/hectors-airgun-blog/swapping-the-walther-lgus-trigger 

Do note that ALL DISCLAIMERS posted there also apply for this post.

But after a while, my good Pennsylvania Yankee friend and airgun tinkerer extraordinaire came up with some comments and some tests that warranted a further look into the trigger unit first, and then into the power plant.

The first thing our good "Pennsylvania Yankee" told us was that there was really no need for the metal trigger.

WHAT!!!!!  LOL!

¿After all the chastisement Diana went through when Doc. Beeman started his negative disinformation campaign stating that Diana triggers were plastic and therefore inferior to the point that the T-06 version now incorporates a metal trigger blade?, and now ¿a dyed in the wool airgunner tells me that he prefers the plastic triggers? Well, the world is changing indeed!

For the UK market (and with a substantial price difference), Walther made available the adjustable metal two screws trigger blade they call the "Match Abzug" or "Tuning Trigger".

But once the trigger is installed (not a complicated operation in itself), it is the adjustment of the trigger what takes more time and is overly complicated. You can swap the triggers in about 10 minutes, but it takes at least 1 hour and multiple firings to get the trigger set to a good, usable, shootable point.

It is so complicated that one of the foremost spring-piston shooters in the world, wished someone would post somewhere a "starting point" of where the screws needed to be so as not to loose so much time.
Here is what worked for me in my gun:

Users should start at slightly lower protrusions and then work their way to whatever final adjustment each shooter prefers.

BUT, ¿what could be done with the OEM plastic blade to make the trigger crisp and clean-braking?

Part of the answer is to polish the surfaces. Stoning is one way, but not the safest. 
Jeweler's rouge works better, though it takes patience in hardened surfaces, it is also the least prone to failure method because it removes so little material that the surface hardening of the trigger parts is preserved.
The other part is to round and polish the screws' faces, whether it is the one screw of the plastic blade or the two screws of the metal blade, making the screws pointed against a gritty surface is not precisely the best way to get a smooth, crisp, clean, repeatable trigger release.

But even after that, the OEM plastic single screw blade refused to give a good "feel". Yet, it had no further adjustment, it was "bottomed out". So . . . . .  a change of screws was in order!

The combination of the rounded trigger screw face, with more reach and the rear roller give indeed a much better feel to the trigger pull than the metal trigger blade.
After thorough testing I can say that it is true, the single screw trigger blade feels better, releases crisper, is more gentle, predictable and consistent than the metal blade with the two screws.
The metric screw (M3X0.5X20 or 25) will cost you substantially less than the metal trigger blade and, above all, you do not need to disassemble the trigger unit/rifle to do this swap.

Doing more with less, ¿what could be more "Yankee" than that? LOL!

But that was not the full extent of his discoveries. He had tested the Maccari and the Vortek kits that would fit this gun and came up with an interesting proposal:

To use the HW77 25mm's kit

Dimensions seemed to be spot on, there was no slop and only a hollow section of the trigger unit needed to be filled to maintain the piston's stem alignment.

So we also tried that.

As you can see from the photos above, our friend chose to use a short black plastic guide to fill this gap.
I have never had too much success turning plastic, so I turned an aluminum one:

Once the gun was assembled and everything had been worked once or twice by cocking and de-cocking manually, we tested the feel of the shot cycle. Impressive indeed.
The very obvious piston bounce of the OoB shot cycle was gone. The "thud" was sudden, quick, indubitable.
Very pleasant, indeed.

An interesting aside here is that the guns we receive in the US ALREADY have the "large" transfer port. Whatever you read on the U.K. and S.A. fora is not necessarily applicable to the guns we get here.

I've tried and tested many spring guns over the years with different tunes and from different corners of the world, but this combination is among the best I've tried. Not perfect, because the gun is slightly overpowered for WFTF shooting and the gun still recoils vertically, but it was like that before we started and now what needs to be done is to reduce the power to "legal" levels.
The recoil characteristics cannot be changed without serious changes in the weight distributions and that is changing the gun too much for my tastes.

There are a few other things about this rifle that need attention to. One of them is the distance between the pistol grip, the cheekpiece, and the scope rail.

