Product defect? Or just a poorly engineered lock (#3 master)

[inverseentropy]

In high school my friends and I used to go around haphazardly picking every lock we could find (yes, we were definitely lacking any sort of moral code). We liked the Master locks because we had a belief that of the four pins, only the last one was connected to anything. These were the common ones with the blue plastic stripe on the bottom (don't know the model number). At the time we didn't know that we were raking, it just seemed like if you reach to the back and press the fourth pin it would pop open. Perhaps the first three tend to get permanently stuck in position or something, I don't know. My friend had a home-made tool he stole from his dad, my tool was made from a filed down cloths-pin spring. I suppose it was part way between a half-diamond and a short hook. Maybe on the way in we were inadvertently raking the pins...

[Optagonal]

Just tried that with a titanium pick on a 5 pin spool lock took a while about 3 minutes I just love these titanium sere picks!!!!!

[Squelchtone]

Just tried that with a titanium pick on a 5 pin spool lock took a while about 3 minutes I just love these titanium sere picks!!!!!

Did you mean to reply to that Master No3. padlock thread with your reply about 5 spool pin locks?

Welcome to the forum, and just a heads up, you've been replying to a lot of dead 3 year old posts, just so you know, a lot of those folks are not active members at this time, so you may not hear back from them.

Enjoy the forum,
Squelchtone

[daniel22747]

I have come across locks that are just plain weirdly easy to pick. I have a master padlock that is very hard to pick with everything but the battarang pick. With that pick I just insert, apply tension, push the front end up and then the back emd up and every time is opens right up!

[Luissen]

it just seemed like if you reach to the back and press the fourth pin it would pop open.

I've noticed this with no 1 and no 3 Masterpadlocks. the last (no3) and 2nd to last (no1) are always stiff in all the used ones I've come across, and from the small collection I've fraked around with, the first 2 pins always seem to be on the short end. Maybe a design flaw, maybe just a coincidence, regardless, this is an example of "Lock Character" in my eyes...