I just didn’t want to hear the ‘misleading thread title’ chorus again
Anyway, as I stood in front of my locker at the gym today I accidentally went passed the second number three times instead of twice. Miraculously (and yes, I know, there are bigger miracles happening all around us), the combo still opened on the third number.
My question is, what’s the purpose of going past the second number twice? And why did it work when I went past it three times? Is the second number a dead number? Maybe just one and three matter?
They are not precision instruments. They’re not really all that serious about how precise you have to be. Spin the dial left-right-left. There’s a decent chance it’ll open.
Finally, in about two seconds I could show you how to defeat a Master Lock.
You’d be able to open them in about 3 seconds right after the first time I told you how. There’s no learning curve. It’s that easy.
I won’t tell how out of social responsibility on the message board, and if somebody else knows it’s probably a good idea to keep your yap shut.
In conclusion, I wouldn’t take that lock to seriously if I were you.
As you can see from here turning it once engages both cams and the 2d time allows only the second to spin to engage the 3d. I guess it doesn’t matter how many times you turn it once the 2d is engaged and is free to catch the third.
What the? but on t.v. they couldn’t even get it open with an axe! or a bullet right through the middle! What are you saying here Scylla? THE COMMERCIALS WERE EXAGERRATING THE FACTS?
Seriously though, it’s not like I’m locking up anything priceless, just sweaty thongs and swimsuits
I was just wondering what the middle number was even for. Thanks for the info folks.
Here in Australia, a “thong” is footwear, often of rubber or plastic, that your foot slides into, with a loop (or thong) around your big toe. Flip-flops, or sliders, do you call them.
Worth less on e-bay I suspect.
Redboss
PS I thought Monica Lewinsky was showing the president her new casual shoes, for chrissake! Seemed perfectly innocent to me.
You surely remember the old commerical- geez, how old?- where somebody shoots a Master “laminated” lock with a rifle? And it supposedly still doesn’t open?
Well, from what I was toll anecdotally, the rifle used during filming was a .22-250, a small-caliber, very high velocity varmint round.
Anyway, several years later, the rifle maker Weatherby had a demo video running at their boot at a SHOT Show (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show) showing a Master laminated lock being shot by a Weatherby rifle.
A .460 Weatherby, to be exact. The kind that can- and has- literally stop an elephant with one shot.
The lock was all but vaporized with pieces blown through the backstop it’d been nailed to. The voiceover: “Sorry about that Masterlock.”
Scylla - I would almost be interested to hear what your methods are, since the ones I’ve found on the web do not work, and I’ve developed my own method by buying several locks and, well, figuring them out. It’s a semi-trial-and-error process, but works 100% of the time if you have 6 or 7 minutes to spare.
Anyhow, from what I’ve found, you’re right, they’re not precision instruments, but I would hardly say there’s a decent chance of you opening it if you spin “left-right-left” and pull. From my experiece, they have a tolerance of about plus or minus one number. So if my combo is 35-24-37, it should open with 36-24-36, but 37-24-37 will not work.
So, jarbaby the second number is in no way a dead number. If it were, it would be so much easier to open a Master Lock. Why? Well, because for the third number, you could go sequentially through the numbers and pull on the shackle each time, until it finally opens, provided you’ve entered the first two number correctly. The tumblers don’t reset when you pull the shackle. So, with the above combo, if the second number were dead, you could enter 37-x-and then roll from 1-39, pulling along each (or each second) number until the shackles pops open.
I would love to know a fool-proof way to open my Master combination lock.
I’ve had the damn thing since seventh grade (for those of you playing at home, that was the Carter administration, albeit the final days thereof) and I still turn the thing wrong about twice a week.
Just don’t lock up your wallet or keys along with them. My husband’s Master combination lock was once “defeated” quite easily (with a crowbar, we believe) and his wallet was stolen. No bullets or firecrackers necessary, that’s for sure.
Redboss, a “thong” referred to footwear when I was growing up in Montana, too. (I was too young to be concerned with the underwear variety, anyway.) Only when I moved to Minnesota was that sort of thing referred to as a “flip-flop”, and a “thong” only referred to a certain kind of underwear. So, even some in the US might be confused as to exactly what jarbabyj is referring :).