Most scopes nowadays have reasonable eye reliefs, but there are exceptions, notably the short scopes that are most useful in hunting. In this particular case the scope of interest was the Tac-Vector Optics Gladiator, a 2-12X32 FFP MD scope made for very peculiar applications but uniquely suited to airgun hunting.

And also, the fact that the rails are cut INTO the receiver makes for a very low L.O.S. unless you use very high bases.
When you couple that with the need in a piston gun like the Walther that kicks UPWARDS, you need to get something to put everything at ease.

A good alternative is to use a rail, which also gives us a chance to correct the "droop" that is needed to keep an optically centered scope on target with a perfectly concentrically mounted barrel.

In order to "cure" both inconveniences I decided to alter an UTG rail to fit what needed to fit.

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, I am required to post this, the legal disclaimers:


1.- Swapping the trigger blades WILL invalidate the warranty of your rifle.
2.- ANY user intervention in the triggers MAY result in an UNSAFE condition. Once you get into the trigger you are on your own.
3.- I have no control of YOUR actions, so I can take NO responsibility for the results YOU get. This process proved safe and sound in MY gun. I cannot guarantee that it will be the same in YOURS.

Having said that to the satisfaction of the company's counsel, lets start:

Following our initial experiments with the Walter LGU and its excellent performance, but horrible trigger; we decided to distribute the "Match Abzug" (or "Tuning Trigger") to all those that got their guns from Ct Custom Airguns free of charge. We saw no reason to have an excellent gun saddled by a hideous trigger . . . or so we thought! LOL! but more on that later.

The "Tuning Triggers" were obtained and mailed to all, but time precluded the real effort of creating a detailed swap-guide for people that are not experienced tuners till yesterday, when we could afford the time and tranquility needed to tackle the operation with the mind set of a beginner. Those of you that are experienced airgun tinkerers will have to bear with me and if I go too fast, then those that have questions, do feel free to post them as comments to this entry.

SO, here we go.

Do NOT overtighten the two screws that hold the cast housing together. It would be easy to strip those threads and then you are in big trouble.
Tighten to something between snug and slightly tight and use thread locker, the blue one that is "medium strength" to make sure that the whole housing will not vibrate loose, open, and dropping trigger parts all over the field.

From here, just follow the reverse procedure to put your gun together.

Make sure that you insert the piston into the compression chamber BEFORE you insert the compression chamber into the gun.
Make sure that the Top Hat and Thrust washer are inserted into the spring and guide respectively.
Make sure that you release the anti-beartrap safety when re-inserting the compression chamber.
Make sure you align the compression chamber to the slot in the action for the cocking lug. NOTE that the cocking lug is held onto the compression chamber by a claw that has no hook. It is held in place by the location of a plastic runner that rides on a slot in the stock. The stock is, therefore, a MECHANICAL component of this gun.

Once you have everything together, cock the gun and holding the cocking lever firmly, make sure the trigger fires. Re-cock and fire several times. Once you are satisfied that the trigger unit is working well, then de-cock the gun and head for a test range.

You will need to fire the gun at least 50 times before attempting to reach the final adjustment of the trigger screws. If you polished the lever surface and the trigger screws discussed above, then you can start adjusting, but if not, do not worry, surfaces will become "burnished" by each other and you probably need the trigger time anyway.

Once you have fired the gun at least 50 times, you will need to start screwing IN both screws: first the front and then the rear.
Screw them in by ¼ turns, you will see how the trigger release becomes lighter and crisper. Lighter and crisper.
Adjust till you have the letoff you want.

The adjusting was tougher than the swapping, but once done, you're good for a substantial number of shots. You will have to adjust the fine details after every 1,000 and then after every 5,000 shots, or thereabouts.

HTH

Un abrazo!




Héctor Medina



PS.- in the next blog entry we will tackle what can be done to the PLASTIC trigger blade to make it a good trigger blade.

It is not common for manufacturers to listen, REALLY listen to the boots in the field.

When modern warfare started evolving into more urban guerrilla style of combat, most optical riflesights became obsolete in one stroke.

Some manufacturers opted for red-dots and prismatic sights. Others opted for low magnification scopes, some of them even integrated into the carry-handle of the infantry trooper's rifle.

