The reason that you don’t cross hatch a cylinder or compression chamber for a leather seal application other than reducing the wear factor, is that a leather seal should have its own lubricating properties. Leather seals require special lubing and should be lubed periodically as the gun is used, an on going maintenance issue.
There are both pro’s and con’s regarding the use of leather seals. The biggest pro is that they are very forgiving, especially where the compression chamber has a lot of imperfection, where as synthetic parachute type seals are not and are easily damaged by poor surfaces in the compression chamber. For those of us from yester-year, we well remember the issues with the Norinco KL-B3 (Fast Deer’s) and some of the other B-xx models. Talk about some bad chambers….but they still worked only because of the leather seals they used.
Also, incorrect lubes used on leather seals will destroy the seal very quickly. The leather seal does not need the additional external lubrication that synthetic seals need and is in fact not good as it will cause excessive combustion as well as detonation in most cases. Cross hatching will permit excess amounts of lube (as well as incorrect lubing qualities) to reach the seal while a very smooth surface will help to keep any lube from getting past the outer surface of the seal. For that reason, combustion chambers using leather seals should never be cross hatched and should be honed as smooth as possible.
Now...with all of that being said Gene....what do you care?
...lol...You ain't got nuthin wif a lether seel anihow...