A number of consumer’s advocacy gruops have tested the “bullet through the lock” bit, and, done precisely the way MasterLock does it, it actually seems to work. Change the parameters much, such as not shooting the lock dead-center, or using a larger, heavier bullet, and the lock comes apart in pieces.
I’ve seen a MasterLock defeated by an old undershirt (I’ll not be telling you how!), and it was almost perfectly silent. Just the ticket for raiding lockers at the gym.
Ok, now you’ve got me all paranoid. If Master locks are so crappy, what kind of shackle lock should I use? I know they all can probably be cracked, but which ones are the toughest?
[not politically correct Stripes quote]…and if any of you homos touch any of my stuff - I’ll kill ya.[/npcSq]
I was a locksmith in a previous life. Although I didn’t work much with combination padlocks, I’m very familiar with locks in general, picking techniques and the innerworkings of the device in question.
a) Scylla, it’s my opinion that you’re way off. Padlocks are not extreme precision instruments, but they aren’t opened by random left-right-left movements either. I don’t know a nice way to put this, but I don’t believe this is a true statement:
Anything is pickable, but for a Master Lock, the ease you describe is not actual, unless your technique involves destroying the lock or using special tools.
b) jarbabyj, what you describe doesn’t sound possible. Are you able to duplicate your finding, i.e. can you again open the lock twisting three times on the second number? Is it possible through a combination of endorphins flooding your system, sweat blinding your vision and exhaustion form your workout that you mistook the count?
I’m puzzled. The only situation I can think of that would make what you described possible would be if the third disc (the first number dialed) is keyed to the extreme end of its range. If this were the case, you could open the lock like this: don’t even dial the first number. turn the knob to the left (rather than the standard right) a few times to engage all of the discs. Stop at the second number. Now turn right to the first number. (Don’t turn through twice). If this technique works and the lock opens, the lock combination was poorly chosen by the manufacturer. I’ve never seen that, but it’s certainly possible. Even if this is the case, you’re still relatively safe if you’re protecting gym clothes.
The howstuffworks link posted earlier is quite good.
Kamandi, if you’re protecting the standard stuff you protect with a padlock (like gym clothes), a padlock is fine. The easiest way to get past it is with a small sledge hammer or bolt cutters.
It reminds me: I have this hardcore lock (with a key) that my dad got when he was in the army. He told me it was unpickable and uncuttable. Fwd a couple of years and here I am at the gym with all my belongings and the key locked in my locker. I tell the maintenance guy that I’ll need him to cut my padlock. “No problem…” He says. Big kinda guy w/ arms like tree trunks. He come out with these huge cutters and goes to work on my padlock. Fast-forward 5 minutes, the guy is panting and red in the face, he couldn’t even dent the padlock. Ended up having to cut the locker instead. Makes me wonder, what up with that padlock? Weird alloy or what?? I mean it looks like your average bronze colored padlock, but it just can’t be cut. BTW, whe he said he couldn’t dent it, he was right, sorta, since there were 3-4 barely visible lines on the padlock where he tried cutting it… Still wondering what it is with that padlock. FWIW, my dad told me it used to be for ammo boxes. Anyone come across something similar?
A nigh-indestructible bronze-colored lock? Could it have been made of titanium/a titanium alloy? Steel cutters wouldn’t make much of an impression on that.
AFAIK, any lock can be bypassed one way or another. There is no such thing as perfect security–just increasing levels of inconvenience for people trying to get at your stuff.
I don’t know if it was made with titanium, but it looked like any joe-schmoe padlock I’d ever seen. I didn’t much believe in it’s “indestructibility” before I saw this guy go at it, but you should have seen it! It was pretty impressive to see the guy give his all on the cutters and nothing happening, expcept for him becoming increasingly red. He also tried putting a bar between the top and bottom part, but to no avail. I was actually starting to be scared they’d charge me for the damage on the locker and on his cutters (there were two notches in the cutters after he tried cutting that lock) but they didn’t charge me. The guy looked at me and my padlock strange and made me swear I’d never leave my key in my locker again, though So unless there are people walking around with high-powered rifles in the gym (and if there are, don’t train there ;)) then I can consider that padlock indestructible… I really don’t know what it’s made of, but wouldn’t titanium make it dull-looking? Mine’s all shiny (except for the bronze part…) I realise we’re getting far from MasterLocks, but you can take these apart with a simple crowbar or hammer, so I’ll have to agree with Scylla in saying masterlocks are more decoration than anything…