Then came the battles of Central Asia.

Places where troops may need to engage at inside-the-room distances, or out-the-window into the next hill distances.
On top of that, squads started having a DMR's, someone with the technique and training to do some precision shooting, perhaps he will not have the FIELDCRAFT that defines the sniper, but his shooting requirements are quite high.

So, scope manufacturers started looking at scopes with wide zoom ranges. The 3 times usually available (like the 3-9X or the 4-12X simply did not cut it. Bushnell, Leupold and other companies started coming out with zoom ranges of 4 times (3-12X), and even 5 times (2-10X), but the big leap was still in the future.

And then came several manufacturers that took the jump to 10 times (1-10X, 2-20X, 3-30X, all the way up to 8-80X). MOST of the companies that came out with those extreme scopes were companies in the high end of the market ($1,500 to $4,000). And, curiously, some of them accomplished the goal of the zoom range, but missed completely the REAL goal of achieving the versatility of the scope for most situations because scopes did not focus down to across-the-room distances.

Part of the blame layed with the top brass.

None of them actually understood what the boys were facing in the field.

As time passed, new brass came up and changes started being made. But companies are slow to respond unless they get a specific request from the Requisitions Departments and so we still have quite a few scopes with very large zoom ranges that do not focus to close quarters.

Sightmark is one of the companies that actually takes the time to think about what they are doing.

I had tested a few of their scopes, mainly the old Triple Duty scopes and, apart from the problems inherent to the massive double recoil dished out by Diana 54's, they pretty much behaved as well as one could wish within their price bracket. And in this day and age, $360 don't buy too much quality glass and/or mechanics. The US Dollar ain't what it used to.

Sightmark would need to go to a coil spring erector architecture and a much more robust reticle (possibly at the same time developing their own "christmas tree" design) to make these scopes Diana 54 worthy . . . or the shooter could use a ZR Mount and deal with the shortcomings separately.

After the economic crisis, with a change of admin at Sightmark, and with the revived interest of "jack of all trades" guns (the "Black Sporter Rifle" trend), Sightmark came out with a very special scope, it is called the "Ezekiel". 

¿Why such a ponderous name?, you may ask. Well, I think it is a suitable name. In Hebrew Ezekiel can mean either "strong in G'd" or "strengthened by G'd" in any case, the name implies strength and far-seeing powers, as Ezekiel was a prophet.

The Ezekiel is one of the few mid-priced scopes that has a 10 times zoom range. It goes from 3X to 30X

It is neither a small nor a lightweight scope. But pretty much approximates the weight and dimensions of the 50 mm's objective lens AEON's:

The Ezekiel's objective is slightly larger, at 56 mm's, but the difference is not really noticeable.
Scope comes with TALL Weaver rings in the box, not that that helps a lot of airgunners, but it is interesting to see more and more manufacturers include some kind of rings.

Both turrets are re-zero-able and lockable, both clearly marked and, theoretically, clicks are ¼ MOA.

Even though the sideknob says that the scope focuses down to 10 yards, that is true ONLY at 6X and below. At any FT useable magnification scope does not focus down to 10 yards, scope focuses to 38' @ 12X and 40' @ 30X .
The usage of a close-focus adaptor will solve this issue, but only for PCP's, as the recoil of a spring-piston airgun will surely dislodge the adaptor from the spring-loaded covers usually employed for mounting.
To add to this problem, up to this date I have not found a close focus adaptor for lenses larger than 44 mm's.

For well camouflaged hunters, or for hunting from blinds, this scope is very versatile because you can use it @ 3X for "glassing" a tree in search of tails, whiskers, or feathers and then zoom in to identify clearly the target and pellet path before taking the shot.

