My seal was un-damaged. It is a nice piece, similar to the Maccari seal I got for my S1K. Watch out for the piston gouging the top of the compression chamber, a result of the cocking pressure. I used 6 JM old school buttons on that thrust surface, cleaned up the galling that had already occured and did a lube tune with JM lubes. Next was re-crowning the barrel and a trigger tune to finish up. The result is a very accurate, smooth cocking and crisp shooting gun. The trigger is like melting butter, smooth!
Mine was very rough out of the box. It was extremely hard to cock, wouldn't latch sometimes and wasn't very accurate. After all the tricks learned here it is sweet.