Review: The Nat'l L'Smith Guide to: Modern Safe Opening

[Jacob Morgan]

The National Locksmith Guide to: Modern Safe Opening, by Robert Sieveking, copyright 1996, no ISBN, 5 1/2" X 8 1/2", 170 pages.

Contents:
1. Terminology
2. Three Interactive Mechanical Groups (how combo locks work)
3. Wheel Action
4. Five Basic Wheel Types
5. Flys and Pin Drives
6. The Forbidden Zone
7. Four Basic Fence Types
8. Relockers in the Lock Body
9. Recording Information for Future Opens
10. Penetration:
A. Under the dial: removing the dial, repair dials, scoping locks, drilling relockers, drilling fences, and drilling screws.
B. Outside the dial: angle drilling, direct entry fences, forcing bolt bars, drilling relockers, drilling cams, drilling for the change key hole, and drilling from the top, side, etc.
11. Equipment: drill rigs, and otoscopes
12. Drill bits
13. Repairing the door

This book goes over how combination locks for safes work, and how, in principle, they can be opened. It focuses on locks, not safes. By that I mean that the book does not go over how to figure out what make and model a safe is, and then give the drill points for that make and model so one can then drill and scope or punch away. Rather, it goes over how combination safe locks work (about 55 pages on that), how to remove dials (if needed), and how to drill. It does have drill points for some common combination locks, but those drill points are specific to the lock, not to any given safe. Even if one knows what kind of lock is in a safe, one would have to also know how the lock was oriented (fence up/down/left/right) to make use of that. If a person knew that the safe they had used, for example, a S&G 6730 and knew how it was oriented, then one could open it with this book. If one did not know the lock type or orientation then this book would not help them much.

The approach this book takes can be contrasted to the sort of books that McOmie writes (assuming they are like his monthly articles in The National Locksmith). For each safe McOmie shows a dozen or more photographs with a caption for each photo explaining what is going on: how he identified the make and model of the safe, what the drill point(s) are, how to go about removing the dial (if need be), avoiding hard-plate and such, drilling, retracting relockers if need be, then scoping or punching, and sometimes a bit on repair. It seems to me that the two styles of books are complimentary: This book goes over how locks work and how to remove dials and how to drill. McOmie-type books assume that one knows the basics and gets right down to details.

Positives:
1. Great description of how various safe locks work.
2. Has a drawing and description of a home-made lever drill rig.
3. Might give one some good background if faced with a safe where there are no known drill points.

Negatives:
1. It focuses only on combination locks, no lever locks that seem to be more popular in Europe but can show up in North America.
2. It was written twenty years ago and there is no mention of electronic locks. It needs an update.
3. The equipment section is good, except it devotes only about a page and a half to scopes. Not really enough guidance in my opinion. Needs an update as well, being twenty years old.
4. It goes over drill sharpening, but does not mention sharpening with a Drill Doctor--how we sharpened drill bits when I worked at a steel fabrication shop. Had two milling machines that drilled holes in up to 1/2" thick steel all day long and we sharpened bits better than new on a Drill Doctor to save money. That was a few years after this book was written, so maybe they were not out then.

Miscellany:
1. Being a more recent book, it leaves out the traditional section on how to neutralize nitroglycerin from failed burglaries, but it does go over tear-gas canisters.
2. It has a page on thermal lances--not enough to use one--but fun.
3. The safe repair chapter appears to be copied form Sieveking's book on safety deposit boxes.
4. For a time the National Locksmith had a volume 2 to this book. It was not written by Sieveking, but was by McOmie. Volume 2 went over details for common safes. That book is out of print and the National Locksmith seems to be pushing McOmie's other books instead.
5. This book does not require a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring for drill points and illustration numbers. It can be bought used without worrying about the prior owner not including the sheet of paper with the codes.

Overall, if someone has already been opening safes this book might be too basic to be worth much. If someone is just starting out, it might be good background to have before building a library of drill points and techniques on specific safes. Just keep in mind that this book would be the first safe book to buy, not the last.

As always, experienced safe people please add your experience. The purpose of these book reviews is to try to save people money--lock books, and especially safe books, tend to be expensive, and no need to drop big bucks on books that will not help in the real world.

[Ralph_Goodman]

Amazing review!

You say that, "the book does not go over how to figure out what make and model a safe is". Then you say, "If a person knew that the safe they had used, for example, a S&G 6730 and knew how it was oriented, then one could open it with this book".

So my take away from this book, is that it is perhaps not even the first book that you should get about safes. If it requires knowledge outside of what the book provides to be successful while using the book, that would seem to be utterly useless.

Again, unless you were the one who purchased the safe, so you would know everything about the safe already, and then you could experiment.

My main question is, does this book belong on the shelf at all? Does it add anything that you have not seen done or done better in other publications?

Would you say there is a specific selling point to the book that makes it superior to other things in its same category? And what other materials would be in that category?

Sorry for all the questions. But I did really like the review.

[Jacob Morgan]

I am not a safe expert, and there are safe books I have not read.

This book goes over basics: how safe combo locks work, how to drill, how to repair, etc. The most wide-spread safe opening books these days are probably the ones by Dave McOmie. He does not go over basics, but instead gets right down to drill points for what type of bore scope, where the relocates are, etc. (Assuming that his books are like his monthly columns.) It is my opinion that one would get more traction with McOmie's books after reading this one--this book and his books are complimentary, at least to a beginner.

Or, if someone could get drill points from some reference other than McOmie's books then one might be able to use that information after reading this book.

An analogy might be that this book is like a book on basic mechanics: how cars work, terminology, four cycle engine design, what tools one should have, how to torque bolts, how gaskets work, etc. And McOmie's book is like the shop manual on how to inspect/replace the cam shaft on a 2014 F-150, with dimensions to mike, bolt torques, etc. The first book is useful to train a mechanic in the basics, and the shop manual assumes that one knows the basics.

I am not aware of one single book a novice could use to open common modern safes--if someone knows of such a thing please let us know about it. I have the impression that such a book would become partly obsolete quickly--if a person was really into safes they might be well off to join one of the safe man associations to stay on top of new safes that come out.

[Jacob Morgan]

Meant relockers, not relocates--stupid spell check.