The Ezekiel can be easily endowed with a larger sidewheel. The knurled end of the knob is slightly smaller than the body itself, so that you can easily have a sidewheel made or adapt one. With a little electric tape I adapted the 4" one I had used for years in the HorusVision for this test:

Once the ocular has been focused and with "targets" set at different distances, I started finding out the limits of this scope.
Using non-stretching paper tape. I identified the longest mark, the average mark, and the shortest mark. Plus a few other marks to try to establish the "resolution" that the scope can give.
For starters, the whole excursion between the shortest range (38') and a long range (154') is covered in the first 135º of rotation of the wheel aprox. Not much, but better than some of the Nikko Stirlings, Leapers and other scopes in the same price bracket.
I used the "back and forth" focusing technique that works best for me. That implies focusing on the way up and going past. Then focusing on the way down and going past. Then refining the limits till I can be confident that my "hand memory" can set the scope to its optimum focus. This technique proved to be repeatable and reliable at 12X; at 30X the scope does snap in-and-out of focus pretty sharply. It also does it at 24X, where max luminosity is achieved.

Once all the marks had been reliably located, I REMOVED the paper tape and measured the distance between marks in mm's.
In the field it is hard to rely on marks closer than about 1 mm. So that is the number I look for to deduce the distance resolution capability.

Since the Ezekiel sideknob turns contrary to most scopes, the mark on the "bottom" is a FAR mark of 154'; then comes a mark for 141', at 4 mm's; then a mark at 120' at 22 mm's; then a mark for 105' at 28 mm's and the last one is for 102' at 31 mm's
Resolution, therefore, is quite good.
With some good training, I think that shooters with good eyesights could resolve well between the 53 and the 55 yard mark.
A larger sidewheel, or a "coma" style sidewheel would also help.
I doubt that anyone could mark this scope at ½ yard intervals, as some like to do, but the performance at 12X is quite remarkable; look at the following picture; it shows a favourite "target" of mine. The sloped roof has a near corner, then the top cusp of the roof and then a far corner.
The near corner is at 154', the far corner is at 166' and the cusp is at 160'. In this photo, though not a very good one, you can see that the near corner is in focus, then the cusp is a bit fuzzy, and then the far corner is definitely out of focus.
From this we can establish that UNDER THESE CONDITIONS, the scope's depth of field is in the region of 6' (about 2 yards).

Again, I emphasize that it DOES require good eyesight and the "hand memory" focusing technique.

And ¿how does a REAL FT look like? I can hear the question! LOL!

Well this next picture tells you how it looks at 12X when placed at 30 meters/33 yards:

This next picture tells you how the Max Illumination in green looks like

And this one tells you how the min illumination in red looks like:

For REAL night/dusk shooting both are a little bit on the bright side, but for FT purposes they are fine.

And, if you do not like the lit reticle in a scope, there is an easy solution: do not install the battery!   ;-)

Last, but not least, I like to test scopes when there is LITTLE light, usually at dusk.
A good scope should let you see details when you cannot see more than volumes, shapes and angles with your plain eyes.
I conduct my tests at light levels that usually challenge the auto-focus function of the cameras, but believe me when I tell you that the reticle was in focus in these two next pictures.
In this sense, I have to say that the scope's "brightness" decreases considerably between the 24X and the 30X mark. BUT at 24X it does a VERY creditable job in VERY LOW light conditions:

I am sure that, by now, some of you are asking ¿WHY the h . . . is he giving distances in feet? LOL!

Reason is simple: scope's reticle is "true mrad" at 10X. So that makes the scope an "IPHF" (Inch Per Hundred Feet) reticle when set at 12X. A situation that makes sense for American shooters used more to the Imperial System than to the Metric System.

¿Would I buy this scope?, well if I was looking for a scope for one of my PCP hunters, I would:

OR, if I was truly interested in shooting "Hunter" Division, PCP Class, under AAFTA rules.
I would have to dial down this Talon to about ½ its current power, but it could be fun.

;-)

If you can, give the scope a test drive at your sports equipment dealer / friendly gunshop. Go in the evening and test the scope under low light. Look at HVAC units in the vicinity, they have small details that you can either resolve or not. Set it at 12X and test how sharply the focus snaps in and out.
It may, or may not, be the scope for you. But it is definitely worth the time to look it over.

Un abrazo!






HM

I have to admit I was wrong.

In a way, I am VERY happy to do so. 

You see? 
When UMAREX bought the Walther brand I had MUCH more than simply mixed feelings. I had seen Walther struggle through the 2k boundary layer and the products they were bringing out, while good, still needed a LOT of work. Their International Match and Olympic performance was less than "golden" (pun intended), and the future was not at all promising.

