Help identifying military padlock ("U.S. SET")

[OrangePick]

Hi folks,

Got this lock from a friend in the military. The shackle has been chewed up by a failed attempt to cut it off and it won't open completely. It's stamped U.S. SET on one side, blank on the other, S1 on the plug below the keyway.

Body measures 1.5" across and 1.25" high. Shackle is 1.125" high and about 1.25" wide outside to outside. As you can see, the body is somewhat "figured" towards the corners.

Has a small, funky keyway that required the tiniest of my Peterson Flat-5 tensors for TOK tension and a half diamond to basically roll down on the pins since there's no room to lever directly above.

Several obvious spool pins inside and great for feeling counter-rotation. Drops into false set with the lightest of scrubs by the diamond. Open position is BARELY a 45 degree rotation from locked. Appears to be key-retaining and like several .mil locks I've seen, there is zero rotational spring tension on plug.

I'd pry the shackle on out except I'm afraid I won't get it back in and will ruin its pickability, so you'll have to settle for photos of the picked/rotated plug and glimpse of the shackle notches.

Thanks in advance for helping me ID this one!

[OrangePick]

One more pic to add that it's also stamped U.S. SET again on the top of the body (looking down on the lock).

[deception]

Looks like from googling it is the US military version of a Masterlock.

I do know that the military occasionally uses Masterlock, but it's primarily with the older locks, and most of them have been replaced with American 5200's.

[deception]

Sorry for the double post, but since I can't edit posts on this forum I'm forced to double post.

Here's a link to a navy site showing the lock in question, it's considered a low security padlock.

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https://portal.navfac.navy.mil/portal/page/portal/navfac/navfac_ww_pp/navfac_nfesc_pp/locks/LO_SEC_PADLOCK/TAB_LP_PRODUCT

[OrangePick]

deception,

Thanks for the post and neat link! I believe what is pictured there is the Master "DG" lock in use by the military now (supposedly replacing the American 5200 in some cases). I have one of those (see below) and it's stamped with the Master logo on top and bottom. The mystery lock above doesn't have any brand info and it's definitely not a typical Master keyway.

Thanks again for posting and for researching that link though!

Military Master DG

[deception]

It kind of looks like the 95G, after looking around a bit, they also state that when ordering you can have it marked "US" or "US SET". I'm not sure if it helps...

[deception]

Here's the link to the manufacturer.

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http://www.paclock.com/Government_Padlocks.htm

This was also apparently talked about before on LP101. Here's the link.

http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46248

[OrangePick]

I read through that thread -- very interesting!

However I'll note that several details in their descriptions of PacLock still lead me to believe this is something else.

-- The lock bodies are different -- mine has the "figuring" at the corners and only 4 pins through the laminated plates (instead of
-- They say no security pins, yet I have at least 3 spools in mine.
-- The PacLocks are clearly branded and serialized. Mine has nothing but the requisite "US SET" and a stamp on the plug "S1"
-- My lock most definitely is very different from an American 5200 keyway, while they describe the PacLock as the same as the 5200 keyway. While an AM3 looks roughly like an "F," my keyway looks somewhat like a squashed "M."
-- The PacLock has ball bearings to secure the shackle, but from what I can see of my shackle, they're squared-off cut outs (like a Master #3), not the rounded ones that mate with ball bearings.

[OrangePick]

Sorry, one sentence above was parsed as a smiley.
Here it is corrected:
-- The lock bodies are different -- mine has the "figuring" at the corners and only 4 pins through the laminated plates (instead of eight).

[OrangePick]

My keyway profile looks like this:


The American AM3 keyway (of the 5200 series) looks like this:

[deception]

I'm kind of all out of ideas. I do think that the S1 stamped on the plug is a sub unit marking.

In the Marine Corps, the Administration shop is referred to as S1, so I don't think that has anything to do with the model of the lock.

[OrangePick]

No worries, and thanks again for the info on PacLock -- I had not heard of them before now.

Hopefully someone will be along who has spotted this guy before.

[Squelchtone]

No worries, and thanks again for the info on PacLock -- I had not heard of them before now.

Hopefully someone will be along who has spotted this guy before.

Pacific Lock was once FEDERAL Lock, but the feds made them change the name.. or something like that.. there's a post on here from the actual owner, I think his/her/their user name is PacLock.

You can still find Federal Lock Padlocks on ebay, they're really nice.

=)
Squelchtone

[OrangePick]

No worries, and thanks again for the info on PacLock -- I had not heard of them before now.

Hopefully someone will be along who has spotted this guy before.

Pacific Lock was once FEDERAL Lock, but the feds made them change the name.. or something like that.. there's a post on here from the actual owner, I think his/her/their user name is PacLock.

You can still find Federal Lock Padlocks on ebay, they're really nice.

=)
Squelchtone

Thanks Squelch. Yeah, deception linked to the threads about PacLock, Federal Lock, their whole name change, gov't contract deal. We've pretty much ruled out the possibility of my mystery lock being one of those unless there were some serious design changes (see above posts). Maybe Paclock will be along to officially rule it out in this thread.

Anybody recognize my little gold lock?

[Evan]

I read through that thread -- very interesting!

However I'll note that several details in their descriptions of PacLock still lead me to believe this is something else.

-- The lock bodies are different -- mine has the "figuring" at the corners and only 4 pins through the laminated plates ( instead of 8 )
-- They say no security pins, yet I have at least 3 spools in mine.
-- The PacLocks are clearly branded and serialized. Mine has nothing but the requisite "US SET" and a stamp on the plug "S1"
-- My lock most definitely is very different from an American 5200 keyway, while they describe the PacLock as the same as the 5200 keyway. While an AM3 looks roughly like an "F," my keyway looks somewhat like a squashed "M."
-- The PacLock has ball bearings to secure the shackle, but from what I can see of my shackle, they're squared-off cut outs (like a Master #3), not the rounded ones that mate with ball bearings.

@OrangePick:

I agree that your padlock is not a Master brand item, based on the shape of the stamped metal laminations...

I think it is an Abus brand product -- they make a 41-series laminated padlock in steel... The shape of the laminated segments of your mystery lock and the Abus 41-series padlocks is a match... Your mystery lock looks like it could be a military spec model made in brass... Based on the visible cut outs in the shackle for the locking tabs it is an older mil-spec padlock so it might be difficult to nail down exactly which model or NSN stock number it was...

I agree that keyway on your mystery lock is nothing like any American Lock keyway made, whether open or restricted... Nor is it any open or restricted keyway made by Master Lock... It does however look quite close to several Abus brand keyways but I do not have access to better images of the Abus keyways to determine which one your lock might be...

There was no previous requirement for the padlocks to be identified by anything more than "U.S." or "U.S. Set" -- part of the new mil-spec might be to serialize the padlocks to allow for better identification of which key set will operate the lock...

~~ Evan