Then (2004-2005) the first Alu-Schaft Dominators started to fail. Some quite dramatically: the pin that held the knee/toggle that locked the breech close (a la Luger) failed and some shooters got a little more than they expected upon releasing the shot.

So, when we learned that UMAREX had purchased the Walther brand we came away from the IWA (2009) with very mixed feelings. 

Questions arose: 
¿What was UMAREX planning on doing with Walther? 
¿Were they going to use the brand to milk it and then drop it?
¿How could a 100 years old weapons factory simply fold up and be sold?

Most of my enquiries went unheeded. All the plans about new guns were cancelled (among them a VERY interesting bolt action). The brand went from a worm into a chrysallis. It wrapped itself up in a cocoon and went silent.

Couple of years passed and the same happened to Hämmerli.  ¿WHAAAAT?

Still more time passed and we started seeing very cheap airguns come out with the Hämmerli brand.

Hmmm . . . . not good.

But still nothing major from Walther. Some strong steps were taken to remediate the 300/Dominator and some more models brought out using the same engine in different bodies, but nothing outstanding. 
At the same time, the medium power guns (12 ft-lbs), were taking the market by storm. New entries from Steyr, Anschütz, FWB, etc. were marking the way. Even Hämmerli started staging a comeback in the PCP world.

A couple more years passed and suddenly (2011), we learned about the first breakthrough in this saga: Walther was coming out with a completely new airgun! 
Rumours and more rumours till, at last, the official website for the "sporting" rifles by Walther was setup. 
The only model: the LGV.

Funny, it seemed, to use an old designation. The LGV had been the best of the Walther line when it was introduced around 1964 as the crowning model of the "55" series, but only for 10 years or so; by 1974 Walther had started the SSP revolution as a response to the recoil-less rifles like the FWB300, the Diana 55, 65 and 75; and the Anschütz 380. 
The Single Stroke Pneumatic LGR (possibly as an offshoot of the LP3), like the later FWB 600, Diana 100, Anschütz Super-Air, and the Steyr SSP quickly became the dominant technology, for a while; there were some CO2 Match guns, but the step to PCP was quick and relentless. And that was the end of the Spring-Piston Match airguns.

So, exactly WHAT was the idea behind the "new" LGV?
For starters they completely redesigned the mechanics and using a cocking shoe, allowed the piston to rotate inside the compression chamber. This eliminated the normal torque of most spring-guns when released, except those given a thrust bearing interphase between spring, guide and trigger group or frame.
The piston received bearing "rings" and a new seal, and the transfer port was now specific to the caliber and power level.
The guide was relatively tight, and it had no end-washer, just a tube.

They KEPT the breakbarrel's lockup wedge lever. 
Moving away from a wedge, or an even cheaper ball lockup, the wedge lever provided a "positive" barrel lockup, thereby ensuring better consistency in the alignment of the barrel and the mechanisms tube where the scope rail is. In the old LGV this had not been as important because the old LGV was an iron-sighted rifle, so if the barrel ended up pointing a thousandth of an inch lower or higher, so did the front sight. 
In the old LGV the main advantage of the wedge lever was the ability to break the barrel open without having to slap the front end of the barrel to overcome the spring loaded wedge or ball. That is STILL a characteristic that is highly pleasing.

BUT, Walther did not stop there. They proceeded to engineer and fabricate the LGU, the Underlever version of the LGV (or almost, as we will see later).

The similarity between the two guns is evident to anyone:

The trigger units, the rear "hump", the safeties, the location of all screws. Basic frame patterns that make life easier for the manufacturer.

I had read a few good reviews about the guns, mostly from our UK "cousins", but still nothing outstanding from the run of the mill shooter. 
Comments about the unboxing of the gun, videos and praises to the box and packing! As far as I know, no rifle has ever won anything or bagged any game by being well packed, but . . .  to each his own!
Mostly, videos and articles posted by tuners and gunsmiths, and top level shooters that "do" their own guns. Curiously, one of them maintained in public that the gun was OOotB but; in private, he admitted to having  swapped, changed, or modified almost each and every part internally. Go figure. . . . LOL!

A few victories here and there, but nothing "to take the field by storm".

My own personal, first hand, views of the guns were not too favourable, given the performance of the gun at the 2013 FT Welt MeisterSchaft in Ebern, Germany.

Then came 2014 and the opportunity to shoot at the Pyramyd Air Cup in Ohio; when we started our trip, little did we know that our outlook on the Walthers was about to be radically changed.

Even though my personal performance in Ohio was lackluster; my wife, Verónika, placed second and she got to choose (second, obviously) from a pile of prizes that Pyramyd Air had set for the winners and placers. Having a good eye for breakbarrel guns (she started shooting with an HW-95 that she terms her "engagement gun") , she chose a Walther LGV with the synthetic stock. Truly an impressive gun:

For a while we really did not know what to make out of the gun. But as the saying goes: "Curiosity . . ." and by late October I was experimenting with the gun.

The lockup wedge lever is indeed very pleasant to use. The size of the gun is about Max for me, but perhaps other shooters will find it too small, or too big. Weight was surprising, but in this example the weight is surprising because the synthetic stock is indeed VERY light.
Moulding of the stock is agreeable to the touch and the quality of the plastic is high as revealed in the capacity of the material to withstand normal treatment and hold fine detail even in the working areas.

As stocks go, and ambidextrous ones at that, this is one of the more comfortable ones I've used.
Comb is low, it is basically a hunter, designed to mount small scopes or even be used with iron sights.
Power output goes between 14½ ft-lbs and 15½ ft-lbs, depending on the weight of the pellet and the material the pellet is made of. Top power is achieved towards the lighter end of the spectrum with Barracuda Green's topping the list. Surprisingly good performers were both versions of the H&N FTT lead model: the FTT and the FTT Power. This usually indicates a light piston, maybe in the future we can research into that.
Groups were typically in the 11 to 20 mm's range at 32 meters. Not bad at all for a break barrel in the hands of a non-breakbarrel shooter.

MOST important: the gun was not difficult to shoot well. EVEN with the HIDEOUS trigger with which the guns are imported into the US. But more on that later.

I liked the gun, but when Veronika saw me using it, she very gently reminded me that it was HER prize.  ;-) ROFL!

I packed it up and returned to my usual experiments.

Now a small flashback: Just after the Euskadi open (July), one of the shooters came back absolutely astonished at the LGU. Theoretically, the Underlever version of the LGV. Now, THAT got my juices flowing, he even intimated that he would be willing to part with some hard-earned cash to get one directly from Europe.

I explored my European connections and sure, we could bring in a few. But prices were a little bit steep for American purposes. In Europe, these guns sell for between €465 and €420 (roughly equivalent to US$540 to US$600) , and on top of paying overseas shipping, inspections, handling, insurance and customs/duties, we would have to buy the kit to convert these guns to either 12 ft-lbs. or High Power, as in their "native form" they could ONLY ship 5.5 ft-lbs guns; depending on what each shooter wanted. Here we must say that the LGV can/should not be converted to other power levels because the transfer ports are drilled for one specific caliber and power level. The LGU, with the travelling compression cylinder arrangement holding the transfer port, makes it possible to do the conversion.

But, as life is, one of my explorations had been with UMAREX USA. And I had let them know that there were shooters who wanted these guns as soon as they arrived to these shores.
True to their commitment, as soon as they landed they let me know and I, in turn, posted in the FT forum the news.
Funny that the originally interested party ended up not getting a gun, LOL! but we did manage to put together an order for 6 guns. As soon as they arrived, I shipped them out to the respective owners and waited for news.

If not the next day, perhaps three or four days after, I started getting back some reports: MV's of around 780's with heavies, groups of about ½" at 50 yards . . . hmmm. . . .  interesting!  Specially interesting and noteworthy is Mark Bouchard's report.

As soon as I had the time, I mounted an airgun rated scope atop the LGU and started testing.
Curiously, I could not get the gun to stay put at a zero. POI climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed still some more.
Since that cannot be, I got to analyzing the scope and mounts in detail. The dovetail of the adjustable B-Square was completely destroyed. Funny, because this scope and mounts combo is one of my favourites when testing Diana 54's but then the area held by the dovetail in the Diana rifles is much bigger than the cut into the receiver grooves of the LGU/LGV.
Ah, well, things that happen, so I got off the Vortex Diamondback in the Diana ZR mount from the Tyro-stocked 0.20" cal. D54 and started testing for real the LGU.

The first thing that I test is a bunch of different pellets and lubes at short range. 10 meters does nicely. Why?
My theory is that unless a rifle stacks the pellets at 10 meters one on top of the other, there is no sense in testing them any farther ¿is there? I have never heard of converging pellets.

By testing a bunch of different pellets, I can narrow down those pellets and lubes that DO warrant testing at 32 meters (the longest distance I can shoot from in all weather in my yard).
We all have our favourite pellets, those that we feel do best across the board. Still that makes for about 7 or 10 pellets that need to be tested with at least 3x5 shot groups at close range before weeding out those that should not even be attempted.
These are two typical 10m tests:

Lots of small groups, but even at this distance there are groups that clearly merit more attention than others.
So, further tests were conducted, I was particularly intrigued by the performance of the "long" pellets. Like the JSB's 10.3's or the Dynamics (non-lead, therefore substantially longer than normal)  7.9's and 9.5's.
Curiously enough the JSB and AA 8.44's do not seem to agree with this or any other LGU/LGV I've read about.

Now, part of the problem with an extensive testing program is that the bad trigger took its toll. By the end of the 200th shot I had developed a flinch.

But the improved "Match-Abzug" or "Tuning" triggers were still not here, and  . . .  the show must go on.

I also wanted to test different lubes in the "hard" pellets (non-lead pellets are very hard and their accuracy is greatly dependent on using the right lube).
So I tested the Dynamics in their two weights with two different lubes:

Wasn't pleased by the Barracuda Green's, but I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Dynamics.
I also started noticing that all groups, even with the utmost care on my part presented one or two outliers. It was then that I suspected myself of flinching, and yes, that was the cause. Still, even taking into account the outliers, the groups are more than reasonable and perfectly suited for FT (reason why the groups are measured outside to outside).
Do note that the ZR mount also performed more than creditably. The Vortex Diamondback is a known and trusted performer.
With the Thanksgiving interlude, and the Opera interlude, and the bad weather interlude, it was only recently that I got to test the lead pellets, and these are typical results:

Because I knew that I would be flinching, I decided this time on 7 shot groups to discard the outliers. Some may object to the methodology, and that is OK, I will do another test when I have installed the "Match Abzug" and confirm my suppositions.
I was favourably impressed by the performance of the JSB's 10.3's, and I think that further research needs to be done with the FTT Power and different lubes, as it occurred to me that a copper plating that adds 0.2 grs to a pellet has to be thick enough to make the pellet a "hard" pellet, like the Dynamics.

Cocking effort in MY gun is 32#, which seems rather stiff when compared to the CCA WFTF D54 cocking effort of 20# for very nearly the same ME output, but we'll see if it settles down and how.

Of course, EACH barrel will be different as far as pellet predilection and efficiency.

To summarize my findings, I came up with this table:

All in all, I think that the LGU and the LGV are VERY WORTHY of carrying the "Walther" brand and I am VERY happy to admit that all my misgivings and doubts were wrong.

UMAREX has seen fit to keep the Match and Sport Walther divisions relatively separate, and the emphasis now for them is getting away from the toy/cheap guns to the high quality airguns that we all like, especially at the prices we can get away with on this side of the Atlantic.

;-)

Work in the future with these guns will be, of course, installing the Match Abzug; designing and making some real reflex baffles for the resonant cavity; getting the 12 ft-lbs kits here; and coming up with a shooting strategy.

Some may criticize these rifles as an amalgamation of characteristics taken from the best guns in the field today. Some bits from the HW-97, some from the TX-200, some from other guns but, in reality, the LGV and LGU have more than a few unique advanced characteristics that set them apart.

With these rifles, all airgunners have a good, viable option in the mid-price range. 

They recoil, and hard, even if you do not feel it. To some, that is part of the spring-piston mystique.

Keep well!





HM